‘I Feel Like I’ve Been Cheated’

“He wants to continue living together, but he doesn’t really believe in the formalities of the wedding,” the woman wrote in Slate’s money advice column regarding her fiancée’s statement.

After a six-year engagement, a woman was ready to start wedding planning, but then her fiancé “dropped a bombshell.”

The woman explained the situation as follows in her letter: SlateIn Pay Dirt, her money advice column, she begins by explaining the circumstances of their unusually long engagement. “We thought we would get married sooner, but between moving to another state and establishing ourselves in our own fields, it took us a few years to become financially stable,” she wrote.

He continued his letter: “Recently I told him that I wanted to start planning the wedding and he dropped a bombshell by saying that he wanted to continue living together but that he did not really believe in the formality of the wedding and the government had not agreed on this. We should not interfere in our lives, this is an outdated sexist tradition, an unnecessary one.” expense, etc.”

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Since then, the couple has argued several times over the issue but have reached an impasse. “He won’t budge,” the woman wrote of her fiancée, while admitting that she accepted his reason for not holding the wedding was practical.

“For example, she says we could take a trip to France instead of spending money on dinner and a dress I’ll only wear once, but I love the wedding idea,” she added.

But it seems his sister sees the situation quite differently. “My sister says she’s not serious about me if she’s not willing to make that commitment, and I know what she means,” the woman explained. “He says many other men will give me a wedding instead of frustrating my dreams.”

The woman now feels uncertain about how to proceed. She concluded her request for advice: “I’ve devoted six years of my life to him and I don’t know if I want to break up with him over this one issue, but I’m getting more and more angry and fighting with him.” “I don’t know what to do. I feel like I’ve been tricked and now I’m trapped.”

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In response, Slate’s columnist challenged the woman to consider whether she wanted a wedding or marriage. “I think these are two different things, and I wonder if some people in today’s social media-driven world don’t confuse them,” the columnist wrote. “Likewise, you don’t mention the ‘L’ word in your email. Are you both still in love with each other or is there some imaginary lifestyle you’re both clinging to?”

Although the woman’s fiancé “clearly does not believe in spending thousands of dollars on a wedding that will last only a few hours,” they noted that many couples are able to have “town hall” weddings with little expense and no problem. .

The columnist continued: “But when you read between the lines, money seems to be the least important thing. It seems that he, too, is opposed to marriage.” “Did you dig a little deeper into the ‘government intervention/outdated sexist tradition’ comment?”

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They continued to warn the woman about some of the realities of not being legally married. “If you’re not married and something happens to one of you, then the other one won’t be able to make important decisions about healthcare or assets,” the columnist wrote. “You’ll need paperwork to meet your bases on these matters; more ‘government intervention’. Is he willing to do that to protect you and what you’ve built together?”

The columnist concluded his response by saying they couldn’t tell the woman “whether she ‘wasted’ six years with this man” or whether the couple’s visions of the future had “drifted apart” over time.

“Whether you’re married or planning to live together forever, you and he have very different ideas about how to communicate your deepest feelings about each other and the future,” they concluded. “And that doesn’t work very well in the long run.”