Photography: Jean-Marie Guyon/123rf
When you find yourself with a heart-wrecking, nerve-shattering, gut-wrenching feeling, like you're about to do something you'll regret for the rest of your life, you'll want to shake it off the feeling as fast as you can. But somehow, it isn't that easy. You can't seem to shake it off, instead the doubts remain, and grow, with each passing day. The dilemma is in figuring out whether you should pay attention to these doubts you're having or just find a way to brush them off or ignore them completely.
How can you tell the difference between having the common bride-to-be cold feet with actual red flags telling you to not go ahead with the wedding? Is there ever a time when calling off the wedding is actually a good idea or is it always bad to back away from it? Let's take a moment to consider two scenarios: when calling off the wedding would be a bad idea and when it is necessary.
Calling off the wedding would be a bad idea when...
Your relationship is a happy and healthy one, but you feel nervous for married life. It is important to understand the difference between feeling unhappy about your relationship and getting stressed out from it by feeling nervous and anxious about stepping into the unknown territory that is marriage. Leading up to the big day, it is easy to feel overwhelmed by the huge amount of things you need to consider.
All of a sudden you have to think about pleasing both your family and your future in-laws when you never had to think about that before. You may realize that you are so close to being only with one man for the rest of your life or nervous at the thought of something bad happening to your marriage.
Pre-wedding jitters such as this, in the form of overwhelming anxiety, is however, not a sign that you should call off the wedding. Instead, they can be reasons for you and your partner to come together and talk things through. It is important to have conversations about each other's fears when it comes to marriage. We all have our own baggage and if marriage triggers certain issues within ourselves that we never knew were there before and this would be a great chance to resolve them.
When you feel distant from your spouse ever since the wedding planning started. Planning a wedding even when you already have the professionals helping you can still be such a stressful task. To have to take into consideration not only what you and your partner want, but also what the guests as well as both of your families will like can sometimes feel too much especially when certain people's opinions clash with one another. A lot of the bride-to-be's energy before the wedding day are spent worrying about whether or not everything will go as smoothly as she expects on the big day.
With time and effort spent on planning the wedding, a lot of couples tend to put their relationship on hold because of it. This is a trap that couples easily fall into. When left unresolved couples often start doubting the whole idea of getting married.
Be careful of confusing the lack of time spent together for a sign that getting married is not a good idea. Instead of calling off the wedding, prioritize your relationship first above any of the wedding planning saga. Get back to being there for each other as a couple, not as someone who has their wedding planning hat on. Go on dates again, be romantic and affectionate with one another again. Go back to the reason why you both wanted to do this in the first place and all that doubts will soon just go away.
Calling off the wedding is necessary and might actually be the best decision you make when…
The relationship is toxic. A toxic relationship is when you spend more time feeling unhappy, sad, disappointed and hurt than actually enjoying the relationship. It is completely common to feel stressed right before the wedding day but when this stress has always existed within the relationship even way before the big day, this is a huge red flag you need to pay attention to.
The dating phase is supposed to be joyful, exciting, full of adventures and laughter. It is supposed to be light (and certainly lighter than marriage). So, if you are already in the dark right now, not much will change once you are married and the sooner you realize this, the better. How your relationship is right now is the preview of the upcoming marriage. If you don't like what you see at the present moment you certainly will not like what is to come later on.
The biggest motivation for you to get married is pressure from your family or society: We understand how incredibly difficult it can be to come from a culture that puts pressure on getting married at a certain age. You can feel absolutely content being single, but when your parents, family and the society put pressure on marriage it can really take a toll.
However, getting married because of this pressure will really lead to a very unhappy marriage. There are couples that have decided to marry each other because of pressure from their family and they find themselves regretting their decision later on. Marriage is hard enough as it is, and when you are with someone you do not even love let alone like, it can really feel like hell. Trust us when we say that it is much better to wait until you find someone you want to be with than to throw that chance away completely by giving in to pressure.
He has already betrayed your trust. We understand that this may not be an easy decision to make because even if your partner has cheated in the past or has done something that has broken the trust, you might still have high hopes that he will not do it again. However, when someone who is supposed to love you is able to do something they know will cause pain before marriage, they will be more likely to repeat that mistake again in the long run.
Be careful not to easily dismiss betrayals when you are still dating, because this is supposed to be the easy phase in your relationship. If your partner cannot even take care of you by protecting your trust right now, then marriage will be a lot harder for them to do just that. Once you are married, you cannot just decide to get a divorce when the going gets tough. But, when you are still dating, you have more of a chance to pick and choose what you will accept into your life. Be sure to take advantage of that.
You hope marriage will change your partner. This is one of the biggest illusions that people have when it comes to what they expect marriage will bring them. Marriage is amazing but it can only be amazing with a person that you already like and love just as they are. If you are getting married hoping that your partner will be more committed, go out less, have more time for you or respect you more then you will be very disappointed to hear they may not happen. A marriage is not there to fix the problems your relationship has right now; if anything marriage will only highlight the bad. People often give you their best during the dating phase in the hopes that you want to have a future with them. If their 'best' does not match to your standards right now, then their best will never be good enough. Either you accept your partner for who he is right now or you walk away before you both commit to a life together.
When you haven't spent 4 seasons with him. Sure, there are happily married couples who got married after only a few months of dating, however you not taking into account how much you know the person you are with before tying the knot is really risky. Do not gamble when it comes to marriage. It is not a time for 'we will see how things go' or 'let's just go with the flow' – it is a time to be serious and really consider the person you are about to commit to forever. If you haven't even seen him at his worst, know much about his past, talked about serious topics such as children, career or finance – then please, do hold up on the marriage. Wait a while until you both have seen each other's strengths and weaknesses. When all that has been shown and you both still want to be together because you make each other happy then great. But do not go ahead before you feel like you really know the person you are with.
Deciding whether or not to call off the wedding is never an easy decision to make and it certainly shouldn't be one. Whatever you decide to do with your future, be sure to take your time really thinking things through. At the end of the day, do what feels best for you and your partner's future. Life is way too short to live your life thinking about the 'should've, would've, could've'.
Need to talk to someone? Start a Heart-to-Heart conversation! Send your anonymous questions to editorial@bridestory.com with the subject: Heart-to-Heart Talk.
