i’ve been with my fiancé 9 years last month. he proposed the day before i started a doctorate program and ive been so excited but definitely super busy with school and work. i haven’t had the time i’d like to really think about wedding stuff or plan and he’s been extremely understanding of this. now that my semester’s over i finally have time to start thinking about what i’d like the ceremony to look like, and i feel like i can start organizing my thoughts and mood boards etc.
my friend is getting married this summer and invited me to try on dresses with her. i made the bridal appointment for a couple weeks from now for us to go to a bridal shop together. i was so hype to tell my fiancé, so i called him a few hours later to check in and gush a little, and he just sounded disengaged. i was deflated. he told me he was in the middle of doing some work on his office, putting up shelves, and he was frustrated. this happens often when a small mistake will completely destroy his mood. i’ve felt since early on in our relationship that he has trouble healthily coping with frustration and stress (he’s easy to fluster, he’ll smack his desk, cuss and yell when putting stuff together or trying to fix something (crashout), but sometimes he’ll get frantic to the point of almost damaging things like trying to force something to work). growing up his dad was very quick to anger and i get the sense he’s internalized some of that and it’s an area i feel he could grow. channel that energy in a less emotionally volatile way.
that’s a tangent but relevant because I felt I knew where he was at emotionally and because of it, he wasn’t able to feel excited about taking the first steps towards our wedding six months since he proposed – i clarified that this wasn’t a high pressure appointment, it would be a fun thing to do with my friend, a first step toward wedding planning, and wanted to invite my sister… i could get an idea of what kind of style suits me. anyways i was disappointed and upset about his response, and when i got home & saw him i wanted to tell him this, that i was hurt. i also tried to gently tell him that i’m also about they ways in which he loses perspective of things when he’s stressed or frustrated. he said that he’s just being human and i’m asking him to not be effected by stress. i want to clarify (and did to him) that’s not at all what I want and that I hate that I might’ve given that impression, but I just noticed that his stress can really tear him up and make him lose perspective.
he was so defensive, kept repeating that he was exhausted from his day and frustrated from the work he’d been doing to put up shelving in his room. i expressed that i wish he could hear me our me out instead of becoming so quick to react. he didn’t express excitement until i brought up what i had expected. he says i’m sensitive and doing too much, that’s playing a role in this. am i overreacting ?
EDIT: i used text to speech for much of this so sorry about any typos ! i also want to be clear that we are a happy couple and work really well together, we just seem to have communication issues and i’m wondering if i’m causing more issues by being overly critical.
The engagement is the time to take the last hard look on your relationship and ask yourself is this what I want before committing.
If he sees no flaw in himself, it is very unlikely to change. You can choose to have him, but the most important thing is, do you want children?
He has a real bad temperament for family life. Mistakes happen all the time and kis are stressful. They don’t deserve this any more than you do.
The choise to decide with whom you have kids with has the huge impact on your life. So be wise about it.
I don’t even know why would you think you would be TA. Though you will be if you make someone have him as a father.
I agree that bringing children into the mix is bad. If he doesn’t figure out a healthy way of dealing with his stress, it will be horrible for the children. I don’t mean that he’ll abuse them, but they’ll always be on eggshells around him, as I’m sure he was growing up around his father.
OP needs to suggest couples therapy. He won’t want to go, and at that point, OP needs to decide to live her life on eggshells or walk away.
This was exhausting to read. If you’re still not happy after 9 years just break up, you are both not communicating well
it was made more exhausting by how extremely poorly written it was. i have trouble believing she’s in any kind of doctorate program.
Migraine inducing
Agreed.
Wanting to add – if youre at uni and have no time to spend on your relationship during semester, your relationship will show that. Just like if you’d been busy and not had time to water the garden.
Set your priorities, and run with them. But if you haven’t prioritised your relationship in a while, then expect him to suddenly have more time for it, of course things will be off. Hes not on holidays, you are.
So he waited until you started your Doctorate to propose after 9 years, and he’s done zero to do any wedding planning in the meantime and doesn’t express interest when you say about looking at dresses (why did you feel the need to downplay it, “this is no pressure”. Why wouldn’t you be looking at dresses?
This whole situation here, be ready for this to be your life. Him taking a tantrum over the most basic of frustrations, sidelining your feelings completely, and then telling you that you’re “too sensitive” when it bothers you. Imagine all the frustrations that come with planning a wedding. Imagine if you have children, how will he react to all the challenges of kids? When he’s sleep deprived, when there’s messes, when the kids get sick, when plans are derailed.
Do you want this to be the rest of your life?
…. I think you handled this horribly. You called him to tell him you were going window shopping with your friend and sister…. ok? Then you were bothered because he wasn’t excited. He explained that he was in the middle of putting p cabinets and it was frustrating and that you know that his affects him. … Then you get home and nag him about him not being more excited about you going window shopping with your friend. he tells you that he is tired and doesn’t really want to talk about this right now. then you keep on him about his lack of enthusiasm….
I think you are the problem here. He had a hard day… and you made it harder.
I think they’re both the problem here. I agree with all your points. But also, when he gets ridiculously upset be furniture he is “being human”, when she gets upset , she’s being “too sensitive” . Neither of them were listening to each other.
INFO
You are marrying a man that you know is quick to anger, handles stress poorly, and appears to respond poorly to even *small* stressors.
He is marrying a woman that he believes is too sensitive and *doing too much*, doesn’t believe you when you express concerns, and apparently doesn’t like the way you express them. All of this is apparently consistent behaviour and it also appears to be a habit of his father.
Have I got that summarised correctly?
So! My question is why? Why have you both not sorted this out in 9 years? Why have you both not established a system of communication that you are both happy with and confident in? Why do you think that this will not critically affect your marriage and your life?
Don’t give me the “I love him and he loves me” stuff. If you loved each other you would have prioritised making sure you are in a position to care for each other’s wellbeing and happiness. Instead you both came up with excuses to blame each other.