Photo: TikTok
Number 4 might not seem important, but it definitely is!
By Nia Tipton — Written on Sep 02, 2022
A woman recently shared a list of five things she learned after calling off her engagement just months before her wedding.
In a TikTok video, a woman named Dannielle shared that she had been together with her former partner for five-and-a-half years before getting engaged.
They were engaged for six months before she called off the wedding six months before the ceremony.
Now she's sharing red flags she wished she hadn't ignored before getting engaged.
For the first tip, Dannielle urged people to not agree to get married to their partner if they feel "physically sick" at the thought of it.
"I would never ignore feeling physically sick when they proposed and quite queasy at the thought of actually marrying them," she told viewers, adding that she "later learned this was [a symptom] of PTSD" that she had carried from a previous relationship.
Dannielle acknowledged that it "always sounds so obvious," but for her, she thought at the time that it was simply nerves.
"When you're out of it, it sounds so obvious, but when you're in the full context of everything, it's not," she explained. "It's very easy to dismiss even the really obvious things."
For the second tip, Dannielle asserted that she would "never be with someone who I couldn't comfortably discuss my nerves and questions with."
She explained a situation where she demonstrated talking to your partner about feeling nervous before the wedding and wanting to discuss the wedding day.
In the scenario, Dannielle pointed out that if you were to try and strike up a conversation with your partner about potentially moving the date of the wedding back due to feeling overwhelmed, your partner should try and understand where you're coming from instead of jumping to the conclusion that you don't want to marry them at all, especially if that's not what you are trying to tell them.
For the third tip, Dannielle expressed that she would never "feel the need to defend myself or my decisions."
She revealed that she had called off her wedding "for a number of reasons," but that her partner had gone and told all of their family, friends, their mutuals, and the entire community that they'd been involved in that she "had a mental break down."
"They used the fact that I'd had anxiety, depression, during our relationship as a means to essentially control the narrative," she shared, adding that her partner had told their friends "they had to choose between [them]."
Even though the situation didn't end the best, Dannielle reiterated that she was glad she "never felt the need to defend" herself.
For the fourth tip, Dannielle said that she would "never let someone pick a ring" for her and tell her that she "had to stick with it."
"If you're gonna wear a ring all the time, you wanna like it," she stressed. "Again, respectful conversations about these things shouldn't be ending up in blazing rows."
She continued, saying that it issue shouldn't be having to spend a lot of money on a ring, but rather having an opinion on what kind of ring you want to wear, especially when it comes down to being involved in the sizing of it.
For the fifth and final tip, Dannielle brought up the importance of not being scared to call off a wedding just because of how far along you are in the planning of it.
"It does not matter what you've already put a deposit on, how many outfits you already bought, whether the invitations have gone out, [and] whether or not people are already flying in," she said, adding that those factors were how people tried to guilt trip her into changing her mind about calling off the wedding.
"No one is under any obligation to marry someone, no matter what stage the engagement you're at. You can postpone, have honest conversations, figure out [and] be very selfish in deciding if this is right for you."
Nia Tipton is a writer living in Brooklyn. She covers pop culture, social justice issues, and trending topics. Keep up with her on Instagram and Twitter.