As the hours wind down before a wedding, the full weight of committing to someone forever can really start to settle in.

And for some, that realization is more sobering than reassuring.

That was the case for these Redditors, who chose to call off their engagements before making it to the altar.

Scroll down to hear what made them change their minds—and don’t miss our conversation with breakup coach Chloe Bines, who shares how to move forward and learn to trust again after ending a relationship.

More info: TikTok

#1

Well, he cheated on me with his best man. When I caught them he insisted vehemently that he isn’t gay. Last I heard he has a new girlfriend now, so still in the closet. Joe, if you’re reading this, happy Pride!

Image credits: glitterlipgloss

#2

My buddy and his ex-fiancee ended an engagement about 4 years ago. Six months ahead of their wedding. Basically both of them on their own felt like it had run its course and they weren’t supposed to be together, one of the most mature break-ups I’ve ever seen…

Within two months – both of them had new partners.

Flash forward three years. My buddy and his ex both got engaged to those partners within weeks each of other.

Flash forward to last Saturday – both of them got married – on the same day – to the people they had met within months of ending an engagement 4 years prior.

Meanwhile…I’ve been single this whole d**n time!

Image credits: masu94

#3

He refused to set a date. Then he refused to make me coffee (same pot, it was big enough for both of us, he just wouldn’t make enough for both of us). Then he refused to turn off the giant overhead light in the bedroom when left for work earlier than me so I had to get up to turn it off and couldn’t sleep in a few more minutes. He just didn’t like me much after the excitement wore off and I wanted more than that. 

He did however stalk and harass me for weeks after I broke it off, threatening my job and my housing, and repeatedly telling me he’d k**l himself or sexually a*****t me. Which just seems like a lot more effort than making slightly more coffee and turning off a light and not screaming at me. .

Image credits: bloop-bloop-bloop-

#4

He called me when he was drunk at 3 am and told me that he only asked me to marry him because he didn’t think he could do better.

Denied it happened the next day despite there being a call….

Image credits: FuerGrissa0stDrauka

#5

I felt like i was his mom. asking him to help out around the house, making sure he wasn’t sleeping thru his alarm for work, setting up a “chore chart” so i wasn’t the only one keeping up with household tasks, apologizing to my friends and family for him skipping out on events because he was sleeping thru them, asking him not to stay up until 3am playing video games because we had something important going on the following morning….

Image credits: butterednoodles24

#6

I ended my very short lived engagement because of Reddit. I kid you not. I posted on engagement rings about hating my ring, and then people started asking questions about my relationship and after figuring out that he was much older than me, made me understand I was being manipulated. It was mind blowing. I received so many messages from concerned women of that sub that I could barely keep up. In the beginning I thought every one was exaggerating, but then I started reading stories and links they sent me and finding so much in common. I told him I needed some time to think and he changed 180 degrees and made me realize what a freak he was. Haven’t looked back honestly. I am applying for Medical school and I am so happy I didn’t stay with him.

Image credits: Thick-Journalist-901

#7

Really started watching how she treated her parents while she was stressed. I was not impressed. Didn’t want that in a permanent partner.

Image credits: das_sparker

#8

He cheated on me and tried to convince me that I was getting the wrong idea about her, that she was just a coworker and her text of “I had fun last night” was about them doing inventory at work. Then I found his dating profile. Then he stopped payment on the rent, threatened to k**l me, and called the cops on me, saying I was crazy. They didn’t agree.

I remember feeling so small and so betrayed. But my life turned out to be happy, and I’m sure he’s still a lying piece of trash. Beyond this post, I don’t really think about him at all.

Image credits: perfectvelvet

#9

He wanted to play video games for 18 hours a day, I had to schedule an hour a day for us to just hang out and he made it seem like I was an inconvenience. When I said he never wanted to do things I wanted to do, like just go get mail together he told me he didn’t like the things I did and didn’t understand why he had to do them. He also got fired from 4 jobs that year cause he rather game. Even his parents started asking why I was with him. I thought I couldn’t do better, but I left him and 7m later after starting over found my husband.

Image credits: mapleysyrupy

#10

Literally like something out of a movie. Wasn’t gonna be a big wedding by any means, we were just gonna elope overnight pretty much. The day we were supposed to get married he slipped on the ice, hit his head, and had amnesia. He didn’t even remember who I was, thought it was 2025 (this was back in 2022) but that Obama was president, and got stuck in a loop. We ended up completely breaking up afterwards. I’ll never forget the shock of it all though. Probably for the best in the long haul, we were barely together before we planned to marry, but it stung no less at the time.

Image credits: ugh_this_world_sucks

#11

He decided to change his career goal 8 months after we got engaged. I had just graduated college (one semester before he was supposed to) and started working as an RN. His plan was to graduate the following semester and begin working a career in the field of his degree. A few weeks into new semester, his new career objective was to be a Chapter Advisor for his fraternity… aka a Professional Frat Guy. I broke up with him after he accepted the position because it just… wasn’t the future I signed up for. He wasn’t ready to leave behind the college lifestyle… and that’s fine, but I *was.* He wasn’t a bad guy and I hope he’s doing fine now.

Image credits: hkkensin

#12

Ended my engagement after 3.75 years together. The wedding was 3 months away. Basically, I spent the whole relationship taking care of his emotional needs, his family drama, his health issues. He would never express his feelings, and we would have huge blow-up fights until he told me what was wrong finally, and then I would feel like a crazy person. All our fights ended with me compromising. It was never him resolving problems.

Im a grad student currently, and I had basically an impossible semester where I had expressed to him multiple times that I felt like I was drowning and I needed his support. Nothing even changed. By the time the semester was over, I resented him a lot. It still took me another 3 months to have the guts to end things. But at the same time, I had given up putting effort into our relationship. Then, all of a sudden, he realized that I had stopped putting in effort, and he had a problem with that. I would tell him that I needed to see him putting in effort for me to feel like I should be trying. Nothing ever changed. So finally, I just told him I wasn’t happy and resented him. Tried to make him see he wasn’t happy either, but he refused to accept it.

None of this drama includes how he picked an engagement ring that looked like none of the design ideas I had given him. It just felt like he said, f**k what you want, Im buying this. How he barely paid for any of the deposits for the wedding, then immediately after we ended things, told me to give him his money back. Or the time when we started planning for the wedding and he said, “Oh, isn’t the brides family supposed to pay for everything?” As someone who claimed to be super liberal. Had very outdated views on weddings.

It’s been a few months, and the wedding date we had set will come up in a few weeks. But at least I feel like I can breathe. Was more of a relief than anything.

Image credits: pupperMcWoofen

#13

He hit me one time. I was gone the next day, left the ring on the kitchen counter and had my friends come over and move all my stuff out.

Image credits: Milabial

#14

Can’t speak for myself, but my mom did, in about 1953. She dated Richard through the last 2 years of college and was engaged. Her best friend had a double blind date arraigned, but the other girl got sick, and she asked my mom to go in her stead. Casual dates for going dancing as a group were more common then, and my mom agreed to fill in. She said by the end of the night she wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted, but she knew she couldn’t marry Richard. She called it off the next day. She married my dad 6 weeks later. She made jokes to me about crossing one name off the invitations and writing in my dad’s. No idea how accurate that was but i do believe they used the same date, and she already had her dress (Chantilly Lace, according to the article in the paper) and bridesmaids. I did end of life caretaking for them 65 years later and every night before going up to bed, my mom would look up at him, big hug and kiss, and say “thank you so much for marrying me”. She absolutely meant it. We had one purely ornamental plant, as my dad was quite practical. A rose bush, in direct line of sight of the kitchen window.

Image credits: Adorable_Dust3799

#15

It occurred to me that we never had one honest fight. If I did something to upset him, he’d stew and grumble and WEEKS later blow up over something unrelated.

I had wanted him to visit me and he kept saying he couldn’t, but wouldn’t say why. (We had graduated college at this point, living in separate cities). I had time off at this time, he wasn’t working—I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t come see me. I offered to pay for his trip, said he could pay me back if he wanted but of course he didn’t have to since it would be our money anyway—still no.

Turns out he had a boys’ trip to California planned for that week and didn’t want to tell me until after he came home, knowing I’d be angry and hurt he didn’t choose to see me when he could have. He figured I’d forgive him and get over as I had always done once he got back.

And I suddenly understood that would be my future with him. I’d do something to annoy or infuriate him and walk in a minefield for weeks, waiting for an explosion. He’d upset me and then just wait for my forgiveness. A perfect repeat of my parents’ marriage.

I ended it that day.

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#16

He was a serial cheat. Well is.
Who regularly now cheats on his husband of 10 years who he has 2 kids with. His husband knows he made out with someone from a bar. He still stayed.
He openly talks about it with me.
He has no remorse. He says he loves him. He’s cheated on everyone he’s ever been with. He doesn’t know what love is.
I tried to warn the husband but he blocked me on everything.

Image credits: Unstableavo

#17

We were together for 5 years. I think we just got too comfortable with the idea of each other. When it came down too it, i realized we hadn’t actually grown, just got used to each other. That’s not love, that’s the fear of starting over.

Image credits: queen_ivyy1

#18

Not the right fit, for either of us. He had a hard time accepting me for who I am and the way I want to live my life (the way I want to eat, raise my kids, run my house, how I want to dress, etc.), and I didn’t have energy to help him work through all the emotional baggage from his childhood and deal with his focus on appearances (which was extremely high compared to my own, since I really don’t care what other people think of me most of the time).

Somewhere out there, there’s a woman who is going to make him feel like the luckiest man in the world, but I am not her.

Image credits: Soft-Sherbert-2586

#19

Mine was nearly 20 years ago now, but we were both heading in different directions in life after a few things suddenly changed. He was moving overseas for a massive opportunity and though I could have joined him I was still young and building my education and life and decided to put myself first. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but also looking back now I am so incredibly proud of how maturely and kindly we both handled it.

All these years later we are still living on opposite sides of the world, but we are incredibly close friends. We are both still single and just living our best lives. Every now and then we cross paths and catch up in person and it’s always a great time. I will love him with all of my heart for the rest of my life, but I don’t know what things will look like for us in another 20 years.

Image credits: Trash-Queen_

#20

I realized he was a much better person than me and deserved way better. After we broke things off, I worked really hard on improving my temper and just dedicated myself to being a good and kind person. It has paid off and I’m not the person I was 20 years ago. We both moved on and married other people and I still stand by my decision.

Image credits: quazypoo

#21

Called mine off two weeks before because he was so rigid about the prenup that was regarded as unconscionable and instead of trying to work through it he said take it or leave it. So I left it. I realized at that moment this guy didn’t want a partner, he wanted someone who thought he can control and was convenient. I personally did not matter to him.

His mom was also extremely manipulative and awful. I couldn’t run faster from that family.

Image credits: killer-queen

#22

We bought a house together before the wedding and then realized I was marrying an alcoholic!! He peed in the dresser, down air vents, and the last straw was I came home from work and he was drunk off his a*s and dressed in my panties. I guess you can not know a lot about someone until you live with them . He had a steady well paying job. Never got super drunk when we went on dates or had sleepovers at each others houses. Only after we moved in together did it turn crazy.

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#23

I was driving over a bridge and thought about how easy it would be to floor it into the river so I wouldn’t have to go home. So I wouldn’t have to be trapped. This was just a month before our wedding. Nearly 10 years ago now. I’m grateful every day that I walked away.

Image credits: dogswrestle

#24

My friend ended her engagement with her fiancé because it came out that he was ripping everyone off. He was an investment banker, charismatic guy, who had convinced everyone he knew (family, friends, her family and friends, businesses, anyone he could really) to invest with him, lying about the returns, robbing Peter to pay Paul situation. It all came to light along with the fact she knew and he was physically abusing her to keep her quiet. He ended up in prison.

Image credits: tweedledumb4u

#25

I was 18 and he was 26 and he groomed me from 15. I had gotten pregnant and had a miscarriage. He blamed me and said i got an abortion. I was tired of being alienated from my family, friends, he didnt want me to go to college, he didnt want me to work, he was emotionally and mentally a*****e and he cheated soooo d**n much.

He ended up getting married 3 months later to a 17 year old he met at a club and had tricked him into believing she had gotten pregnant from a one night stand. Supposedly she was 2 month further along than he thought and she married him to get papers. They ended up getting a divorce a year later.

He then brought over his 1st cousin from Honduras and she was 17 as well, he was in his 30s at this point. Married her in 6 months. Had 2 kids and now theyre getting a divorce because of how controlling and a*****e he was.

I dodged a f*****g cannon.

Image credits: Franklyn_Gage

#26

A year after we met, he moved to another country for his dream job (would only be 2-3 year contract). I was still in grad school so I couldn’t move, so we did long distance for 2.5 years. Spent all our extra money on plane tickets, the whole thing. We got engaged while still long distance.

I then said I wanted to move to another country for my dream job. By this point, he decided he wanted to take a job back in our original country, and instead of being supportive of me, he tried to aggressively talk me out of taking the job, whining, being manipulative, telling me to take something lower level in our home country.

In the end, to mentally deal with packing up and moving without the extra stress I basically cut contact with him for two months, moved, and started my job. Then we talked and broke up on the phone. I mailed him the ring back and never looked back.

Image credits: BloopBloopBloopin

#27

He was a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Life of the party, nicest guy in public. At home, controling, gaslighting, verbally and emotionally a*****e. Tried to destroy my career and friendships so that I was reliant on him. But I was the crazy one! I was immature, poor, going to cheat on him so he cheated first. And he abused alcohol and d***s, but no, that was me. He is on wife number 5.

Image credits: blueyedwineaux

#28

Her family was way too much. She was amazing and everything I wanted, except the family. I figured maybe it would eventually grow on me but it grated me and I’d been married before, as well as she wanted kids right away due to our age. I knew there was way too high a likelihood that I’d want to leave and didn’t want to have kids and so that.

Image credits: nerdsports

#29

He was an amazing man and would’ve been an amazing husband. At that point in my life I was a closet lesbian and only an evil person would’ve gone forward with the wedding. .

Image credits: du-du-duck

#30

I was 19 and he was my first boyfriend. Why the heck did I say yes? I still lived at home with my parents and honestly, it wasn’t even that great of a relationship. I really feel like he could have turned out to be an a*****e partner once it was just the two of us.

I ended up moving out on my own and getting an apartment (this was in 2002 when we could still afford to do this at a young age) and I got a taste of unlimited and unconditional freedom and I HAD A BLAST!! I told him I wasn’t ready to settle down, I felt like I had to live on my own for a while and be an independent adult and that I thought we should put a pause on our overall relationship, not just engagement. Well he started stalking me, calling me repeatedly throughout the day and night and showing up at my apartment and my job. Then he started calling my mother and saying I was out being a s**t and he hoped she was proud of me and a bunch of other silly little things.

Well I ended up moving to another place (same complex just another apartment but he didn’t know that), and threatened him with a restraining order. And then called HIS mother and told her the same. He stopped after that. He did leave me one more tearful voicemail about how he still loved me and would wait for me until I decided I was done whoring around. Aww 🥰

Funny enough, I did not w***e around. I dated exactly one more guy after him and then married *him*. Here we are 20 years later.

Image credits: Wildflower1180

#31

My ex and I were about six months from getting married. DJ, photographer, venue, save the dates. There came a certain point where she wasn’t enthusiastic about the planning and I knew something was up, but I was still stunned when she said she wanted to call it off. She could tell I wasn’t ready to start a family like she was and that I was going along for the ride. It hurt like hell at first and I went off the deep end for a while, but eventually I felt relief because she was right, I wasn’t ready for kids. We briefly got back together and ended it again more amicably the second time, and two weeks after splitting for good I met the woman I would marry. We’re happy and child-free and my ex is a mom of two kids, and divorced but seems to be doing well. I’m grateful to her now in retrospect.

#32

He loved to drink. I didn’t want to be with someone who was that dependent on alcohol.

#33

We dated for 4 1/2 years. Marriage felt like the next step. But, I had so much resentment built up. He wasn’t very responsible and he drank too much. I was paying all the bills and doing all the house chores. I dreaded our approaching wedding date. I just knew I would spend the rest of our relationship taking care of him. He was the best boyfriend I had ever had at the time, and he was very sweet to me. But, I wanted a partner/ not a dependent. I went to my dad and broke down and said, “I don’t want to marry him.” And dad said, “then don’t.” Dad told me if I felt that way the I would hurt him more down the road, hurt our future children and mostly hurt myself. I’m really grateful that my dad gave me the “permission” to call it off. So, I did.

I lost a lot of the friend group I had at the time. My ex liked to surround himself with other people who liked to drink and party like him. I like drinking and partying in college but at the age of 25, I was growing out of it. I felt kinda gaslight by a lot of them because I was made to be the villain in that relationship. I said to hell with them. He can have them all!

Two years later, I found out that when we broke up, he made up a bunch of lies about me and said I cheated on him and all kinds of stuff I didn’t do. Now, there are legitimate complaints about me to be had but he made up stuff that was just completely untrue. It made me question anything he ever told me.

A couple more years down the road he got addicted to m**h and into some bad stuff. He’s in prison now.

I really dodged a bullet.

I met my now husband when I was 30. He’s an engineer and he supported me in leaving my teaching job to raise my kids full time. We are now expecting our second child.

#34

Because they wanted to be “free”. As in do what they wanted, like get drunk and flirt with other men. After 5 years, that was a no go after a wild, dirty, casino trip she took. Haven’t gotten that close to someone since, I married my craft instead, that was over 15 years ago now. Left a bad taste in my mouth.

#35

He is a narcissist and let the mask slip too soon. He thought I would put up with it just to be married, but boy was he wrong! Took me 7 years to pay back wedding debt, but it was alot cheaper than paying for a divorce to the wrong person.

#36

I was tired of the lying. Always felt like he was cheating on me but never had definitive proof.

#37

In my case, it was because I realized I wanted to share my life with someone, but not with him. Sometimes love isn’t enough.

#38

He was controlling and immature. He wanted to buy video games and CDs rather than paying rent. He emotionally manipulated me to make irresponsible financial decisions. The straw that broke the camels back was when my mom left a stern message on the answering machine saying the bank called her because I was $700 overdrawn. When he told me I had a message he said, “Your mom called. Haha, you’re in trouble!”.

#39

My ex and I both had injuries around the same time and both ended up addicted to Vicodin after having way too much of it prescribed by doctors. After a couple years of a*******n and barely making it through, she decided that the only way she was ever going to get clean was to go back to live with her family, around 4 hours away.

I didn’t want her to go but knew she was right, so I agreed. We planned to continue long distance until we could reunite, but it was much harder than we ever expected. It was very difficult going from being with each other pretty much 24/7 for 5 years, to visiting each other once a month at best. We drifted apart. Reluctantly, we started having discussions about taking a break and seeing other people and things like that. I think at the time even though we both agreed, we both believed that we’d ultimately still end up together.

Not long after those talks, I reconnected with an old childhood neighbor. The last thing I wanted to do was jump into another relationship so soon as I was still processing what happened with my ex, and I still had *a lot* to work on personally. I was a walking red flag at that point. I have no idea what this childhood friend saw in me as I was a broken human being at that point, but I took the leap and jumped into this new relationship. I knew it would devastate my ex even though we both agreed splitting up was best at the time. It was very difficult for a long time, but ultimately the best decision I’ve ever made in my life. That former childhood friend is now my wife of 5 years (together 10), and the mother of my child. My ex is a mother herself and thriving. We’ve both been “clean” from pain pills for several years.

#40

We got engaged because it felt like the next step, not because we were truly ready. Looking back, we were trying to fix a rocky relationship with a ring. The closer the wedding got, the more I realized we weren’t partners—we were just two people afraid of starting over. Calling it off was brutal, but staying would’ve been worse for both of us.

#41

Mid 90s. Dated a friend of a friend. Ended up getting engaged, and buying a house together before we got married. He ended up beating the s**t out of me not once but twice. I gave the ring back to try to get my money out of the house. Ended up having to hire a Lawyer. To this day, his mom wears my
engagement ring as her wedding ring. Thanks, Rick the d**k.

#42

He told me we would be moving in with his parents and I would be dropping out of college to support him. I was taking 18 credit hours a semester with a 3.6 GPA. He was taking eight credit hours a semester with a 1.9 GPA, having to retake many of his classes so he had been in college for over eight years at that point. I realized that as cute as he was the life that he wanted to live was not one I wanted to be part of.

#43

We drifted apart over a few years. Me going to the ice for a year to work instilled some massive jealousy in him and his imagination that I was going to meet someone else.

I’d also said I wanted to travel South America for a year after returning, and he didn’t want to go, and was still in some insane thought that I was trying to find someone else.

His ex wife had cheated on him – I’d never even looked at another man while with him, but he couldn’t get hold of the jealousy or thought.

So we broke up the day before I flew to McMurdo. Sucked, but work was a good distraction!

#44

I ended it after he moved his racist sister into our house while I was visiting a friend across the country.

#45

I realized I was staying because I didn’t have a reason to leave. He was nice. But we both deserved more than that.

#46

I got a few signals from the universe.

We were going to be married in the Florida Keys with just our close family coming. Hurricane Wilma wiped the place off the map the weekend we were supposed to be there.

Backup plan- get married in the backyard of the house we were renting. That Friday prior to the weekend of, the justice told me he needed to see a marriage license from the town. Every municipality was closed in observance of Veteran’s Day in that day (a Friday). Could not get license, called it off and needed to regroup.

We ended up buying a house instead a few months later instead. Broke up a year later.

#47

His family didn’t want him to get married.

It’s as simple and complicated as that. And it sucked, hard. I wanted to die for about a year. And then I just…woke up one day and moved on.

I’m currently married (after a few false starts) to the absolute love of my life. If something happened to this man, I’d never date again. We’ve got three kids, two cars, one house, one dog, and an entire lifetime ahead of us. It’s not a huge, travel everywhere, White Lotus kind of life but it suits us both I think. Last I checked, my ex was still single. I doubt he’ll ever marry at this point.

And from this distance- I’m actually grateful to him. He made the right choice for himself, and I can’t fault him for that. He also saved me from a lifetime of misery.

#48

She lied about doing her taxes for like 5 years. Never did them. I only found out when she freaked out about me opening a letter for her from the IRS. I can’t deal with lying like that. I literally offered to help/do them for years prior to that.

Who just doesn’t file taxes?

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