Fiancé proposed and it all felt wrong.

A woman struggles with mixed feelings after her fiancé’s proposal during a challenging trip to visit his family. While she loves him and values their six-year relationship, the experience of being judged and sidelined by his family has left her feeling anxious about the start of their marriage. Read her story below.

‘ Fiancé proposed and it all felt wrong.’

My fiancé (30M) proposed to me (28F) literally a week. We traveled to the west coast to see his family and he proposed to me there. My issue is that the trip was awful. His family judged me and nit picked me the entire time (telling me I wasn’t cleaning their house right or that we shouldn’t drink when we wanted to have a glass of wine on vacation).

They had also offered their home as a place to stay while we were on vacation (and it’s his parents so he accepted and we brought them gifts) since he really wanted us to visit anyways for the proposal which was a surprise, but they insisted on doing every single thing together. They don’t like to go out for food or drinks, and we didn’t get to do much sightseeing.

All in all, it was the kind of trip I consider something I do for my boyfriend, not the kind of trip I would have chosen to have a proposal on. Of course I was happy when he proposed to me, but it felt heavily tainted by his family and the fact that he totally kept mine in the dark (and refused to even tell them he was proposing which again I didn’t know about).

I really love this guy. He’s caring and we’ve built an entire life together over the last 6 years. I don’t know what happened here because it’s very unlike him, but I do know that he in theory wanted the proposal to be amazing, which is why he went through the trouble of planning and paying for the trip. It’s just that for me, it wasn’t.

This feels like it has tainted things for me. It’s not that I really care about the proposal, but it feels like the start of our marriage was around all of this. How do I get past this on my own? I really don’t want to b** him out more than I have (by expressing I wish my family was involved). I just have this constant anxiety over it that I need to somehow work through. TL:dr; boyfriend proposed on vacation to visit his family and the trip didn’t go well. Now I can’t stop feeling weird about it.

Here’s what Redditors had to say:

SpatchcockZucchini −  You just got a sneak preview of married life with your in laws. If his parents are n**ty to both you and him, and he’s not going to defend you or want to back off from visiting them, this needs to be taken into consideration. How much have you two talked about marriage? Did he know it was important to you to have him talk to your family before proposing?

If this is giving you an icky feeling in your gut about actually marrying this person, you need to listen to that and deal with it. You need to talk to your fiance. You need to do pre-marital counseling (everyone should TBH). And you need to take note of how he handles these conversations; is he wanting to just stick his head in the sand, or actually talk about it and deal with it?

kevin_k −  I wasn’t cleaning their house right. Why would you clean their house?

mb34i −  IMO, you don’t wish to bother him, but his family will be a huge issue throughout the marriage. You won’t have a good relationship with your in-laws. So I think you need to talk to your fiance about this, because it’s a large issue that could lead to breaking up.
So obviously he loves his parents, and he needs to take off his rose-colored glasses a bit. He needs to realize that they’ve been kind of awful to you, and this won’t work if they continue to be so.

*Don’t tell him what to do* about his parents / about the issue. But pay attention, because if he doesn’t immediately take your side and try to mediate with his parents / admonish them for judging you and picking on you / try to get them to like you more, then this relationship will not be “amazing”.

So that’s the test. Do discuss in detail how they judged you and picked on you, and how that made you feel, but present it from the point of view of “I just want to let you know” because he’s your fiance. Don’t tell him what to do to “fix” the issue, but pay attention to how he reacts and to what he does. Give him a few days, his reaction may not be immediate; it may take some time for the rose-colored glasses to come off and for him to feel awful about his parents. But you are looking for the reaction where he takes your side, not his parents’ side. Good luck, and congratulations by the way!

mixedmediamadness −  You might as well join r/justnomil now because if you marry him you’re going to be living in that sub.

throwaway_6338 −  Read your post to me you just seeing a ton of red flags with that trip and the proposal. Did you ask him why he didn’t include your family? I can tell you this will be your life if you marry him and his family. This one hit close to home to me.

kermit2014 −  This isn’t a “he didn’t propose exactly how I imagined” bratty reaction. This is a monumental moment in your relationship being filled with red flags all at once and you feeling off because of it. So far I see: Him considering himself more than you when planning the proposal. Not where you’d want it to be. Not around people you’d want to be there. Not including your loved ones in the planning process. Not doing things that you’d want to do while on the trip.

Him not standing up to his parents’ behavior. If he’s not doing it now, he never will. If you don’t like how these people treat you and he’s close enough that you will be spending more than the occasional holiday with them, this does not bode well for the future.
Him not discussing marriage with you before the proposal. Proposing is not when you start talking about marriage. It’s what you do after you have thought it through and decided it’s something you want to move forward with. Have you discussed kids? Where you’d live?

Anything long term and concrete? If not, do you really know what you agreed to when you said yes? I would think long and hard about what you’re signing up for here and remember that breaking an engagement is a lot easier than cancelling a wedding or divorcing.

IntrepidZucchini −  How did you feel when you realized he was proposing? In that moment, did you feel excitement, happiness, anxiety, dread? My first fiance, I felt dread as soon as I realized he was proposing. He did it in a way that did not reflect me at all, and was much more of a grand romantic gesture. It was sweet, but not me. As time went on with the engagement, and I got closer with him and his family, I kept feeling anxiety and putting off setting a date. Eventually I listened to my gut and left.

I realized I didn’t want my future kids to be anything like him or his family. I realized if someone treated a friend/sister/etc like my ex treated me I would tell her to leave. 5 years and some therapy later, I much happier and married to a man that takes me into consideration (not all of the time, nobody’s perfect).

sqitten −  When his family was being mean to you, was he present? What did he do to protect you from his family? Did you discuss the issues with your family with him and come up with a way to keep his family from being as much of a problem for you in the future?

ValisFylgja −  My husband proposed on a vacation while drunk and after a weird spat and then he fell over hurting himself and whined about it for hours. It was terrible. I hate when my proposal comes up. I was so irritated with him generally, then he turned around and proposed. I knew I wanted to marry him so I said yes, but gosh I hate how it happened. Honestly, it doesn’t matter. We don’t have a cute story. I hate recalling it. But oh well. It’s a blip in our history. Disappointing for sure, but I want to be married to him and I am. That was the point anyway.

TheFoxAndTheRaven −  You need to sit down and have a serious talk with him about *everything* that you’re feeling. Open and honest communication. This is a glimpse into the future. This is where you find out if you can work through things together as a team and operate on the same page. So far he has made the proposal all about him. It was in a place that meant something to him, surrounded by his family. He thinks it was amazing because it was what he wanted. It sounds incredibly one-sided.