Should I Have Said Yes? My Decision to Call Off My Wedding

She didn’t call off her wedding because of some dramatic cheating scandal. She did it because her fiancé kept trying to turn their monogamous relationship into an open one, right in the middle of engagement planning, and when she said no, he acted like she was the villain.

This started with a seemingly “just an idea” conversation that popped up out of nowhere, then became a recurring topic every few days. She needed time to think, he kept pushing, and his arguments got nastier as the wedding got closer. After she finally gave a firm answer, he accused her of being closed-minded and claimed she led him on, even though she was the one trying to slow things down.

Here’s how that “maybe we should open things up” idea spiraled into the moment she realized she couldn’t marry him.

Original Post

I (24F) was engaged to my now-ex fiancé (26M) after being together for almost 6 years. For most of our relationship things were pretty normal, and we had already started planning the wedding.

A few months into the engagement, he suddenly brought up the idea of possibly opening our relationship. It completely caught me off guard because we had always been monogamous, and that’s what I thought we both wanted.

I told him right away that it wasn’t something I was comfortable with, but he kept insisting that it was “just an idea” and that I should at least think about it. At first, I tried to handle it calmly.

I told him I’d think about it because I didn’t want to immediately shut him down without having a real conversation. I figured maybe it was just curiosity on his part and that after talking it through we’d land back on the same page.

But instead of respecting that I needed time, he started bringing it up constantly. Every few days it would come back up in conversation, and it started to feel less like a discussion and more like pressure.

The more he pushed, the more uncomfortable I felt. He’d say things like “lots of couples do this” or that it would make our relationship “more exciting.” I kept explaining that I didn’t want to share my partner and that an open relationship wasn’t something I wanted for my life or my marriage.

Eventually, after thinking about it seriously, I gave him a firm answer and said no. I told him clearly that I wasn’t comfortable with a t*******e or opening our relationship, especially when we were literally engaged to be married.

Instead of accepting my answer, he got extremely upset. He accused me of being “closed-minded” and said I had “led him on” by saying I’d think about it.

I was honestly shocked because all I had done was take time to consider something he brought up out of nowhere. He started sulking, picking fights, and acting like I had ruined something important to him.

Then the situation got worse. I found out through a mutual friend that he had already hooked up with someone else while we were still together.

When I confronted him, he said he assumed I would eventually agree to opening the relationship, so he “got ahead of it.” Hearing that made my stomach drop. To me, that wasn’t an assumption that was just cheating.

At that point everything fell apart. I called off the wedding, ended the relationship, and blocked him everywhere.

Some of our friends are divided, though. A couple people told me I shouldn’t have said I’d think about it if I was going to say no later, and that maybe he thought it meant I was open to the idea.

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This family rift over discipline methods, sisters and a parenting seminar, is similar to the wedding breakup fallout.

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That “just an idea” pitch landed out of nowhere for OP, and the moment he started circling back every few days, it stopped feeling like a conversation and started feeling like pressure.

When OP tried to explain she wasn’t comfortable sharing a partner, he hit her with the classic line about “lots of couples do this,” like that made her boundaries negotiable.

The engagement planning backdrop made it worse, because every time he brought up opening things, OP felt like she was being pushed toward a future she never agreed to.

After OP finally said no and he accused her of leading him on, the conflict turned into sulking, fights, and then the situation escalated again when she found out something she wasn’t expecting.

What would you do in this situation? Share your opinion in the comments.

She didn’t regret saying no, she regretted thinking she could marry someone who wouldn’t respect it.

Before you decide, see why one woman asked, “Should I keep my mother’s jewelry or split it?”