Carolyn Hax: Costly wedding strains debt-ridden marriage
Q: I have been with my wife for nine years, married almost two. However, we got married in a small ceremony with just a couple of witnesses. She now wants a $45,000 wedding just so she can wear her wedding dress in front of her friends and family.
My family are not her fans and have actively asked me to leave her because of how expensive and attention-needy she is. I am in mountains of debt because of her, mainly because I want to support her and have difficulty saying no.
I need to cancel this wedding and don’t know how to break it to her. If I cancel, then she will probably leave me and I will be divorced again. Any advice?
— Suffering in Silence
A: “We need to cancel this wedding. It will cost us $45,000 when we already are in mountains of debt.” That is how you break it to her. With the facts, in your own words.
Or you listen to your family — they’re giving you good relationship advice, and you know it.
If you won’t tell your wife “no” in truth form or take your family’s good relationship advice, then please read up on the sunk cost fallacy instead and call it sound economic advice. Maybe that can shore up your resolve.
Right away, it will save you whatever part of the $45,000 is still refundable. And it will save you all the future costs of not closing that emotional can’t-say-no loophole, which I promise your wife can see right through, since she’s pulling money from it by the tens of thousands.
Seriously.
I am sorry about this. I am sorry to be the next person after your family to pile on.
But if your spouse is willing to exploit your emotional vulnerability for profit, to the point of geologic debt formations — then the marriage already is less a marriage than a failing business arrangement.
The proof is in your fear she will leave you for cutting off the luxury supply. Either she instilled this fear in you, ergo she is there only as long as you’re spending — or you merely infer it because you know the only thing holding you two together is the financial terms of your mutual dysfunction.
As the assigned browsing will tell you, the best thing you can do about either one of these problems is to stop sinking money into it and walk away before you lose any more. Take your pain now.
Maybe she will surprise you and not leave/keep bleeding you. But if she goes: Was paying her to stay really the life you envisioned for you?
Next step either way is the emotional work of closing the loophole. There is an inescapable law of relationships that can make suckers out of all of us, no matter who we are or how smart or influential: The moment we decide we HAVE to have someone and aren’t willing to walk away, no matter what they do, that person controls us.
I say it CAN sucker-fy us, not that it will. Sometimes the one we’ll never leave is a person of character who, when granted this power, has the decency and restraint not to cash in.
You gave your wife this power when “I’ll be divorced again” became your outcome to avoid at all costs. Meaning, you gave your wife permission to run up “all costs.” And lo, she got right on it.
More home economics: This will be your reality till you learn to say no (supply), choose people who won’t exploit you (demand) or both. I warmly encourage both.
• Email Carolyn at tellme@washpost.com, or chat with her online at 11 a.m. Central time each Friday at washingtonpost.com.
© 2025 The Washington Post