Fiancé cancelled our engagement

I'm so sorry. I've been through the pain of a broken off engagement. How long has it been since he called it off? Did you have wedding pland in motion?

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He called it off in December but still wants to be together. We had our venue booked.

View Quoted Comment I guess I don't know your situation but I went through something similar and it was extremely painful. My fiance wanted to not be engaged but stay together do that we could work on our relationship. But staying together and taking that step back was so painful and destabilizing for me that our relationship started to completely fall apart from my side. And as things got worse, my fiance was sure that he had made the right decision and we weren't ready to get married and we needed to keep working. Well, we could never do the work because I was such a mess from his decision. His dad told him that he had to man up and make a decision because marriage is a compromise and a leap of faith, so eventually he did, and that same day our relationship went back to normal and became better. I think him panicking and breaking it off ultimately did nothing good for us and only hurt us.


You and your fiance have been together a really long time. I would be curious to hear what he is waiting for and what his plan is. If he is waiting for you and your relationship to change, he is going to need a reality check.
This is likely extremely painful for you. I don't know what I would do if I could go back in time. Maybe I wouldn't have put up with it and I would have left him. I nearly did (I gave him a deadline in my head that I didn't share with him, which helped me cope). But I don't have good advice because my situation was truly terrible and no good came of it and there was no growth or change, it only ended when my fiance realized the choices were break up or get married. Maybe giving that choice up front, while scary, is the best path. Not as an ultimatum, but as "we can't go backwards now, this isn't going to work. You need to make a decision to take me as I am and move forward or to let me be happy elsewhere. I won't rush you, but don't expect things to change during this step back, because positive change doesn't come through instability and turmoil and lack of commitment"

View Quoted Comment Seems like he rel="nofollow" intentionally allowed these women to flirt with him to call it off
. Either he thinks it's too soon to get married ,or heand think you should postpone the wedding ,or he is affraid about this commitment or he is not in love with you anymore. However: since he told you he still wants to be with you: it's a good sign.
You can ask him if he still wants to marry you one day, ask him about his possible fears or about the fact he might not be ready.

At that point, Id’a packed my things and left. It sounds a bit tumultuous, and it’s after three years of being engaged and he called it off, I’d say to take that as a major sign. How long in total have you guys been together?

In the words of my grandmother “you can’t re-bake a burnt cake no matter how much you slice off / no matter how many times you re-frost it or try to make it look beautiful it will still taste burnt on the inside” if I were you I would try to scrounge up every bit of money that you can and get out of there. Someone values you would never flirt with another person in front of you and someone that cares about you would not hurt you in such a way to break your engagement.

I agree with others run out of that relationship and do not look back. He obviously doesn't respect you or the relationship he has with you if he is allowing girls to flirt with him, then breaks off the engagement when you get jealous. I would have packed my bags the same day he broke off the engagement.

I agree with other everyone. A very good rule you hear from counselors is there is no going backwards in a relationship. You can’t move in together then move out because it didn’t work. You can’t get engaged then say eh, Nevermind. If it wasn’t working that time, it isn’t going to change.


I’m happy your proposal was a dream but it is just one night and you have to look at the big picture. As a woman, hold your head high and maintain that dignity. You deserve better, even if that hurts now.

Jealousy never helps a relationship, and it usually ends up destroying things. I imagine he thought, If you are going to be so controlling people cannot just talk and flirt, he does not want to be married. If you truly don't trust someone, don't marry them. But if you get engaged again, you have to behave as though you trust your FI/spouse. Sometimes it help to talk to a counselor, even just a couple sessions.

Maybe go talk to a marriage counselor

Totally agree with everyone! It would be extremely difficult to stay together after being engaged & that’s something I just couldn’t do. Maintain your dignity, keep your head held high & do what’s best for you.

I am SO sorry about this. My heart aches for you!

I'm trying to put myself in this situation and I would honestly take this as a lesson learned. I obviously don't know any previous issues you and your fiancé may have, if this is something frequently argued about between the two of you - but just from your account, I see a big red flag that you aren't able to tell your fiancé when you aren't comfortable with something like this without him calling off your wedding.

I don't think I would be able to maintain the relationship after calling off the wedding, I would not only be uneasy by his reaction to your complaint and probably develop some kind of trust issue, but I would honestly be mortified to tell my guests "Hey, we've called off the wedding but we are still going to 'date'."

I agree with Michelle that you need to maintain your dignity - if he's decided now that youre not worthy of being his wife after asking you to marry him, I would tell him to not let the door hit him on the way out.

View Quoted Comment It was so kind of you to share your experience with this difficult matter. I think the advice you gave is spot on.

I have a feeling him calling off the engagement was more than just one incident of you being jealous. It sounds like there has been a lot more going on under the surface for a lot longer. At least for him, anyway. If you love this man and truly see a future for you, I would highly suggest getting couples counseling ASAP! You both need to get to the real root cause of the issue, then determine if it is fixable (or if you even want to fix it).
I will say, one of my best friends for over 10 years experienced a similar thing years ago. She dated a man for two years, got engaged, lived together for a little over a year, then he ended up saying he wanted to put the engagement on hold and move out. It came completely unexpected to her. Thankfully, they sought couples counseling and he revealed a lot of issues that had been going on for quite some time, but he didn’t want to bring them up because he knew they would upset her or stress her out. So instead he kept everything bottled up inside and it just kept compounding over time until he finally had to escape the situation. Once everything was brought to light they were able to eventually work through the issues with the help of their therapist. They have now been happily married for three years and are expecting their first child.
I think the key here is getting a professional to help you both navigate this. You both have to want the relationship and you both have to want to work for it. If one party doesn’t want to put in the effort, it won’t work. But the fact that he didn’t just call off the engagement, move out, and never speak to you again indicates that he still values the relationship, there are just some issues that are making him feel as though you guys are not ready to make a lifetime commitment to one another. Call a couples therapist ASAP! I hope you guys are able to work through your differences and come out stronger in the end.

Give him his ring back and move on! no man should be flirting while engaged and especially in front of you! Would he like if you done that to him? No ! Run sis!!!!! It will hurt and it will be easier said than done but pain isn’t forever!

Oh my gosh, I can't even imagine the world of hurt you must be in right now. I have only experienced what you must be feeling on a micro scale and it nearly destroyed me. Back when my FH and I had only been dating a year, he broke up with me because he got scared that things were moving to fast and we were falling too hard. It was only 3 months before he realized what a mistake it was and we got back together. But it took over a year to rebuild the trust between us enough to not have fights every week. And to protect myself from dealing with that again, I ended up setting an ultimatum, that he was either legitimately committed to our relationship and we would be serious enough to pursue marriage when the time came, or he was playing with my heart and I had to leave and move on. I couldn't risk that kind of heartbreak twice.


I can't even imagine how hurtful and confusing your situation is. I think you need to figure out if this is something yall can work past or if this is truly the end. It is crazy to me that he woukd cut off the engagement rather than talking through this with you. I wonder if there is more going on that he hasn't talked about with you. I think it is so true that you can't move backwards in a relationship, and if yall arent able to make it work through this, then it will ultimately be the end of the relationship. I am so sorry you are dealing with this situation. My heart goes out to you.

Oh no. That is heartbreaking! I'm so sorry.

Playing Devil's Advocate here: was he flirting back? Because he can't control other people's actions. Does he have a naturally flirtatious/overly friendly personality? If so, you're not going to be able to change that. Are you sure the girl was interested in him? She could also just have a naturally flirtatious/overly friendly personality. Obviously we don't know all of the details, but as others have said, it's hard to believe that he would call off a three-year engagement because you got jealous once. If you want this to work out, you're going to need to be completely honest with both yourself and him and truly evaluate your relationship up until this point. Could he maybe think that your reaction means that you're not ready for marriage? Again, just playing Devil's Advocate. I'm sorry you're going through this and hope it all works out.

I’m so sorry you have to deal with this...I was supposed to be married two weeks ago after 9 1/2 years together and a 5 year engagement. Turns out he has been hiding a coke addiction. He knew he would ruin my life so he called off the wedding. Also he received money and thought he was hot stuff so... just be glad you aren’t me. 😆😢

Find someone who appreciates YOU as much as you appreciate them. Your spouse should be on your side as a team. He shouldn’t be flirting with people, he should acknowledge that you’re better than all those other flewsies. Don’t be sad. Move on and find someone who respects you.