Getting married in 60 days, huge fight a week ago and how it's being handled

[j.man]

I'm very glad the next conversation went better. I think we'll all be eager to hear how the counseling goes.

 

At least from what you've written, pretty much the entire conversation was concession, concession, concession coming from his end. Operating under the assumption that the guy isn't a Disney villain, I'm sure you could have dug up an olive branch somewhere to present him with, and I'd be curious if you in fact did. It sounds as though it was constructive in the sense you got to express your concerns and challenge him with there being no subsequent explosion, but I suspect he very well may have been holding back for the sake of maintaining the peace. If so, hopefully he'll feel more free to discuss any concerns he has with a professional mediator in the room.

 

Let us know how it all goes.

[Kalika]

I'm very glad the next conversation went better. I think we'll all be eager to hear how the counseling goes.

 

At least from what you've written, pretty much the entire conversation was concession, concession, concession coming from his end. Operating under the assumption that the guy isn't a Disney villain, I'm sure you could have dug up an olive branch somewhere to present him with, and I'd be curious if you in fact did. It sounds as though it was constructive in the sense you got to express your concerns and challenge him with there being no subsequent explosion, but I suspect he very well may have been holding back for the sake of maintaining the peace. If so, hopefully he'll feel more free to discuss any concerns he has with a professional mediator in the room.

 

Let us know how it all goes.

 

Realistically most of the concessions seem to be on his side as he knew he handled things poorly from the get go by procrastinating and then blowing up at me. This is something I'm going to bring up in counseling because he procrastinates frequently on important things and it never ends well. He's just not on top of things, procrastinates the more difficult things, and then it becomes a problem. He does this with clients too. Or he will say "it's no big deal" and discount that people want things done and not always on his time frame. At one point he had even told me we could just sign the prenup the day before the wedding, as if it was no big deal. I flat out let him know I wasn't having that.

 

During our talk, I did tell him I could have come at him with a less pissed off tone when I told him this needs to get done within 4 weeks. He had just talked to the attorney right before I said this, but my intention was to make sure he (and his attorney) knew that I wanted it done and was not willing to wait until the last minute. However, my tone was irritable when I said this, and I did let him know I could have come at him in a better way. I also told him I should have just spoken to him and I did feel I was being childish by not talking to him, but I partly didn't want to talk to him also because I figured it would become another fight, and I absolutely did not have it in me to have another fight with him. But I do want to talk to the counselor about the procrastinating because I do feel it affects his life significantly, and he doesn't even realize how negatively it affects the people he interacts with or the outcomes.

 

Either way... we are off to counseling in a bit.. It's the first get to know you session, so I doubt much will happen other than we'll see if the counselor is a good fit.. fingers crossed...

[tattoobunnie]

Not trying to be a jerk, but if the thought of losing out $15,000 is enough to make you marry someone when you both aren't ready, you don't come across as having as much money that warrants a prenup.

 

People think they need a house, savings, career before they get married or have kids. Yours is getting a prenup when you have little in assets or money. I just think their is something missing, and you know it, and it is a signed prenup. If it was, you would trust he'd sign it in time, and not blow up on it.

[abitbroken]

This was all about what he did wrong and with pot you just said "i always keep my word, haven't i" so therefore you are not addicted and he is belittled into trusting you. That sounds pretty crappy. He is a procrastinator. That is who he is. I predict a marriage where you will constantly nag him and then behave like your behavior is always gold. if he admits he is wrong, even when he isn't -- that's how problems are resolved in your eyes.

 

If you have X of money before you married, those are premarital assets that if you keep a copy of the bank statement the day or month before you married - in court that will be considered premarital and not touchable (so long that its not comingled with future marital money). you do not need a prenup for that. But it can't just be verbal - you need a record of it that's tangible like a bank statement.

 

Go to counseling, but if you don't want to divorce, i would postpone the wedding. There is not enough time to scratch the surface. The first days of marriage should be happy and blissful, not "working things out so you can be a happily married couple"

[Kalika]

Not trying to be a jerk, but if the thought of losing out $15,000 is enough to make you marry someone when you both aren't ready, you don't come across as having as much money that warrants a prenup.

 

People think they need a house, savings, career before they get married or have kids. Yours is getting a prenup when you have little in assets or money. I just think their is something missing, and you know it, and it is a signed prenup. If it was, you would trust he'd sign it in time, and not blow up on it.

 

Again, you keep assuming I have only my house and no other assets. I don't know why you are assuming this just because I didn't go online and blast my finances to everyone. Bottom line is, you are assuming things and you are completely wrong. Nor does it mean that I'm marrying him only because of the $15K, which is completely ridiculous. Obviously there is a lot of love between us or else we wouldn't have stayed together this long in the first place.

[Kalika]

This was all about what he did wrong and with pot you just said "i always keep my word, haven't i" so therefore you are not addicted and he is belittled into trusting you. That sounds pretty crappy. He is a procrastinator. That is who he is. I predict a marriage where you will constantly nag him and then behave like your behavior is always gold. if he admits he is wrong, even when he isn't -- that's how problems are resolved in your eyes.

 

If you have X of money before you married, those are premarital assets that if you keep a copy of the bank statement the day or month before you married - in court that will be considered premarital and not touchable (so long that its not comingled with future marital money). you do not need a prenup for that. But it can't just be verbal - you need a record of it that's tangible like a bank statement.

 

Go to counseling, but if you don't want to divorce, i would postpone the wedding. There is not enough time to scratch the surface. The first days of marriage should be happy and blissful, not "working things out so you can be a happily married couple"

 

I didn't see this as belittling him into trusting me. It's just the fact of how I am. I'm a pretty straight shooter and I'm very honest with him, this is what I pointed out to him, and he knows it's always been true. If I say I'm going to do something, I do it. If I have no intentions of doing something, I'll let you know that too, even if you don't want to hear that. If I had no intentions of quitting weed forever, I would tell him this, and in fact this is what I said to him. Eventually I will probably smoke pot again, but not now and not for a while. It may be a few years even before I pick it up again, who knows. But I do not say never. He was OK with this as he doesn't want to quit forever either.

 

Also, I truly mean I am not an addictive personality. Years ago (as a teenager) I used to smoke cigarettes but when I wanted to quit, I just did, and never had any issues doing so. I also don't drink coffee or have any caffeine addictions just to function every day, as many people do.

 

As far as nagging him goes, I don't usually have to nag him about daily things or household things. It's not that common for me to have to nag him, or I would say it just doesn't need to happen that often or for many things. He does dishes and laundry or other household things without me having to say anything at all. But sometimes with certain things (like the prenup - mostly things that he has to actually take extensive time to deal with outside of his business) he gets anxious or stressed out and procrastinates. He'll sometimes procrastinate having difficult conversations with clients, I have noticed this and talked to him about it. It also came up in counseling because I felt that he had procrastinated and forced me to push him to get the prenup done, which he then got pissed off at me about. We talked about this yesterday in our session and will discuss it in more detail in our next one.

 

Truthfully, I'm just not at the point where I'm ready to cancel the wedding and I'm feeling pretty hopeful about things. I think if we have a good counselor we can make a lot of progress. Everyone who knows us personally knows there is a tremendous amount of love between us and even with difficulties over the years, we have never completely given up on each other, and neither of us have intentions at this point of completely walking away, or at least the thought is a very painful and difficult one for both of us.

 

We met with the counselor last night and she was terrific. Within the appointment she hit the nail on the head for several things about both of us. She got to understand my very complicated childhood and background and why I am a prenup type of person, and also talked about how previous business failures also impacted my fiance and why he gets tunnel vision about his business and finances to the detriment of other things. She was very good at reading between the lines with what we were saying. It was a great start and we both left the appointment feeling like she could really help us. We are also very close to having the prenup finalized and have put in a few questions to my attorney; hopefully once he answers them, we can just get it done and signed, or modified quickly if needed.

[mustlovedogs]

OP, I think you missed the point. What concessions did you make? Where did you admit fault of your own? I just read it as your fiancé screwed up and you told him how he screwed up.

[Seraphim]

Counseling is to find out how to fix issues with communication not to find out who is wrong.

[j.man]

What I'm hoping is that your version of a concession isn't indicative to your manner of apologizing as well. To be honest, you had some pretty low hanging fruit but elected to throw it on the ground.

 

You conceded that you "could have" come at him with a less irritable tone. At face value, it may sound like semantics, but there really is an entire world of difference between whether you "could have" come at him with a less irritable tone and whether you should have. "Could have" indicates quite simply that something different should have been done. That's something that doesn't even need stating. You could have come at him more nicely. You could have yodeled. There are a thousand things you could have done. Should have indicates how you were responsible to act. I could have done a better job whipping the egg whites for the tres leches cake I made last night so that the cake would have been fluffier. I should have not approached a discussion in a way that escalated it before it even began.

 

Then, to make matters worse, you proceeded to qualify it with your thought process behind it. And, honestly, while "let me tell you the thought process behind why I wronged you (or, in this case, could have done something else) so that you know it didn't come from a bad place" on its own just isn't good unless maybe to expand on your genuine humility, it's more troubling that you could intelligently qualify it at all. Conveying that you want something done and aren't willing to wait is as simple as stating those words exactly (or, preferably, in nicer terms) and then following through should the need to come. Consciously adopting that tone is intended to use distress as a motivator. This is what we do to very young children when getting them to immediately stop trying to stick a knife in an outlet is more important than being respectful about it. It's not how you treat an adult, much less a partner. Make no mistake, we'll all let our emotions get the best of us and carry a tone at some point or another. But it should not be something you do with an actual purpose. I might otherwise chalk it up to semantics between "should" and "could," but it's clear here that the words and the intent match up.

 

tldr; You used that tone to provoke him to get the prenup taken care of, and you could have approached it more nicely not because you were responsible to treat him, as a partner, respectfully, but because your thought out effort simply proved ineffective. Conceding that isn't offering an olive branch. That's extending him poop on a stick.

 

You do a better job noting you shouldn't have ignored him, but, again, "let me tell you why my thinking wasn't wrong." It is more forgivable in this case as you do state you were responsible to act differently, but, at the end of the day, you are responsible for making sure whatever thoughts or feelings don't manifest themselves in an irresponsible manner. A concession is infinitely more effective and in fact true to its definition when offered strictly on its own. "I shouldn't have ignored you" is a concession. "But..." isn't, and it takes a steaming dump on whatever semblance there was of one.

 

What all that is NOT saying is that "I'm serious about wanting the prenup done by [x] time" or "there are times I feel like we'll get into an argument if we simply say hello to each other" aren't concerns worth expressing. They're simply matters best addressed on their own and not as a qualifier when trying to concede you've failed to act responsibly.

 

And I know I go in depth with one of your examples, and I'm not at all suggesting he's picked it apart and sees it as complexly as I've written. But if this honestly is your take on a concession / apology, or a constructive navigation of issues, I can't imagine he hasn't pieced it together along the way. I'm willing to give you the benefit of assuming this was a one-off change of approach, but if you find yourself pressing someone on what you perceive to be their flaws or transgressions, only to use your apologies or concessions as a vessel to-- even if indirectly-- implicate him all over again, that's skirting that fine line bordering emotional abuse, though certainly manipulative behavior.

 

In any case, that's intended as food for thought. I do still maintain that a healthy level of radio silence regarding issues should be maintained until your counselor has provided you two with tools to practice with at home.

[j.man]

"Could have" indicates quite simply that something different should have been done

Bad typo. Should read "something could have been done"

[jimthzz]

>

 

And I'll be completely honest. If I found out someone had planned to get their wedding annulled the next day and still had me spend my time and money just to come out, never mind whatever I might spend on a gift for the sham wedding, they'd be out of my life. Instant. Please don't go down that route.

 

>

 

Getting married is supposedly a life commitment, not a just a party. Your guests want to attend to honor that commitment. If you do not want to marry and worry about social conventions, it is wrong to marry solely to not disappoint folks traveling to attend.

 

I think you need to put off the wedding.

 

The prenup, the pot, the lack of a jobs, the health insurance idea, the disrespect between the two of you? That all points to a no go in my book.

 

Maybe not forever, but certainly not now!

 

So you lose a few bucks or maybe get to postpone it.

 

You two are not ready to marry

[thealchemist]

What I'm hoping is that your version of a concession isn't indicative to your manner of apologizing as well. To be honest, you had some pretty low hanging fruit but elected to throw it on the ground.

 

You conceded that you "could have" come at him with a less irritable tone. At face value, it may sound like semantics, but there really is an entire world of difference between whether you "could have" come at him with a less irritable tone and whether you should have. "Could have" indicates quite simply that something different should have been done. That's something that doesn't even need stating. You could have come at him more nicely. You could have yodeled. There are a thousand things you could have done. Should have indicates how you were responsible to act. I could have done a better job whipping the egg whites for the tres leches cake I made last night so that the cake would have been fluffier. I should have not approached a discussion in a way that escalated it before it even began.

 

Then, to make matters worse, you proceeded to qualify it with your thought process behind it. And, honestly, while "let me tell you the thought process behind why I wronged you (or, in this case, could have done something else) so that you know it didn't come from a bad place" on its own just isn't good unless maybe to expand on your genuine humility, it's more troubling that you could intelligently qualify it at all. Conveying that you want something done and aren't willing to wait is as simple as stating those words exactly (or, preferably, in nicer terms) and then following through should the need to come. Consciously adopting that tone is intended to use distress as a motivator. This is what we do to very young children when getting them to immediately stop trying to stick a knife in an outlet is more important than being respectful about it. It's not how you treat an adult, much less a partner. Make no mistake, we'll all let our emotions get the best of us and carry a tone at some point or another. But it should not be something you do with an actual purpose. I might otherwise chalk it up to semantics between "should" and "could," but it's clear here that the words and the intent match up.

 

tldr; You used that tone to provoke him to get the prenup taken care of, and you could have approached it more nicely not because you were responsible to treat him, as a partner, respectfully, but because your thought out effort simply proved ineffective. Conceding that isn't offering an olive branch. That's extending him poop on a stick.

 

You do a better job noting you shouldn't have ignored him, but, again, "let me tell you why my thinking wasn't wrong." It is more forgivable in this case as you do state you were responsible to act differently, but, at the end of the day, you are responsible for making sure whatever thoughts or feelings don't manifest themselves in an irresponsible manner. A concession is infinitely more effective and in fact true to its definition when offered strictly on its own. "I shouldn't have ignored you" is a concession. "But..." isn't, and it takes a steaming dump on whatever semblance there was of one.

 

What all that is NOT saying is that "I'm serious about wanting the prenup done by [x] time" or "there are times I feel like we'll get into an argument if we simply say hello to each other" aren't concerns worth expressing. They're simply matters best addressed on their own and not as a qualifier when trying to concede you've failed to act responsibly.

 

And I know I go in depth with one of your examples, and I'm not at all suggesting he's picked it apart and sees it as complexly as I've written. But if this honestly is your take on a concession / apology, or a constructive navigation of issues, I can't imagine he hasn't pieced it together along the way. I'm willing to give you the benefit of assuming this was a one-off change of approach, but if you find yourself pressing someone on what you perceive to be their flaws or transgressions, only to use your apologies or concessions as a vessel to-- even if indirectly-- implicate him all over again, that's skirting that fine line bordering emotional abuse, though certainly manipulative behavior.

 

In any case, that's intended as food for thought. I do still maintain that a healthy level of radio silence regarding issues should be maintained until your counselor has provided you two with tools to practice with at home.

I find this distinction to be very telling too.

 

With your language you just make your own stance beyond reproach.

 

Whether that is your job situation or pot, or really any concern he brings about you.

 

But you seem to think all your concerns are huge and dwarf any of his to insignificance.

 

You were telling us his issues, what he does wrong, and how he is wrong.

 

When we asked questions to try to see both sides you would dismiss everything.

 

It seems like you really don't see or respect him as an equal.

[abitbroken]

I find this distinction to be very telling too.

 

With your language you just make your own stance beyond reproach.

 

Whether that is your job situation or pot, or really any concern he brings about you.

 

But you seem to think all your concerns are huge and dwarf any of his to insignificance.

 

You were telling us his issues, what he does wrong, and how he is wrong.

 

When we asked questions to try to see both sides you would dismiss everything.

 

It seems like you really don't see or respect him as an equal.

 

I would agree.

 

My ex would tell me "why i was wrong" and "why i need to improve"

 

About himself, he would say "I am an honest person. I am known for my honesty. I am a man of my word.

This behavior of mine could have been different but I ONLY DID it because YOU did THIS particular thing or behaved in this manner"

[boltnrun]

I hope the counseling will help with these issues.

 

It's not just him that can use some professional help with communication and other issues. It goes both ways.

[Batya33]

I hope the counseling will help with these issues.

 

It's not just him that can use some professional help with communication and other issues. It goes both ways.

 

I agree and want to make the further point, piggybacking on this, that one of the most important things I've learned while married is humility/being humble. Yes being confident but having the humility to say when you're wrong, to be the first to apologize. And to remind myself of that if not daily, regularly.

[Annia]

I come late but I've read most of the thread and I'm glad that you two got to talk It through and make a plan. HOWEVER, I'm concerned that you don't/ didn't seem to take responsibility for any of it. It's like you only see him as the one who messed up, when you also contributed to it with passive aggressiveness and ignoring him for a week (if I understood well). And all your pot justifying or justifying your actions is not bad per se, but it seemed that it was you deflecting all your responsibility and putting the onus of "changing" all on him because he was in the wrong but you were in the right/ the victim here. You can explain yourself but you must also take responsibility for your part in it.

In my perspective BOTH handled this poorly and neither was 100% right or wrong. But if you don't acknowledge your responsibility in the way you handle things, no counselling will be able to help your relationship. And also if you go to counselling in a perspective that it's him the one who has to change and do the heavy lifting, you won't have the results you want.

[catfeeder]

...neither was 100% right or wrong. But if you don't acknowledge your responsibility in the way you handle things, no counselling will be able to help your relationship. And also if you go to counselling in a perspective that it's him the one who has to change and do the heavy lifting, you won't have the results you want.

 

I agree. Counseling won't be like a car wash where you can just drive your partner through and all of his faults get exposed and washed away. Your own facade of righteousness is up for grabs, and while none of this makes you a villain, you'll need to be willing to concede your own faults and learn how to negotiate responsibly for what you want. That means offering something of value to partner in exchange for what you want from him at any given moment.

 

Bribery is the fine art of showing someone else what's in it for them to give you what you want. You'll need to frame the things you want as options for him to choose in a fair trade for something he wants from you. Otherwise, you become the dictator in a parental role, and you'll rob yourself of an equal partner. That's not fun or rewarding, and it will keep you miserable no matter what he does or doesn't do.

 

Head high, and best wishes for a wonderful transformation and a fabulous marriage.