[lisaelise]

And I don't want one. I feel bad saying no, because he wanted a big wedding and we had a little shotgun thing with mostly a handful of strangers there and coffee/donuts. But, I just don't want a reception. I didn't really want to marry him anymore when we had our wedding, we'd been 'engaged' for two years already and things went very badly in those two years. So, by the time this shotgun wedding rolled around, I felt quite lackluster about the whole event. I write 'engaged' because we were never really engaged, no ring, no proposal, we moved in together and he said a 'well I guess we should get married then' and me saying 'i guess so'. Two years pass, no wedding plans, we just randomly had this shotgun thing out of the blue. No family or friends there. He insists he wants a reception now, with family, friends etc. I don't want it, I've been depressed about the whole wedding/marriage thing for years, and I don't really need or want any reminders of this. It's not that I'm not committed to him, I just don't want some big public spectacle where I have to pretend in front of family and friends that my husband and I had some great romance etc etc when it truly had been an endless nightmare from nearly the beginning. I don't need reminders of that, or anything else in our past. How can I explain this to him without hurting his feelings?

[Enema]

How long have you been married?

Do you want to stay married to him?

[lisaelise]

Yes I'm 100% committed to the marriage and would never consider leaving the marriage, there is much more than myself to consider (children). We have managed to work through many things and he has changed immensely from how he was in earlier years. It doesn't change that I don't want to remember the earlier years at all. But, it hasn't been that long, one year dating, two years common-law, 2.5 years married. It doesn't help that I consider the common-law the same as married, as far as I'm concerned we've been married 4.5 years, if you ask him, 2.5 years. The reason for the difference is to move to his area, I had to make a lifetime commitment at that time - I had to leave my well paying career, sell my homes, uproot and move my children a long distance. For him, there was little to no upfront committment needed - he had no home, or children or anything that he had to leave behind or change in order to move in together. So I made the marriage commitment at the time we moved in together. Apparently, he did not.