Partner in Denial

LegacyUser

I no some might see this as fit to be posted in the weddings forum but its a personal issue to me too...
Partner and i are due to be married later in the year , obviously there is a lot of cost involved to be honest my father is giving us a hand and i sold my car so we would have some money but my partner hasnt done a thing , all he does is complain about where we will get the money but he doent actually do anything about it . Ive asked him to see if his side of the family are helping us out any bit but that was months ago and i still dont no if they are or not.. i have suggested he get a top up loan or ask his parents or even getting an advance on the money my father is lending us but he just wont do anything ... is he just being a complete lazy ass or what ??? if i bring it up he gets annoyed like im nagging . i cant win...
any advice ?

dudara

Perhaps he might feel that you are spending too much money. Personally, I wouldn't sell my car to finance my wedding. What do you think? Are you spending too much?

LegacyUser

No not at all , everything is being kept to a minimum. I was upgrading my car and was getting another loan anyway so i just sold my car privately and kept the cash for the wedding .... it wasnt an expensive car i got 3,500K for it ...which now i have to use towards the honeymoon cause he wouldnt book it and i had to pay the deposit on our wedding rings... he seriously hasnt given me a penny for anything to do with the wedding ...

John Mason

Maybe he doesnt like the idea of getting into debt for the sake of a party.

I think you should be downscaling your wedding to fit your budget. Do you really want to start married life in debt to your family and your in-laws?

dudara

zonk! wrote: »

which now i have to use towards the honeymoon cause he wouldnt book it and i had to pay the deposit on our wedding rings... he seriously hasnt given me a penny for anything to do with the wedding ...

It might be time for a serious sit down and talk with your fiance. Ask him if he actually wants to get married?

For the sake of background, how long have you been together, how long have you been engaged, and what ages are you?

helimachoptor

Op you shouldnt be getting into debt for your wedding.

do you not have a joint account that you pay for things with?

Me and the missus have a joint account that pays all joint bills and some of hers and some of mine.

John Mason

why did you have deposits for wedding rings? why did you not just buy them in agros or somewhere like that if you havent got the money to pay for them. Surely it is the sentimental value that counts and not the Monetary value ?

I think maybe it is you that is in denial

LegacyUser

Have you asked him what type of wedding he wants? I know I was very happy to be getting married, but dreaded the thoughts of both The Big Irish Wedding and the The Big Irish Wedding Debt. Fortunately my fiancee thought the same way, so we had a small wedding with no debts after the honeymoon.

On the other hand if he wouldn't even help pay for the rings (one of the very few not-really-optional parts of a wedding) questions need to be asked.

Puffin

As others have touched on- did you jointly set a budget for the wedding? And if you what what was the arrangement about who that was going to be reached?

milod

zonk! wrote: »

No not at all , everything is being kept to a minimum. I was upgrading my car and was getting another loan anyway so i just sold my car privately and kept the cash for the wedding .... it wasnt an expensive car i got 3,500K for it ...which now i have to use towards the honeymoon cause he wouldnt book it and i had to pay the deposit on our wedding rings... he seriously hasnt given me a penny for anything to do with the wedding ...

Sorry but it seems to be you that's in denial. The upshot of the car explanation is that you are borrowing to pay for your wedding. Instead of trading in and borrowing less, you sold the car and borrowed more - hey presto a wedding loan!

Your partner is either consciously or subconsciously trying to send you a message. It doesn't matter what size your wedding is if you can't afford it!!

A honeymoon is not a necessity, especially if 3.5K is only towards it...

You need to have a think about whether you can actually afford a wedding. If the marriage part is essential, go to a registry office and have a piss up afterward - or else wait until you can afford it and save in the meantime...

kayos

Personnaly the money aspect of a wedding always makes me wonder. For me a wedding is a day for those that are getting married and of course close family. I never see the point in people going out and borrowing just to pay for a party.

Now I dont know the costs of a weddding these days, location, number of guests etc all go into it. But still 3.5K from your car is a big chunk of money. Why the hell are you borrowing on top of that and the money you should have saved to pay for a wedding and will be recieving from family? If you dont have the money saved then you can not afford it or did not plan the wedding with the foresight to save for it. Surely saving up to buy a home would be more important and not to mention a more worth while cause for getting in debt. A mortgage is a fact of life (unless you where born with a silver spoon in your mouth), borrowing to pay for a wedding is needless over spending. I've seen a couple that borrowed for a lovely wedding and are still not out of that debt and the relationship has been very strained as a result.

But all the above is just in relation to the costs. Your main question is more as to why he is not helping out. Well that is somethign we can only guess at. Maybe he is getting cold feet?
Maybe the idea of spending the deposit for a house on the wedding is insane to him?
Maybe he just wants a small wedding?

If he is complaining about where you will get the money, my money(excuse the pun) is on the fact the costs are out of hand and he just can not deal with breaking your heart by saying downsize! Lets face it here folks the female of the species have generally been brought up with more importance on the "fairytale wedding". I would dread saying to any woman no you can not have the wedding of your dreams, it costs to much! That will most likely end up in the "if you loved me" opener!

Any way I think the main thing that strikes me is your asking a group of strangers how to talk to your future husband! This is the person you are planning on spending the rest of your life with. Honestly you should be talking to him about this.

LegacyUser

Its not that he doesnt get involved in the organising of the wedding its the financial side he just seems to draw a blank with me on.
we have set our budget , we dont have a joint account and the loan i got was to do with a re mortgage i did on an apartment i currently have rented out. so how does that make me out to be in denial exactly ?
This is not a huge wedding and i certainly havent gone overboard on anything , im making my own invitations and hand books for the church, the rings we got made cause it was cheaper, we're getting presents of the flowers , the wedding car, the photographer and my wedding dress.....
Is anyone gonna help me with advice on how to approach this with my fiance or are you all just gonna assume im in denial and requesting a massive wedding and being really demanding ?????

LegacyUser

Can i also ad that we decided on this wedding together , from how many guests to the hotel to every thing to do with it , it wasnt me wanting a "fairytale wedding" .
I wanted to get different opinions before i speak to my future husband i didnt say i wasnt going to talk to him...
I am hoping for ideas on what people think could be going through his head , he has said that we go 50-50 on everything ( we always have since we met) yet im paying my 50 in relation to the wedding - he isnt ....

LegacyUser

I don't think it matters what you spend - as long as you're both in agreement that (A) you can afford it and (B) it's what you both want.
My fiancée and I are getting married in 6 weeks and the wedding's costing us £26k sterling but that's not a problem because we sat down from the very start and discussed exactly what we both wanted, who we wanted there, where we'd get money from etc. The cost isn't going to cripple us - both sides of the family are helping out and we got a loan for what we're paying for which will be paid off in two years.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is this - neither of us are in the least bit concerned about the money situation with our wedding because we discussed it from the very start and came to an agreement on every single point of the budget. That's what you've got to do - Excel Spreadsheets are your friend, believe me!!

dudara

OP: Boards has been troublesome today, and mods don't spend all their time here, so sometimes there are delays in approving unregistered posts.

You really need to sit down and talk to him. Asking strangers on the internet is not a route I'd recommend for serious issues. While we may be able to offer some advice, the only way to deal with it is to talk to him yourself.

He seems to have some mental block about the finances of the wedding. Prepare everything in a spreadsheet (or equivalent) and sit him down to talk about it. Ask him if he is OK with it. Get a conversation going.

dymondz

Have either of you gone on on a marraige course?

This shows you both cant sit down and work out a problem or deal with money matters. Not a good start!

LegacyUser

Sorry Dudara , i thought it was cause of something i wrote thats all .

We have gone through the spreadsheets, we have accounted for every penny , this is why im so confused because now its crunch time and he isnt being very forth coming with the finance issues.

Im not looking for answers i do realise its a serious issue but i posted because i was curious of other peoples points of view .

But it just seems that most here are very quick to judge me without taking into consideration my circumstances.

LegacyUser

dymondz wrote: »

Have either of you gone on on a marraige course?

This shows you both cant sit down and work out a problem or deal with money matters. Not a good start!

Sorry , i forgot every relationship in the world is perfect except ours . How will we ever survive

please note that if you had read my posts , i said i am going to discuss it with him i just wanted to get my barrings first.

r3nu4l

Nice getting attacked by everyone when you ask for a bit of help isn't it? It could very well be that your fiancé is embarrassed at having to ask his family for cash, or perhaps he knows that they will simply not be able to get the cash together to help out?

Some guys feel like a failure if they have to reach out for financial assistance to family members, others do it without batting an eyelid and live their lives with the hand out to Mummy and Daddy.

The other thing to bear in mind is that while your fiancé may be comfortable with you asking for money from his folks, he may not be so comfortable asking from his because they may disapprove of the "extravagance" of needing a loan to pay for it! We had a traditional big Irish wedding (not over-the-top) but could afford it, if my parents knew how much it had cost they still would have tut-tutted a lot

You do need to ask your other half if he's comfortable with the cost of the wedding! Ask him if he's worried about it. Ask him if he asked his family for financial assistance. If not, why hasn't he, is there a problem? What's wrong? Don't get stroppy, just let him know that you want him to be happy and comfortable.

We organised 98% of everything and paid for 100% of our wedding ourselves. We organised it from England, flying back and forth to Ireland and rushing around at weekends trying to get a hundred things done at once. It was very, very stressful and while we didn't have financial worries (we have good jobs and saved a huge amount) I remember the strain. Could it be that your other half is just sick of the preparations? I know some evening when we got home from work the last thing we wanted to do was discuss preparations...so maybe leave your discussion until the weekend if possible, when he's more relaxed.

EDIT: dymondz is asking a valid question here. Is this symptomatic of his behaviour with other aspects of your life together? How have you gotten around problems before now. I'm constantly amazed by the number of people who seem incapable of sharing their problems/fears with their other halves.

ivorygal

Hi OP,

Firstly, congratulations on your forthcoming nuptials!

I echo the sentiments of others here, you need to take the bull by the horns here, take control and talk to your fiance about this.

What I would say is that you're very lucky that your family are in a position and are willing to help out in the financing of this wedding. To my knowledge most couples pay for there own weddings these days and it's not that common for parents/families to pay for their children's weddings. I know you suggested/asked your fiance could his parents help out - perhaps he's not comfortable with this. But listen, you'll never know unless you ask him. Sit down with him, be direct and ask him these questions straight out. You may not like the answers he gives you but you can't fix the problem unless you know exactly what it is.

Best of luck!

LegacyUser

OP I'm not having a go at you but I'm puzzled by what you're saying. You did plan your budget carefully, decide what was reasonable to spend and chose the hotel and so on together. You had your spreadsheet with the breakdown of the costs and presumably a bottom line total. Now, if you did this together, how could this not have involved a discussion on where this relatively large sum of money was going to come from? At the time this planning and booking was going on, did you say "well I can get 3,500 for the car and my dad has offered X, that still leaves Y for us to come up with" and he said... what? Nothing, at the time? And yet you went ahead and booked all the things that are going to cost all this money?

If you've always gone 50-50 on things before can you use this as a way of bringing it up, say something like "well this deposit of X is due, would you pay this one since I have already paid [whatever other expense]?"