I ended my engagement after my fiancée asked for a break to see if her ex still meant something to her. She thought I would sit and wait inside the life we had spent four years building — until three days later, her mother called me, and Tessa finally realized I was never her backup plan.

Then the cake. “We don’t have to decide that right now.”

Then the music. “Can we talk about that later?”

Everything we had once been excited about became something she wanted to postpone.

At the time, I told myself she was stressed. Wedding planning can overwhelm anyone. She had a lot going on with her freelance work, and I knew how draining it could be when clients treated revisions like a hobby.

I assumed she would snap out of it eventually. What I did not understand was that her lack of enthusiasm was not about the wedding. It was about us.

The first real slap came one night while we were out with friends. It was one of those casual Friday gatherings that turns into three hours without anyone planning it. A few of us had met up at a bar that served overpriced burgers in metal baskets and had old baseball pennants on the wall.