The Story You've All Been Waiting to Hear

So... everybody knows that I was engaged this last summer and then called off the wedding. I've received loads of questions regarding the details of what happened, so to put it all to rest I am telling my story.

 Yes, I called off my wedding five days before the event, but it's a good thing.

  "But how can it be a good thing? You called off your wedding?!?!"

 It sure wasn't easy, but I can honestly and truthfully say that it was the best decision for me. I am so much happier now.

  "OMG, did you guys, like, mess up or something? Is that why you called it off?"

No, we did not make a mistake, I was and still remain completely temple worthy to this day.

  "Then why did you call it off?"

Simply put, he just wasn't the right guy. I think he was at one point in time. I received the personal confirmation that he was back in March, even my mom received a confirmation.

 Something just changed between then and now.

 In hindsight, I should have seen it coming. But what girl tries to point out every flaw of her relationship after it's just begun?

 I guess I'll start from the beginning.

 I met Nick last summer through my good friend Shelly. He had just got home from his mission and moved to Arizona to work for his uncle over the summer. Shelly had met him at FHE and then called to tell me about the new RM in the ward. Long story short, I helped them to get together that summer. And they continued to date into the fall up at BYU. But by October or November, they decided to break up.

 By December, Nick and I had become really good friends. And eventually, after hours and hours of texting and Skype chats, things ran their course and our little friendship had turned into something more. We started dating long distance in March and by then I pretty much knew that we were supposed to married. A few weeks later, I drove up to Provo with a good friend to visit for Spring Break. That was the first time I'd seen him since August the year before and the first time we'd been together since we started dating. That weekend we started making our first wedding plans.

 Fast forward to April 20th, the weekend of my dad's accident. Nick had secretly driven down to AZ to meet my parents and ask my daddy for permission to marry me. That also happened to be the same night that some idiot teenager hit my dad on his motorcycle. Crazy stuff. Well, we ended up getting engaged the next night at the Mesa temple.

 On to this summer, we were both living in QC and planning our August wedding. Things weren't even close to perfect. There were plenty of warning signs, and I saw them. None of them were quite alarming enough on their own, but they definitely made me question and made my parents worry.

 I guess my first sign should have been his previous relationship with my friend. Things ended pretty badly between them with accusations of abuse and manipulation. I just chalked it up to a clash of personalities. Now that everything is said and done, I can definitely see all the same parallels between her relationship and mine. I thought I was seeing a different person, but I guess it just took longer for him to really be himself.

 Things were really rough this summer. We spent every waking moment together with the exception of work or sleep, sometimes sacrificing both. He basically lived at my house. Normally that wouldn't be such a problem, but I basically wasn't allowed to do anything else. If I spent time wedding planning with my mom without him, I was accused of choosing my family over my fiancé and if I spent more than a few hours out with friends I received a 'friendly' phone call beckoning me back home for one reason or another. I spent 3 months basically walking on eggshells, making sure that I gave him enough personal time and attention at the expense of spending time with my family and other friends.

 When things didn't quite go as he wanted there would be a big fight. We spent a good amount of time having stupid arguments over the same things, over and over. It was exhausting!

 My parents were really worried throughout all of this. There were many nights that they sat me down in their bedroom and we just talked all night. They could see that I wasn't happy and they were really concerned about me and my decision to go through with the wedding. Throughout all of it, they still remained supportive of me and my decisions, but I could tell that they were Really Worried.

 With every fight we had, they would urge me to consider postponing the wedding. Obviously, Nick was very against the idea every time I brought it up. Our relationship would go through cycles. We would have a huge fight, things would blow up, I would talk about postponing, he would make promises that things would get better, and they would for a little while, then we'd be right back where we had started.

 This cycle sound familiar? Yeah, I know.

 Things finally hit the boiling point the week before the wedding. We were fighting constantly over the Exact Same Things we had been arguing over months prior. I just gave up. I couldn't do it anymore, I was exhausted and nowhere nearly as happy as a girl should be the week before her wedding. That night I stayed up talking to my parents for hours, agonizing over this decision I had to make. It was FIVE DAYS before my wedding.

 Everything was set, I had the pictures, the dress, the flowers, everybody was coming from all over the country. It was one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make. I had spent my whole wedding budget, I had so many people coming and I had already called in so many favors.... but I wasn't happy.  And I realized that I couldn't do this for eternity.

 More importantly, I didn't WANT to.

 So I called it off.

 I hadn't committed to anything yet, and I didn't have to. My mother reassured me that people would understand and that nobody would blame me. She also told me that the money didn't matter, she was more concerned for my eternal happiness than throwing a wedding.

 My parents were my source of strength throughout this whole ordeal. I couldn't have done any of this without their constant love and support. I am so lucky to have such amazing parents. I can't say that enough. And my mother was right. Everything worked out.

It sure wasn't easy. I definitely don't recommend calling off a wedding less than a week before. I had to return all of my shower gifts, return as much of the decorations and extra stuff as could, and worst of all I had to deal with the judgmental looks of all the people around me.

 In the end though, it was the best decision for me. I have had so many women come up to me and tell me how brave they thought I was, and how they wished they had the same strength to do the same thing before their own weddings. A lot of divorced women told me that. I think that's when I really owned up to my own decision, when I realized that all I had gone through was so much better than the alternative of being married, fighting for years, just to end in divorce.

  Moral of the Story: I can do hard things. I know that my Father in Heaven challenges me because he loves me and he also knows something I don't. This experience has made me stronger, and while I wouldn't recommend this to Anyone; I have definitely learned from it. All in all, it helped to me gain a better understanding of who I really am and appreciate my family more than I already did. I seriously have the best parents ever.