Is this your second engagement or marriage? How does it feel different from the first?

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I moved from the US to the UK for my first marriage too. I loved London and I made a lot of great friends there, but I felt so trapped for long. It took be 5yrs to save the money I needed to move back.

My first marriage lasted less than a year. This is going to be second marriage and I couldn't be more excited! Even the proposal was so romantic. He had all my close friends and family there. My first proposal was just him handing me the ring and saying so ya wanna..I was caught up in the wedding planning...Tried to cancel a couple times but he begged me not to. Even tho the wedding was big and beautiful there was no romance or love in it. So I'm so excited to have a do over wedding as I call it with a much better man and with so much love in our relationship. And same goes for the honeymoon. Didn't get one the first time....this time I get the honeymoon. We decided on Vermont during the fall foliage as it's something we both love.. quaint little historic towns and the fall!

View Quoted Comment I lived in England for 6 years. I enjoyed my time there, met a lot of cool people, learned a lot about myself. I decided I wanted to come home, we weren't getting anywhere financially and I wanted a house. I told me ex I was moving back...with or without him. When we got here, it was over. I bought a house I wanted that I knew I could afford on my own. I pictured my life more and more without him and he grew more and more resentful that I "forced" him to move back. We just imploded. I made mistakes so did he. We don't speak at all now. He moved back and re-married and is uncomfortably close to my Mother. My life literally fell apart after he left. I lost all of my overtime at work, all of my bills increased (I was paying off his credit cards, phone, and truck until I sold it). My church family turned on me and began writing me emails, texts and leaving me messages calling me all kinds of names and that I was going to hell. My mother sided with my ex and did some pretty unforgiveable things. My Dad's health went downhill....it was literally me against the world. Dark dark times...then my FH came into my life and changed it. He was/is my biggest supporter chasing away most of the darkness in my life. His family loved me instantly and I could really really feel it, which is something I am still getting used to. I am a completely different and better person then I was 5 years ago largely due to my FH and his amazing ability to love with 0 conditions.

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Your story is eerily similar to mine. I said those exact words too, “I’m moving back, with or without you”. He did move back with me, but it was already over before then. When it ended, most of my family took his side (he is very manipulative and a compulsive liar). My mother especially took his side. I’m still inviting my parents to our wedding, but I’m pretty sure they won’t even come. However, they are so excited to go to his citizenship ceremony.

My ex stayed in the US, but he always wanted to live here. He’s living with the girl he was seeing before I asked for a divorce. My family likes her too. I just didn’t have the energy to fight for my family’s love while going through the divorce.

I was building a house before the divorce, but he took so much from me that I had to get rid of the house after the divorce. I ended up having to give him all of my savings, I had to take on 100% of his debt, and pay his phone bill for 2 years after the divorce. This was the only way I could get him to sign the divorce papers without pushing for alimony. I didn’t want to take it to court as that probably would have hurt more and cost more.

But if anything good came out of all of this, it’s that I truly appreciate what I have now. And it sounds like you do as well.

View Quoted Comment That is so similar to my story. I no longer speak to my Mother it has been 5 years since I have communicated with her. Last summer she literally ripped my heart out and stomped it to bits. She took out a loan flew my ex and his wife here to the US and paraded them all around town calling them her son and daughter in law. People were calling and texting me about how weird it was...not gonna lie it hurt. It still hurts. So no she won't be coming to my wedding. Our stories are similar and I agree we are in much better space.

This is my 2nd marriage and fhs 3rd. I am finding a lot more stress with this one because of all the online apps, etc that weren't around before....I know they're supposed to make things easier but they add to the stress for me.
Despite that, I'm excited to be bucking many traditional wedding things and doing more our own personal style and flair 😊

2nd proposal, 2nd marriage.

My ex and I were high school sweethearts. Met him when I was 16. He proposed right away, but we didn't get married until we were 25. He couldn't have cared less about anything wedding related. I look back and think that wedding was mostly for my parents. It was 300 people, 80% their friends. My mom got her way with most of it since they were paying. I remember it being 9pm and just wanting to leave because I was so tired. I can look back now and see that I should have saw all of this coming long before the wedding, but I was young and in love. He had a lot of demons from his childhood that he just could not deal with. He is the epitome of lazy. Always has an ache or a pain. Always complaining. Never made me or our kids feel like anything other than a burden to him. Even though he literally did NOTHING all day. I was the breadwinner. I was the one who took our kids everywhere. He couldn't even show up for a baseball game for YEARS. Until I filed for divorce. One thing that I am happy about is that he has had to step up in the Dad dept since then. He was severely depressed, suicidal. Used that to manipulate me in so many ways. He was a great guy to everyone else. He saved the worst for me and would torture me with words every single night. Eventually you fall out of love with a person like that. We went to counseling for years...even the counselors encouraged me to leave. I thought I had to get him to the point where he would not kill himself if I left. Through counseling, I realized that he knew that and he was manipulating me with that. I finally told him that the next time he talked suicide, I was calling the police and putting him on a 5150 hold. He never did it again. I went through hell for that man. No one should ever have to do a walk through in their house every day when you get home before you let your kids in the house, just to make sure your spouse has not taken their own life. That is not love. I still think in his own way, he loved me the best he could. It just wasn't what true love is.

FH is a completely different person. From the moment we met, we had this attraction. My ex husband was actually with me when I first met FH (we had already filed for divorce, but were on a long planned vacation with our kids). I was 1000% not looking to get into another relationship. neither was he. We were at the beach. We met through mutual friends from another town. A small town that I had been to 100 times for business, but we had never ran into each other. I thought that was strange. We just talked and talked that night. I never really thought I would see him again, but the attraction was there. My ex even accused me later of having an affair with him before we were split up (totally untrue) because "I saw the way you two connected, you couldn't have just met him." That is how powerful our chemistry is.

2 weeks after our initial meeting, I was in his town for the weekend for business and I ran into him again. Everyone says that it was totally a coincidence, but I still think our mutual friends had something to do with it. We have been together ever since. That was 5 years ago. We both had some things we had to get through from our first marriages before we could marry anyone else. We were completely honest with each other from the beginning about all of the stuff we had (good and bad) going on in our lives and gave each other the option to bail at that point if it was too much. And let me tell you, his stuff was A LOT. He has a psychotic ex wife who had left him in financial ruin, debt that even I wasn't sure he could ever get out of. Funny thing is, I never even gave it a second thought. I just knew everything was going to be alright. I remember telling him "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Let's get this done." And here we are, 5 years later. The elephant is gone. A thriving business. 2 homes. He bought his first brand new car ever in his life at 50 years old. Money in the bank. DEBT FREE. Thank you Jesus. We worked very hard and we make an awesome team, what can I say. Wedding planning with him has been easy. It will be the wedding of our dreams to my very best friend. We have shown each other what true love is. We are modeling for our children what a relationship should really be like. We are important to each other. We treat each other with kindness and respect. I look at him and I still get butterflies. I am so in love with this man! I never felt that way about FH. I hope and pray that our children will wait to have what we have before they get married. It is so worth the wait!!

View Quoted Comment It’s crazy that 2018 there is still a stigma behind divorce/second marriage! I’m sure that it’s awkward though trying to make sure this one is so different from the first wedding! If your first marriage was nothing it sounds like a lesson you learned from! Enjoy this planning!

View Quoted Comment That’s beautiful! I love how happy everyone is now! It’s awesome! That sounds like a beautiful honeymoon!

View Quoted Comment Oh wow you went through a lot from your first marriage! It so awesome to see how everyone has come out on the other side and in love with the right people!

View Quoted Comment That’s awesome you are having a better experience! We are doing the same for our wedding! Small significant people in our lives already as a couple! I’m finding that being older I’m 30 now ilove learned so much over the years and FW is 32 we’ve both been engaged before but this is so different! This is one of my favorite threads seeing all of this love after broken hearts!

View Quoted Comment I’m with you there Kate! No traditions here besides the first dance other than that not to much is tradional I love It!

This is my second marriage. I got married way too young the first time (21) we were really good friends and thought that was it. It wasn't. I hated that I wasted my first wedding and honeymoon and proposal on someone I'm not spending my life with...We are still good friends, though!

When I met my now fiance, I finally felt like what people say love feels like. I've never been so happy. I'm glad I wasted all of the silly wedding traditions on the first one, though. Now I feel like we don't have to do all of that stuff. Bouquet toss, garter toss, etc. This is one is just totally and completely us

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I feel ya...my fiance is uncomfortable honeymooning in Disney cause I already did that And yeah we can't do a lot of things because its both of our second marriages and we have to think about what we've already done...

View Quoted Comment Recently I was talking with someone from high school and literally every couple we know who got married younger that 25 is divorced now. It’s not impossible to find your forever love at that age I have just found that now that I’m older,30 that I’m completely different and although I was 26 or 27 when we got engaged I was 20 when we started dating. We change so much as people in our twenties and yea none of that stuff for us either I’m excited for that!!

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Yeah you grow up SO MUCH from your early twenties to your late twenties.

View Quoted Comment I get embarrassed when I have to tell him no because it's something I already did. But thankfully there are a lot of different ideas. It's great to make something that is special to just you. But not sure if I could say no to Disney!

I am 31 and I HATE saying this but this is my 3rd and his 1st. I married my 1st ex when I was 19 and pregnant with DD. Young and dumb. Never should have married him. Very mentally and verbally abusive and probably would have ended up physical. He started drugs. Lucky for me he left after a year and 2 months of marriage. I thought well it will be a while bc who wants a 21 year with a baby. I was never the partying type. Once I and my DD that was it. She is my world.

Enter 2nd ex. I regret this marriage more than ever. We were married for 4 years. I settled with him. He had a good job when we met. He lived with his parents because he got into a motorcycle accident. Luckily no broken bones. But had to move back, but I was living with mine as well. I was going back to college to get my degree since 1st ex didnt want me to work or do anything but stay at home. Hell he expected a full cooked meal the night I got home from the hospital with DD after a c-section. Anyways. 2nd ex came to my retail job and literally proposed there. It was so stupid. His mom took over the wedding planning then expected us to pay her back for stuff I didn't want. After we married we moved in together. And then he lost his job. So we moved back in with my parents. Spent our whole marriage there just about. He never helped with DD by taking her to school or anything. He stayed up all night playing video games and then sleeping in late while I went to school. I graduated and got a job. Still didnt make enough to get our own place yet. Then he went back to school and still played his games. It was a big issue in our marriage. Finally we were able to move out thinking he would change since we would be on our own. I left after moving out a month and half left of my parents. He wouldn't change. He then said we could go to counseling which I have been saying forever and he refused. He then threaten suicide. I left work early and called the police and had he admitted. He then gets pissed off bc I left him and filed for custody of my DD who he NEVER adopted and somehow won! I now share her with her dad and him. Her dad never sees her but if he did I have to give up my time and and ex doesnt have pay child support. Just gets the perks. He doesn't do anything for her bc if he doesn't love it then forget it.

She is big into softball and that is how I met FH. I wasnt looking for anyone. I had been through hell. Back living my parents AGAIN. And I'll be honest FH and I said we would just be friends with benefits lol. Well after like a week of talking we knew it was different. We started dating. He was always at my house with me. He is involved with DD. He actually coaches her softball team. Going on his 3rd season now. He is on the softball board here in town. We have our own place together. We make two years Oct 23 and we marry Oct 26. This one is way different then my first two. This one feels right and has from the beginning. We laugh and laugh about how we were only going to be fwb. He wants to tell people that and I'm just like no. My family and friends love him to death. It is perfect. The one always comes when you least expect it.

This is actually my third engagement and it definitely feels different than the first two, the first one ended badly because his mom told him she saw me running around town with another guy, we’ll that “other guy” was my brother giving me a ride to town on my payday... the second one...well let’s just say it never really got off the ground in the planning department... this ones different in the fact that I’ve actually got things booked and looking forward to the next step in the planning experience.

View Quoted Comment It’s always when you least expect it! But those are the best love stories!!