Marriage is often a compromise, in the service of something greater. But this doesn’t mean giving up everything you’ve wanted just because your partner has a change of plans. Particularly, if you aren’t even married to this person yet.
A woman (23) asked if she was wrong to be upset when her husband-to-be (35) decided to cancel their honeymoon to Paris so he could fund a monster truck with “the boys.” You read that correctly. Readers did their best to convince OP that she needed to get out of this situation as quickly as humanly possible.
For many people, a honeymoon is an important and magical part of getting married
Image credits: M.Peinado (not the actual photo)
But one woman ended up having her dream trip canceled for a pretty selfish reason
Image credits: Keira Burton (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Material-Dig2246
It’s hard to see any positives in the fiance’s actions
Image credits: Budgeron Bach (not the actual photo)
Given the avalanche of evidence presented by OP, this is basically an open-and-shut case. She presented her dream honeymoon, and her fiance agreed to it, then he canceled it for a personal hobby and doesn’t even understand why she is upset. As OP herself stated, a honeymoon is supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Banking on a “second” honeymoon is roughly equivalent to researching divorce lawyers while walking down the aisle.
So the real question isn’t “if” OP is in the wrong, it’s hard to imagine a universe where that is true unless she is lying. What is perhaps more baffling is why she is with this man in the first place and why she even questions the fact that she is upset. To answer the first one, we know very little about this relationship, but it seems unlikely that she is there for the money.
After all, her fiance canceled a trip to Paris over finances. While overseas Eurotrips are by no means cheap, it’s also not something ludicrously expensive like buying a yacht to supercar. Yet he didn’t have money for it. Beyond that, it’s impossible to speculate, as we don’t know much else about the relationship.
He seems to have almost convinced her that she shouldn’t even feel unhappy
Image credits: Antoni Shkraba (not the actual photo)
What’s more surprising is that OP legitimately feels conflicted about how she feels. It would appear like the fiance is attempting to guilt trip her. After all, in a vacuum, you should support your partner’s hobbies, telling them not to do it is manipulative and controlling behavior. However, this is not actually what is happening in this story. The fiance, without even consulting OP, backed out of the honeymoon to do his own thing.
This, alongside the age difference, might indicate that there is an abnormally large power gap in this relationship. For better or worse, this is true for nearly every relationship, but it’s telling that OP has none of her own money put into the honeymoon. While the fiance doesn’t actually have to give OP anything before they are married, the majority of commenters are right, if he is acting like this before the wedding, it’s only going to get worse.
Every marriage is different, there are partnerships where, perhaps implicitly, both parties understand that they might have different priorities. However, it’s quite clear that this is important to OP, and her husband-to-be, ostensibly her biggest ally, has pushed her down to third place in terms of what he considers when making plans. If she ranks below “the boys” and a literal monster truck now, marriage is unlikely to make things better.
OP needs to face the truth that this guy is a waste of time and space
Image credits: Juan Pablo Serrano Arenas (not the actual photo)
Setting aside her fiance having the priorities of an eight-year-old, it’s clear that this man has, one way or another, gaslit OP into not realizing his faults. To reiterate the original point, there is nearly no shape, way, or form where she would be a “jerk” for feeling upset over a canceled honeymoon. To add insult to injury, he suggested a trip to Epcot as a worthy alternative, which might indicate that he perhaps doesn’t even know what Paris is.
Ultimately, we can only hope that she took this experience and the hundreds of comments in support of her to heart and worked out an exit strategy. A man who can’t even afford a trip to Paris is not worth being unloved in a marriage. Besides, dumping him can’t hurt that much, he can take out his emotions on the track with his shiny new monster truck. Afterward, he can eat his sorrows away with a happy meal and perhaps enjoy some cartoons.
People were shocked at the fiance’s behavior and did their best to warn OP
