They say you don’t truly know someone until you’ve lived with them. But there might be one experience that’s even more revealing than that: planning a wedding with them.
This 22-year-old woman and her fiancé, who is the same age as her, are in the middle of putting together their wedding, and their big day is quickly approaching.
They only have six months left to go until they walk down the aisle, and initially, she wasn’t interested in having a large, traditional kind of wedding for a number of reasons.
The biggest reason why she wanted something low-key is that she is currently in college and working full-time on top of it, so she has no free time to devote to planning a big wedding.
After a lot of back and forth and her crying about preferring to elope, she agreed to have the big, fancy wedding her fiancé was hoping for.
“I made it clear that I still had reservations about having a big wedding, but that I didn’t want to take that experience away from him or disappoint his family by not including them,” she explained.
“I have done basically all of the planning so far, even though I have continuously begged my fiancé to put in more effort to help me. It’s not that he doesn’t have preferences about the wedding either- he has very strong opinions and would be upset if I made decisions without him.”
“He’s just not willing to start tasks unless I remind him about it for weeks first. This has led to me spending many hours of extra effort and research so I can present him with options to help me choose between so that anything will get done on time.”
So, her minimal free time has been dedicated to pulling off a wedding, while her fiancé plays video games or does other activities he loves.
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They fight constantly about the unfair dynamic, and while her fiancé says sorry all the time while promising to pull his weight, that has not happened, and it’s looking like it never will.
She’s made a spreadsheet to organize all the tasks that have to be accomplished, so she couldn’t have made it easier on her fiancé to help pitch in by picking something off the sheet.
Over the weekend, she questioned her fiancé about what he was going to do to help get the wedding planning wrapped up, considering they’re falling behind.
Her fiancé said he was going to do some work, and when she checked in with him on Sunday evening, he confessed that he hadn’t done anything.
Which leads us to where she’s worried she’s being a jerk: since their wedding is quickly approaching, she and her fiancé have been discussing more details about the future, like whether they want children.
“We both agree that we don’t want kids, probably ever or at least not for a while, but that it could be a possibility in the future. I was so frustrated that I told him that his behavior makes me not want to consider ever having kids with him,” she added.
“He was taken aback and asked if I really felt that way. I told him that yes, I do feel that way and have been thinking about it for a while.”
“If he is unwilling to do even small tasks for a wedding that he wanted without being nagged/reminded over and over again, I can’t trust that I wouldn’t have to constantly remind him to do tasks for potential future children.”
The wedding planning disaster was what she was the angriest about; however, she took the opportunity to outline to her fiancé the other things she was unhappy with, namely his lack of pitching in with household chores.
While he cooks dinner, does the grocery shopping, feeds the cat, and manages his own laundry, she does all of the cleaning and other responsibilities at home. Her fiancé is supposed to help her clean their cat’s litterbox, but he doesn’t do that at all.
She informed her fiancé that he’s showing her a bad behavior pattern, and she’s doubting if he can turn it around. That evening, he went to bed without saying goodnight to her and hasn’t spoken a word since.
She realizes her dose of honesty was pretty jarring, but she meant her words, and she thinks her fiancé should be clued in to how less than thrilled she is with him.
I think if he’s already showing her that he’s not making an effort with the wedding or in the way she wants at home, he’s making it clear he’s always going to be like this.
He’s forever going to expect her to be the one to pull both of their weight, and that doesn’t sound like a man who is ready for marriage (or kids). Also, if their wedding is causing her so much stress with the planning, she should just call it off.
There are so many reasons here why she should not say, “I do,” in a few months.
What do you think? Do you think her reasoning, that his behavior makes her not want kids with him, is logical or an emotional overreaction?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
