DEAR EMILY,

I was a 24-year-old bride-to-be when my fiancé suddenly dumped me last month. It was to have been a June wedding, but we’d been bickering over the details.

I wanted a church wedding with all family and friends present; he wanted a civil rite in City Hall with just our immediate family and witnesses. He wanted no friends as it would entail more expenses. He thought a wedding dress, flowers, etc. were a complete waste of time and money.

What’s important is life after the wedding, he said. I decided to agree to his wishes to keep the peace, though I truly wanted every woman’s dream—a traditional church wedding.

Next problem: our extended family and friends. Most of them complained when they heard my fiancé’s simple plans, and here came the tampo from every corner.

When my father told him that if he couldn’t give me my dream wedding, how would he be a good husband, my fiancé blew up and told my parents to mind their own business since it was we who were getting married and other people should not interfere with our wedding plans. Then everything turned ugly.

When we spoke two weeks later, he broke off the engagement, called off the wedding and demanded that I give back our engagement ring, which belonged to his late mother. I couldn’t believe we broke up over this. Our three-year relationship went down the drain.

I want him back. I love him so much, but he won’t speak to me, he won’t answer my calls or text messages, and even had me blocked on Twitter and Facebook. Does that mean our three years together mean nothing to him? I’m a mess right now.

—The Dumped Bride

It was not an overnight decision on your fiancé’s part to break up with you. Clearly it took some time to get there—till he couldn’t take it anymore! While he was looking at the whole picture and your life together way beyond the wedding, you could only see the landscape till the end of your nose.

Your family and friends were all concurring with your dream of a scenario, which costs money; he was standing all alone by his principles. He saw how your father, who should have acted as the bastion of maturity among the young unthinking people around him, even insulted your fiancé’s integrity.

While you’re just dreaming of the fun, excitement and glitter of a traditional wedding party, which would have entailed thousands of hard-earned money, this man wanted to start a life with you immediately without the encumbrances of debt, which could lay out a strong foundation for a marriage.

Unless you have piles of cash to burn, have your own place to go home to after spending for a dream wedding, then go ahead. But if you have to return to either of your parents for shelter afterward and still pay up the traders involved in the ceremonies, doesn’t that exonerate your fiancé’s decision?

I would break up with you myself, after seeing your low level of maturity and your limited perspective, which should have been the gauge for a strong marriage.

It would be better to wait for that someone who’d give in to your whims and who thinks like you and your family. That type may be more suited to your mindset.

You’ve let a man with integrity slip through your fingers. You may win him back by returning his mother’s ring—for starters, with lots of apology—and lessen any more bad blood that may have started to gel between the two of you. Give him a long time to think things over. Make him know you again.

And prove your maturity. By saying sorry over and over. By really seeing his practicality and telling him that. He was in love with you once. Who knows?

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