Should you give a broken engagement a second chance?
With all the celebrities breaking up and getting back together lately, it seems like second chances are in the air. There’s no question that sometimes couples break up for the wrong reasons, and that the second time might be the charm. There are also times when the end of a relationship is for the best. Learn how to decide when to give a broken commitment a second chance.
Working at a bridal salon, I witnessed more than one broken engagement. Happily, I also saw some reconciliations. The best wedding planning advice in those situations is that if the marriage is meant to be, you will work out your differences and rekindle your romance. If that doesn’t happen, be glad you broke up before you got married. Better a broken engagement than a divorce or a bad marriage.
The couples who renewed their engagements were typically those who broke up because one of them was not ready to commit to marriage. Often they were younger, perhaps engaged people just out of college. It’s quite easy to get carried away with the excitement of bridal jewelry, wedding dresses and love and then start getting cold feet as the wedding day approaches. Sometimes it is very helpful to step back and gain some perspective on the situation. You might even realize that the relationship is right for you, just that things needed to progress a bit more slowly. That’s a situation where giving a broken engagement a second chance might be a good idea after some time has passed.
Some couples call off an engagement because they are working through things from their past or current traumas. The man who proposes to her shortly after learning that her girlfriend has a serious illness might discover that she is concerned that he pity-proposed. The same is true when a couple becomes engaged shortly after losing a loved one. Those doubts can start to set in and the person affected by the trauma pulls away. If the proposal was offered in the spirit of true love, not out of sympathy, this is a relationship that has a good chance of being saved. Time begins to soften the wounds and the couple begins to realize that they have always been together.
There are other relationships that should not be renewed. If you broke off your engagement because your fiancé was cheating on you, it’s best to make a clean break and move on. There’s no point in getting someone you don’t trust back, and by doing so, you could be sending the message that they can treat you badly and get away with it. Definitely not a good thing for a relationship! Other engagements break off as the man begins to realize that his fiancée is more interested in wedding trappings, like fancy dresses and sparkling bridal jewelry, than in being married to him. This again is a sign that the engagement should not be renewed.
Not everything is so clear cut when it comes to relationships. Sometimes a man and a woman are very different people. They can love each other passionately, but also have a lot of conflicts caused by their differences. If you broke up during an argument over something silly, there’s a chance the relationship could be salvageable. The real thing to decide is whether you are happier with the other person, despite your differences, or happier and more relaxed away from them. Distance and time will help you figure this out. Ultimately, only the two of you can decide when it’s right to give your broken engagement a second chance and when it’s better to go your separate ways.