Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HELL NO. You "ran into each other". He didn't have some insane, tortured existence without you, realizing his mistake.

Hell.

No.

You can date him, but don't marry this man and DEFINITELY don't have kids with him.

+1B

Thanks for posting this and saying it better than I ever could. I was about to post my opinion a few days ago and got lazy.

+2 This is where I'm at.

Anonymous wrote:HELL NO. You "ran into each other". He didn't have some insane, tortured existence without you, realizing his mistake.

Hell.

No.

You can date him, but don't marry this man and DEFINITELY don't have kids with him.

+1B

Thanks for posting this and saying it better than I ever could. I was about to post my opinion a few days ago and got lazy.

HELL NO. You "ran into each other". He didn't have some insane, tortured existence without you, realizing his mistake.

Hell.

No.

You can date him, but don't marry this man and DEFINITELY don't have kids with him.

Anonymous wrote:No. He didn’t dump you while dating. He dumped you when he had committed to marrying you. No way would I trust him again. Fool me once and all that.

+1

No. He didn’t dump you while dating. He dumped you when he had committed to marrying you. No way would I trust him again. Fool me once and all that.

I broke off an engagement three times with a very lovely lady. It was a mistake, so I recited these very lines below to her and it worked! We are now engaged.

"I was a fool to ever leave your side
Me minus you is such a lonely ride
The breakup we had has made me lonesome and sad
I realize I love you 'cause I want you bad, hey, hey

I spent the evening with the radio
Regret the moment that I let you go
Our quarrel was such a way of learnin' so much
I know now that I love you 'cause I need your touch, hey, hey

Reunited, and it feels so good
Reunited 'cause we understood
There's one perfect fit
And, sugar, this one is it
We both are so excited 'cause we're reunited, hey, hey

I sat here starin' at the same old wall
Came back to life just when I got your call
I wished I could climb right through the telephone line
And give you what you want so you will still be mine, hey, hey"

Anonymous wrote:We dated for 3 years, then got engaged. After 8 months engaged, wedding date set, invitations about to go in the mail, he ended it. Said he just wasn't ready. I was HEARTBROKEN. Took me 4 months and then I gave him the ring back. HEARTBROKEN STILL. Fast forward 2 years later we run into each other, we are both single (both have dated a little since). We start seeing each other. We hit it off. It's now been another year and he says he's really ready now and wants to get engaged again. He still has the ring.

1. I LOVE HIM, never stopped loving him.
2. I'm scared!!! Can't go thru being dumped by him again.
3. It does feel different this time. He seems fully vested
4. The engagement ring is a bad memory for me. I don't want to put that ring back on my finger. Is it wrong to ask to exchange it for a different ring if I do agree to get engaged?

People get cold feet all the time. While waiting at the church for my wedding to start, I could stop thinking about getting the he'll out of there. There were 250 friends and family at a destination wedding and I was considering making a run for it. I have to believe he knows he can't do it again to you. He panicked, he looked around, he realized he fvcked up and he grew up.

As far as the ring, I think he'd understand. Rings don't usually lose value. You don't want to look at your finger and have a bad memory. I would be honest with him and tell him that it was the hardest thing you had been through and that getting over the broken engagement was so hard that you are shocked you are back in this position. However, you will always associate that ring with the first engagement. This is a new start and you feel like you need a different ring. It doesn't need to be better or more expensive, just different. He will hopefully step up and make it better to help you forget that ring ever existed but that's not something you should suggest. Also, if he does step up, you should bury that past hurt. There will be times down the road during a nasty fight where you want to raise it like a trump card. Don't. If you are going to put it behind you and move forward with your lives, you need to bury it, just like you need to put that ring in the rear window. Best of luck.

My now DH and I dated for just over a year and then got engaged. In retrospect, he was far more invested in getting married than I was. I was a bad fiancee - worried about every little problem as if it were somehow a sign of worse things to come. Eight months into the engagement, and about four months before the wedding, I gave him the ring back. I said I thought we weren't ready for marriage. Two months later, he broke up with me entirely.

We were apart for the better part of a year, but both ended up at the same event. We started talking, and I agreed to have dinner with him. We got back together, and he once again went straight to "let's get married." I was completely not ready, so he told me to let him know when I was.

Finally, after two more years of dating, I told him that I thought we would be better married than engaged. He went straight to his dresser and got my old ring, which he had kept. A few weeks later, we were married by a Justice of the Peace with just our immediate families in attendance. Then we went out for a fabulous, no expense spared meal.

It's been more than 20 years now, and we are very happy.

Be honest with him about your feelings about the ring. My husband dumped me many years ago. He bought a ring, was about to propose, got nervous and dumped me instead. Several years later we are happily married.

My DH dumped me a little while into our relationship essentially saying school came first and he wasn’t ready for something serious. When I started dating someone else semi-seriously, he got jealous and realized he’d made a mistake... so he said. I still loved him, so I decided to give him a chance. That was almost 15 years ago; a decade of marriage and 2.5 kids later (last one due on a few months), I’ve never regretted it.

I would not agree to marry him without couples counseling.

I think a new ring is reasonable.

I can also see how being engaged again would be stressful and bring up bad memories. For this reason I would suggest a courthouse marriage before you publicly announce your engagement. Then you can plan your wedding with friends and family without the stress.

I also agree that premarital counseling is a good idea to better communicate your emotions and needs. It’s completely normal and expected that you would be hesitant/anxious/stressed/etc it will feel good to talk it out.