"I've called off two engagements in the last three years. I pushed for marriage when deep inside I knew they weren't the right one for me."

As a Senior Staff Writer at BuzzFeed, I cover real-life stories that explore relationships, lifestyle (including travel and beauty), and the internet's most fascinating trends.

Note: Some submissions were pulled from these Reddit threads: 1, 2, 3, 4. 

"Ten years later, I was engaged to someone else. She lived with me. We were house shopping. She was working with my real estate agent, and I gave them a budget (which was significantly higher than the average home price in a good area of my city). She kept wanting to see houses way over budget and literally told my agent to ignore my budget 'because I’m being cheap. I will convince him.' The agent told me. I couldn't see her the same way and fell out of love after because I kept noticing more and more 'bridezilla' behavior coming through."

"She very quickly realized how inappropriate that attitude was, and it was good for quite a few months after, but we just could not find common ground on what I feel are very reasonable judgments."

"Honestly, it ended up for the best because if he had gotten married, they most likely would have divorced, and it would have caused more heartbreak."

"The second time round, my fiancée and her parents turned out to be out of their minds. They fought with my family over every decision about how the wedding would be held. Her parents told her all sorts of exaggerated versions of their conversation with my family, which I knew weren't true.

My biggest realization after the above incidents was that I was trying too hard to rush into a marriage with strict timelines. I pushed for marriage when deep inside I knew they weren't the right one for me."

"I was devastated, but we both said we would go through with it. Then, about a month before the wedding, we got into a big fight. Her family wanted to invite some family friends to the rehearsal dinner, which had already grown into a full-blown deal, as all the aunts and uncles on both sides wanted to come. It was at that point I decided to call it off. It was so embarrassing and painful, but my parents were supportive. We tried to stay together, but it was definitely over."

"He slammed the wall with his fist, and she stepped aside. My dad went downstairs, where her mother and the other women were, picked up his hamster (I have no idea why my dad would bring his pet hamster to a wedding shower), told her mom she might need to go upstairs and check on her daughter, and walked out of the house carrying the hamster under his arm. A few months later, he met my mom, and they've been married for over 30 years."

"He ran into her decades later, and she acted as if they were old friends." 

"The mistake we made was getting engaged before we knew we had those skills — before we were ready. We gave ourselves a long engagement with the idea that we'd have time to figure out those skills before the big day finally came. But we didn't realize that it put a timer on our relationship, which essentially turned it into a time bomb. When the day came, we were either going to be ready or we were going to have a very bad time."

"To be fair, I think it was probably a good thing. The guy had gotten engaged after a year of dating, given up meat for his fiancé, and pretty much dropped off the face of the Earth since he started dating her. Whenever I suggested that rushing into getting married was a bad idea, he would tell me, 'Sometimes when you know, you just know.' I guess sometimes when you know, you still don't know."

"I was one of his groomsmen, so instead of him saying his vows, we all took him out onto the town while in tuxes. It was still a pretty depressing night out, and he was pretty torn up about it for months."

"I knew that if we had gotten married, either I would've gotten what I wanted (we would have waited for kids, and she would have resented me), or she would've gotten what she wanted (we would have had kids, and I would have resented her, PLUS we would have a kid or kids that we were unprepared to take care of). I still miss her every day, though, and always wonder if I made the right decision."

"The situation was just too difficult, though; we had nothing in common other than our daughter. Before long, she was again verbally and psychologically abusive to me, but having never been treated like that, I didn't understand what I was doing wrong. I began seeing a therapist, who helped me realize that I wasn't in a healthy relationship. Finally, after an argument in which she threatened me with physical violence, I knew that things were just too toxic to continue. I definitely looked like the bad guy, but I had to make the best choice for the futures of all those involved. The most difficult part was coming to the conclusion that having this situation continue around my daughter would actually be worse for her than us being apart."

"We bought our house during the mortgage bubble, and now I'm stuck with an underwater mortgage on a house that's lost 50% of its value. I also still have the ring. It's been almost five years, and I'm still not sure what to do with it."

"She found this all out when he had a stroke and died, and another wife showed up at the hospital. In the end Mom lost everything, and now she lives with me."

"After the conversation, I was stunned for a moment. I felt empty but emotionless. The next thing I remember is walking back to my computer on the sales floor and changing passwords to important accounts. I told my manager that I had to leave. My reason? I wasn't getting married anymore, sir. It was good enough. After I got out, I went and talked to the priest. Told him the wedding was most likely not going down. Called the reception hall. That guy was pissed because I was supposed to write him a check the next day. Lost the deposit, though.

"I met up with the maid of honor, another bridesmaid, and a friend. They took her out to dinner to stall/confront her about everything while I tried to move as much stuff out of the apartment as I could. I had help from a friend. Filled up my car and drove to my parents' house. My mother was shocked but happy because she hated my fiancé. She called when she got back, but I didn't answer. Didn't even talk to her for a few days. In hindsight, I could see all her lies. Some things seemed a little unbelievable, but she was always able to back it up when I started to get curious. I dodged a huge freaking bullet."

"After a whole week of not thinking about her or missing her in the slightest, I realized that this was not the person I could spend the rest of my life with. She was not my best friend, and a lot of the impetus for both moving in with her and proposing was pressure from her to do so. I still care about her and want her to be happy; I just knew that I couldn't be the one to do so. It was a tough breakup because there was a lot of emotion from her side. She wasn't willing to accept that I wasn't happy in the relationship, and although she offered to work to make things right, I felt the relationship had run its course. I moved out a couple of weeks ago, and I couldn't be happier!"

"She left me a few days after Valentine's Day, saying I wasn't ready because I didn't have my career in order and couldn't be mature enough to stop my hobbies because they were childish (going to concerts, playing darts at the pub with my dad, etc.). I was confused and broken. A few weeks later, she started seeing other guys and going to clubs piss-drunk, but she still tried to convince me there was hope for us once my life 'was on track.' After I came home from a summer job as a camp counselor, I told her that it was completely over (even though she left me first)."

"During that year, I was stationed at the submarine base in Bangor, Washington, and she was 2,400 miles away in Cincinnati with that POS rich boyfriend hounding her daily. It really took a toll on me. I had many sleepless nights imagining the worst. I didn't give up, though. A few months before we were scheduled to relocate to Submarine Squadron 1 in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, I took a chance and drove to Cincinnati. I convinced her to come back to Bangor with me and made the trip through the Southwest and then back up the California coast along the Pacific. It was as much like a honeymoon as I could make it on my limited salary, and it was memorable. By the time we reached Washington, Mount St. Helens had erupted. We were on the highway about 40 miles from it when it blew. The sky just turned black, and the mud flows washed out the bridges north of us. We were rerouted along the coast and finally made it to Bangor. She had to return to Cincinnati, but this time it was with the plan to return to Washington. When she flew back, we eloped with a justice of the peace. That was almost 33 years ago. We have three sons, and we couldn't be happier. Our boys are all grown up, and I'm not far from retirement. Marrying her was the best, smartest thing I ever did."

Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.