It Happened to Me: He Had His Mom Call Off Our Wedding

I don’t take love or marriage lightly. When I give my heart to a man, I give it to him fully and I expect the same in return. This is why when the love of my life asked me for my hand in marriage after two years of blissful dating, I thought I’d found my dream guy and the husband God wanted me to have. Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t have been more wrong about it.

About a month after this man proposed to me, things started getting a little tense. We were fighting a lot, but since so many people say planning a wedding puts a strain on a relationship, I figured it was normal. We’d have huge blowouts, then the next day act as if nothing had ever happened. No matter how bad the fight was, he’d always tell me that he loved me and couldn’t wait to make me his wife.

ADVICE: 20 Ways to Save Black Marriage

As the wedding grew closer we seemed to bicker more and more. I felt terrible about it and I just kept telling myself we’d be fine when the wedding day arrived. I figured, why wouldn’t we be? We were young (I was 26 and he was 30) and in love and excited about our future. Plus all the “disagreements” were over such small silly things, like who was supposed to call who back, or where we wanted to go to dinner — so I had no idea we were headed for major trouble. Had I known, I wouldn’t have kept letting my parents put down non-refundable wedding deposits.

Invitations went out, my parents had already spent close to $25,000, and I was really starting to feel the thrill of knowing you’re about to take a huge and special step with your soul mate. The wedding was exactly one month away when things took a turn for the worse. One evening, we went to romantic dinner to talk about last-minute plans, and he seemed so happy with me. I told him I was dropping off final deposits for everything in the morning and he smiled, took my hand, and said, “baby we’re almost there.” I believed him.

That night I went home and went to bed happy. I woke up the next morning to find a text from him saying, “We need to talk.” I tried to call him but he wouldn’t answer. When I went to his house no one was there, so I waited. After four hours I realized he wasn’t coming home, or calling me back, so I went home and started crying. Was he leaving me, I wondered? What had I done? His mother called me later that evening to tell me she was so sorry but the wedding was off. She said he was too emotional to speak about it right now and offered her apologies. I was so hurt and so angry.

ADVICE: 50 Ways to Make Him Fall In Love

I didn’t reach out to him anymore because I was so busy trying to scramble to see if I could get any of my parents’ money back. Most of it was gone for good. It took him 22 days to man-up and speak to me about why he called things off, and when he did, he called instead of coming over to speak to me face to face. I haven’t talked to him since. He broke my heart, and I heard through the Facebook grapevine that he was engaged to someone else.

I’m over it now and my heart has healed, but I still can’t tell you how things went so terribly wrong so fast. Why ask a woman to marry you if you’re not sure? I may never know the answer to that one.

Did you ever have to break off an engagement?

Do you have a cautionary dating tale to share? (Remember, it will be completely anonymous!) Tell us about it and your story could be featured anonymously on ESSENCE.com. Send your “it happened to me” tales to relationships.essence(at)gmail.com or click here. Thank you in advance for sharing, ladies!