The wedding was only a week away when Emily looked at me, her eyes rimmed red, and said she didnt want us to get married. Everything had already been paid forthe manor house in the Cotswolds, the registry office fees, the rings, even part of the family gathering at Aunt Margarets. For months, I had been orchestrating every detail, thinking I was building something perfect.
All through our relationship, I believed I was doing the right thing as a partner. I worked full time, and every month, I put aside about twenty percent of my salarypounds I could have used for myselfjust for her. I paid for her hair appointments, her nails, little luxurieswhatever Emily fancied. It wasnt as if she didnt earn her own living; she did, and spent as she pleased. But I covered the expenses because I believed, as her fiancé, it was my duty to care for her. I never once asked her to chip in for bills. Dinners out, cinema nights, weekends in Devon, city breaksI was always the one handling it.
A year before the wedding, I did something big. I offered to take her whole family to the seaside for a week. Not just her parents and brother, but also her nieces, even a couple of cousins. There were loads of us. To manage it, I put in overtime, stopped buying things for myself, and squirrelled away every penny. When we finally went, I paid for the accommodation, the train tickets, the foodeverything. Emily was beaming, her family kept thanking me. No one realised that, for her, this holiday meant nothing at all.
When she told me she wanted to end things, she said I was too much. That I asked for too much love, attention, closeness. That I always wanted to hold her, text her, to check in and see how she was. That she was never the affectionate type, always more reserved, and that I made her feel smothered. She told me I expected things she simply couldn’t give.
She also confessed something new, something she’d never hinted at before: that marriage was never what she wanted. Shed said yes when I proposed only because I pushed too hard, involved her parents, and boxed her in. Id got down on one knee in a restaurant, in front of her whole family. To me, it was a grand romantic gesture; to her, it was a trap. She said she couldnt refuse, not with everyone watching.
Five days before the ceremony at the registry office, with every last detail finalised, Emily finally told me the truth. She said she’d felt as if I was imposing a life on her that shed never asked for. That doing so much for her only made her feel uncomfortable, obliged, bound. She said shed rather walk away than go through with something that never felt like her own.
And that was it. No shouting, no reconciliation, no desperate attempts to patch it all up. Just cancelled bookings, invoices paid in pounds, plans wiped clean, and a wedding that would never happen. Emily remained firm. That was where it ended.
That was the week I learned: being the man who pays for everything, who fixes every problem, who is always therenone of that guarantees that someone will want to stay.
