When are pre wedding fears red flags or cold feet?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jelisabeth
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If you were my “child” I would tell you to run.

Your past is filled with grief and trouble. There is no rush. Wait for the right person.
 
When I hear a someone in an abusive marriage say ’ I think I am called to marriage’, it concerns me. YOU want the house with the picket fence dream but God’s will could be different. God would NEVER call someone to an abusive marriage.

I would break up with him and not date for a while. I would spend all my energy trying to learn to discern God’s voice.

Take it from a woman who never married and is now too old to have children ‘Being single has a lot of advantages’. I wish I knew that when I was your age
 
The screaming and meanness would be a deal breaker for me, unless he is willing to have it professionally addressed. You and he should talk and agree on a postponement of the wedding so that he can go to into therapy and work through these issues and actually show that he can change. Otherwise he never will. With his issues, he probably won’t agree to go AFTER you’ve gone and married him and are stuck with him. If anything, over time he may get worse. And you’ll end up resenting him as well as yourself, for knowing he had these issues and ignoring your intuition. If he won’t agree to postpone in order to get help, then he was never worth marrying, anyway.
 
Paddy1989 said:
To the OP, ignore the posters who are merely telling you to run like the first reply you got. Such posts were not given any thought
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That’s really unfair of you to say. You have no idea how much thought people put into their posts. You may disagree with their content, fine, but there’s no need to denigrate the posters who wrote them. Certainly I quoted the first post because I wholeheartedly agreed with the advice.
Paddy1989 said:
You know this person more than anyone here and have given a brief description of the red flags you have, running without at least trying to work through them will only end up on you doing the same with each relationship.
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I’d argue this will only happen if the OP doesn’t work on herself. I’m not sure how she can work through the fact that her fiance has no respect for her, honestly. But definitely she should not marry him the way things are at the moment.
 
Paddy1989 said:
They lack any love with such responses. Watch yourself on here for such posters
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This is incredibly rude and arrogant of you. So because the opinion is not in line with your opinion it was not given out of love? You went ahead with your red flags and it worked out for you. What if she goes ahead with the red flags and it doesn’t work out? That’s what happened to me personally and that’s what I shared with her. Are you going to take personal responsibility if she ends up in an abusive relationship and/or gets divorced? Just because you disagree does not make the advise of others uncharitable or lacking love.
 
I told her to ignore any poster such as the very first poster who told her to run without any more substance to the post. There was no thought in that post as they didn’t even attempt to understand things more or lay out while they felt that she should run. She is already discussing this with a priest who is giving her different advice. I believe this is for a reason and most probably because he knows more than we do.
 
When someone tells another based on little information to jump out of a 3.5 year relationship i would say yes there is little love there especially when thats as far as they go in giving advice. As for other posters giving her advice to think this over if it’s right or not, these are respectful posts and i wasn’t aiming at those. Also i didn’t go ahead with my red flags, we worked through through and i said if she CAN’T work out hers she shouldn’t continue however we must also understand we don’t know all the in’s and outs of things. I’m also feeling the Priest giving his advice was based on the fact he knows more on this than you and i. Shouldn’t the Priest’s advice be taken more seriously than us posters on a forum? I’d say it’s arrogant to suggest otherwise.
 
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Aren’t we all sinners? These are red flags that they have to work through which the Priest is suggesting. Only she knows if she can. This poster essentially just says run… Great advice. When someone pours their heart and soul out wouldn’t it be more charitable and loving to try and understand things, she loves this person but there are red flags, thats all we know. I assume she doesn’t just want an answer but to UNDERSTAND the decision she has to make.
 
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A Priest as good as he might be is usually not a trained relationships counsellor so really isn’t in a position to tell you to go or stay. Are you intending to marry in the Catholic Church?
 
Yes… we’ve completed the marriage preparation course (which was not overly helpful, just very general talks on marriage and the Catholic Church). We both take marriage very seriously and view it as a for life choice. That is why I don’t want to jump into something I can’t sustain long term.
 
Thank you all so much for your responses. To explain the situation a bit more… I live abroad (Europe) and moved here originally for work. He is from this country. At first I didn’t speak the language at all, and now I can although I am not fluent by any extent. My family, as often as I speak with them, lives half way around the world, and so my relationship has always been my idea of home here. I do love him and would like to work through things, but I also don’t want to end up “wasting” another year of my life if things don’t change for the better. He has told me he will come to couples counseling with the priest and a therapist and that he will postpone the wedding for a year even though he doesn’t want to. My friends and family see this as a bad movie on rerun. I have a hard time discerning the situation because of the love I feel for him and the hope that things will improve. We have many good moments but many very bad moments too. The strong anxiety and doubt I had 3 months before the wedding was the same terrible feeling I had when I was pregnant and found out about the lies. He swears that would never happen again. But I am still filled with fear.
 
Also, we don’t live together and are financially independent. My parents suggested living together for a year to see if we can get along and have a positive relationship day in and day out. Then to postpone the wedding for a year. I just feel so unsure as to what to do, given the consequence of the decision and the heartbreak I have felt in the past.
 
Paddy1989 said:
When someone tells another based on little information to jump out of a 3.5 year relationship i would say yes there is little love there especially when thats as far as they go in giving advice
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I am that orginal poster.

Just because my advice was not necessarily what the OP may have wanted to hear does not mean it doesn’t come from a place of care and concern.

The red flags she mentions in the OP are not minor. They basically tick every box of things that destroy marriages (cheating, lying, mistrust, vocal and emotional abuse, anger management issues and resentment). What loving person would suggest someone get into a committment as big as marriage when these issues already exist.

The OP has no ties to him financially and seems to be self sufficient. It seems there are no children present. There is no way I would advise a family member or friend to marry someone with these poor credentials.

I stand by my advice. Run OP. Easier to start over now then 5 years from now with kids and financial ties.
 
As someone else said, it isn’t going to get any easier once you’re married. Is he prepared to sacrifice his own desires to protect you and the family? Is he prepared to love you more than he loves himself? Is he prepared to model Jesus in the family and be a caring leader ? If no, he is not ready to marry. Better leave now than create a broken home down the line.
 
Jelisabeth said:
….My friends and family see this as a bad movie on rerun. I have a hard time discerning the situation because of the love I feel for him and the hope that things will improve.
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Myself and other posters recommended that you to listen to your parents, now you inform us that your friends are also advising against the marriage!

It is quite unusual to have such clear advice against a marriage, as often people keep these things to themselves. When friends and family are saying the same thing, that’s as strong advice as you can get!

BTW, I could tell from the muted “congratulations” I received from some friends that they had doubts, even though they didn’t say more. Next time round when I got engaged in 2003 I listened!
 
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I believe in the US at least priests may absolve abortion in Confession now.
 
Also please please take your concerns to a Catholic counselor. My advice would be to run fast and far.
 
I’m so glad that he has agreed to postpone the wedding and attend counseling and therapy. That is a very good sign. Now if it doesn’t work out, you can at least say that you tried. And it’s a VERY good move considering that your friends and family are against this. If you marry him as-is, you will have nowhere to turn when things are bad, where you won’t just have to hear an “I told you so”, or “you never should have married him and need to leave”. Trust me when I say, that that makes things all the worse when you feel like you just need support.
 
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