The Courage to Call Off the Wedding

Typically, I like my quiet time on a plane. But I couldn’t resist engaging with the passenger next to me last month. Ellen was getting away for a few days after calling off her wedding.

She was in her late thirties. This would have been her second marriage. “It’s almost as complicated to call it off as it is to put it together,” she said. “Strange how everyone seems to take my decision personally. My parents, my daughter, friends and co-workers, all trying to reassure me that it’s natural to feel nervous before your wedding. They’re saying that my fiancée is a good man, that I’m not getting any younger, that I always wanted to have another child. Why is everyone so involved in my decision?”

Ellen seemed like a woman who has the self-esteem and intelligence to listen to her heart. I asked her what influenced her decision to call it off. She said there were red flags.

One was that her fiancée didn’t take her side when his mother criticized her. Ellen knew it would be a problem because whenever she pointed it out, he told her she was being unreasonable. He loved them both. Why should he have to choose between his mother and his wife?

Then there were his put downs and teasing, both public and private. Yes, he usually followed up with an ardent apology, but it made Ellen nervous. She’d read that emotional violence often transforms into physical abuse and that really scared her.

“There are so many things I love about him, but ultimately, I didn’t feel he was right for me,” she said. “It’s uncomfortable for everyone right now. Seems like a good time to go away and think."

I think Ellen was smart to call it off. She knew she couldn’t change his behavior after marriage. She wasn’t apologetic for her decision. She did what she had to do to prevent a divorce, a stressful marriage or perhaps, a domestic tragedy. “How everyone, including my fiancé, handles their feelings about my decision, is up to them,” she said.

Why do I think it is courageous? Millions of women go through with the wedding because, at the last minute, they don’t know how to call it off without feeling responsible for everyone else.