I Canceled My Wedding

When I was 24, I canceled my wedding ten days before it was to happen. It was dramatic and it was emotionally wrenching. For a long time, I had a hard time talking about it. Whenever it came up, people would generally be supportive or sympathetic and I’d smile slightly with appreciation, but I winced at the same time. It took over ten years to get over my feelings of shame and guilt. It took me that long to look back on my actions with any amount of objectivity or compassion.  

Mark was my first boyfriend. I fell in love with him when I was a sophomore at Duke. He graduated from Duke a few years ahead of me and while he tried to figure out what he wanted to be when he grew up, he worked as a big rig driver with a local moving company called Truckin’ Movers. (I wrote about that in a previous column.) Looking back, I think he’d concur that our shared adventures on the road were the highlight of our relationship. He was adorable, odd, fun, and insightful. I was utterly in love with him.  

A year after my graduation from Duke, Mark and I moved together to California, where he had been accepted to law school. At the school’s new student orientation, one of the speakers offered the depressing statistic that most couples at the onset of law school were unlikely to stay together through graduation. We looked at each other. “Not us,” we scoffed. A few months later, we got engaged.  

While Mark attended law classes, I worked at a children’s theatre company. He studied diligently every night, and I attended rehearsals for roles I got in local plays. As I re-discovered creative expression through acting, Mark immersed himself in facts, logic and argument. His quirky humor and adventurous spirit gave way to a stoic and serious demeanor. I knew the rigors of law school were tough on him and I provided him with support and encouragement. Yet, I felt restless; I yearned to expand and explore. My life in the theatre arts was hard to share with Mark, because he was so immersed in studying and attending law classes. I could make excuses about our situation being temporary, but at the same time, I started thinking about the fact that he was my first and only boyfriend; that we were still young and finding our way. I loved him, but getting married suddenly felt like a bad idea.

Our wedding day was fast approaching. Plans had been made. I felt queasy, riddled with fear. He’d been my every thing for five solid years. What was I going to do? For the first time since we’d been together, I felt utterly alone, facing the world and my life head on. It was overwhelming, that thick gray fog of foreboding.

I called my mother. I beat around the bush, but she knew something was up. Eventually, I shared my feelings of apprehension. I tried to keep it light, but she detected that it went much further and she got to the heart of the matter. She made it simple and practical and real. “This is your life, Johanna,” she said. “You need to do what your heart dictates. It’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. Don’t go through with it if you’re not ready.” Her sympathetic and loving tone touched me deeply. She dared to present the option of a cancellation, as if it wasn’t a big deal. It had felt inconceivable, but with that simple declaration, I felt an opening that I knew I had to take. “It’s only money,” she said. “I think I can get deposits back, and if I don’t, it’s okay.”

I’m kind of embarrassed to admit this, but I hadn’t even thought about the deposits. These things were frankly the least of my concerns. The anxiety over my decision had nothing to do with money or with canceling scheduled plans. I barely even thought about the guests, actually. The only thing on my mind was Mark. How was I going to tell Mark. I was about to devastate the person I loved most. He was my best friend. My buddy.  

Time was ticking, but every time I pushed myself to say something, I got sick to my stomach and could barely open my mouth to talk. The wedding was less than ten days away, so the pressure was overwhelming. I was swimming in so much anxiety that I couldn’t eat. No one else was going to do this for me. I had to battle my overwhelming anxiety and speak up now.  

I pushed myself to speak after dinner one night. My entire body was shaking, but I pretended to be calm. “How are you feeling about the wedding?” I asked, when we were washing dishes. I was hoping he’d give me an easy out. “Fine,” he replied matter-of-factly. He looked at me. “Why?” he asked. I felt woozy. I wanted to just stop and take a really deep breath, but I continued to control my voice and sound calm. “Oh, I guess I’m just having those feelings people talk about.” From there it went. Second by agonizing second. “What feelings?” he asked. Oh God. “You know, second thoughts. Fear. Haven’t you had any?” I tried to ask innocently. “No,” he said. He couldn’t be making this any more difficult. I realized this was the moment when I had to pounce right in. Everything was out of sorts inside me, but a panicked conviction took over. It felt like NOW OR NEVER. I honestly don’t recall what I said. It’s like when you’re in an accident and you don’t remember the moment of impact. I remember rambling and mumbling and trying to temper my beating heart. He finally asked me the question: “Do you want to call it off?” It was a feeling of absolute relief, hearing the out I’d been wanting. This is when my memory kicks back in. Like the moment after the accident, when you “come to.” “Yeah,” I said, shaking, crying, apologetic.  

He was calm. He did not get angry or turn inside himself and brood, which was more common for him. Remarkably, his focus was on my own well-being. I guess my agony was palpable. 

We stayed up all night. It felt like we were on a hallucinogenic drug or living in a twilight zone. Our emotions were raw. We talked, we cried, we chain smoked, we held each other. When I finally fell asleep just before dawn, Mark stayed up. I awoke a few hours later to see him kneeling before me with a breakfast tray holding a five-page letter, a plate of food, and flowers. In the letter, Mark expressed his deep love for me and beckoned for me to give him another chance. It was like beauty and pain blended in a horrible and exhilarating cocktail. The horrible feeling of knowing this man loved me so much, and the awareness that I was still going to call it off, was horrid. And you talk about courage. His letter was an act of love that I will never forget. 

We separated for a while and eventually broke up. I moved to L.A. and started to make my living as an actor. He graduated and got hired as an Assistant D.A. in Palm Desert. Yet, we missed each other. We’d each seen other people and hadn’t found that connection. We began talking on the phone. After a few months, we began to visit each other on the weekends. Then, over the phone one night, he joked about becoming engaged again, and in a careless moment, I agreed. When I landed the role of Catherine in “A View from the Bridge” at Palm Springs Playhouse, I moved in with him. Yet there we were again; him in his world of proof and precedent, me in my world of creativity and catharsis. We had simply grown apart; we were moving in completely different directions. What we had in common, was our past.

The magic days of college and who we once were together was never going to come back. We called off our hasty second engagement and broke up; this time, we knew, for good. I moved back to L.A. and Mark started a private practice in San Bernardino. We stayed friends and talked on the phone. I didn’t say much about the guys I was seeing, but he’d share stories about the woman he was dating. I wanted him to be happy. I still felt shame and guilt for what I’d done.

When I found out that Mark and his girlfriend had eloped, I could physically feel the load of guilt lift from my shoulders. It happened on my birthday, too. I don't know that there was the slightest consciousness around that for him, but I couldn't help but feel it was somehow appropriate. Now, I felt like I could talk about that canceled wedding all those years ago. I was older now and many of my friends were married. What took me by surprise was how many of them said, “I wish I’d done that.” It was a revelation to me. I realized that it did take great courage; that it had been a pre-emptive strike. They were patting me on the back for something they wished they’d done themselves.

People will still pat me on the back when I tell them that I canceled a wedding. I do not regret the decision, but it’s nothing I care to celebrate. I learned a hard lesson. To thine own self be true; even when it’s excruciatingly hard and even, painful. I’ve grown a lot from that experience and I can tell you this: it’s worth it.