'AITA for refusing to take back my ex-fiancé and breaking up our family?'
"AITA for not taking back my ex-fiance and breaking up our family?"
So for context, I (24 F) and my ex-fiancé (25 M) let’s call him Alex, had been together for 7 years, living together for 6 and engaged for 1. We were living at my mom’s house at this time and my dad gave me a car which Alex and I were sharing.
My parents were trying to help us get on our feet as we had a 2 year old daughter and our wedding was coming up in 3 months. My mom is well off and had also offered to pay for the majority of the wedding. We had booked the venue and the vendors and some of my family from Poland had gotten their plane tickets and accommodations booked as well.
Poland is actually where we got engaged. It wasn’t a surprise we had actually talked about it and this felt very special to me as I used to live there and the country is very near and dear to my heart. My mom was the one who agreed to pay for our wedding and helped me find the most beautiful, rustic venue amongst the California redwoods. I was on cloud 9 imagining how this day would be for our family.
So 3 months prior to the date, a few things started to happen. Alex had begun to stay out late after his shifts at work. He worked at a hotel and I was staying at home with our daughter and nannying other babies so I could take care of our daughter and also make money.
It started happening most nights and when he was home he acted irritated. If I asked him to come home he’d say he worked all day and deserves time to himself, or he’d say he needs “time with the boys.” I tried to be understanding and not think too much into this.
Until the day he didn’t come home until the morning. He told me it had gotten late and he’d had too much to drink so he had to crash on his cousin’s couch. I chose to believe him. Until I went to the grocery store-because in the back seat of my car was a random pair of women’s underwear and the back side plastic paneling from the side of the car was off. This had never happened before. I immediately knew.
I grabbed the underwear and walked inside. I found him laying on the bed on his phone. I lifted the underwear into the air and calmly asked “Whose are these?” Without skipping a beat, this man tries to tell me they’re mine. I told him I’m not stupid and I know he’s cheating on me. He denies it.
The next day, he says we need to talk. He says he’s just not happy and wants to break the relationship off completely. I was completely floored and we argued about everything, he still claimed he wasn’t cheating just that he didn’t think we were right for each other anymore.
I sadly begged him to stay and make it work for our daughter and to please not break our family apart. I cried asking what about the wedding and he told me I’d have to cancel all that stuff. I asked if he’d at least help with that and he said it was too hard for him. I asked him if he was going to pay my mom back since she couldn’t get all her money back and he said no it was her choice to put up the money.
So painstakingly, I called the venue and told her I had to cancel. She asked if I needed to pick a different date and I told her that wouldn’t be necessary. I called the vendors and did the same. When I called my family in Poland some were angry as they’d already gotten the time off work, gotten their flights and accommodations. It was a really dark time for me.
Fast forward a few weeks, he is openly dating a girl from work and posting her all over the place as the “love of his life”. It stung, but I knew I had to move on too. Two months later, I had begun dating a man I met on Tinder.
On the day I was supposed to get married, since so many people had called off work already, I threw a big party called “My Very Merry Un-Wedding” and we all celebrated me dodging a bullet, even some of my friends and family from Poland were there. I invited the man I was dating to be my date for this. (Pretty awkward premise I know but everyone including him was with it.)
Well, since he still followed some of our mutual friends, he ends up seeing the pictures. He calls me crying asking if we can talk so I said okay. He literally ditched his new girlfriend at the movie theatre and drove straight to my house. He came like a sad puppy asking if I could give him another chance and us get back together. I said absolutely not that ship had already sailed.
He switched tactics and tries to guilt trip me saying this is him trying to fix things and keep our family together and if I don’t agree, I’m the one to officially break our family up because he is here trying and I’ll have to live with that.
I said no I can’t be with you again after everything that’s happened and cited him cheating, not caring about my mom’s generosity, not helping me cancel anything, and not caring when I begged him to keep our family together. He then tried to accuse me of getting with the new guy I started dating before we even broke up (projection much?) and left raging.
Needless to say, he went around bad mouthing me to mutual friends and his family. His parents even tried to guilt trip me saying I am throwing away everything we had and needed to think about our child. Some mutual friends tried to tell me he really loves me and was just confused or scared and got cold feet. So AITA for refusing to get back with my ex after everything that happened!?
Let's see what commenters had to say.
You dodged a bullet. He’s mad that you’re not miserable. Don’t listen to the flying monkeys, you know that not looking back is the best thing for you. I wish you luck!!! NTA.
That man is sure upset to see that you're happy and you've moved on. Good on you for refusing to be dragged back down.
Wow, you really dodged a bullet, he is a cheater, gaslighter and excellent blame deflector...i cant believe he casually cancelled your wedding, asked you to look after everything, started dating someone else, just to say you broke this family apart!!
"Cold feet" isn't a free pass to cheat. Tell those friends that you're sorry if he regrets it now, but he slept with someone while your were together and that bell can't be unrung. Cold feet doesn't excuse him from consequences and it doesn't require you to drop everything and take him back after you've already moved on.
NTA. Your child will be better off with two healthy parents rather than that hot mess of a relationship you had before. He made choices, you made choices. He can't come back upset because you moved on. Let him stay gone.