I’m so torn and conflicted….

Have you ever called off an engagement but still stayed with a person?

If so how long after did things finally return to normal?

My girlfriend and I were planning to get married June 20th. We applied for a marriage license and had an officiant who was able to marry us. She is in the Navy and ended up on Watch for her duty section that weekend so we weren’t able to get married. Her weekends for Watch were back to back and we found out on top of it that the orders she had to PCS were pulled. We decided to postpone planning another date until after July 14th because she would have her orders by then.

I checked back with her on July 18th and she said she was still in selection for orders, Well, August 22, I mentioned to her I felt like she wasn’t ready and I respected it but wanted to know what caused her to change her mind about getting married. She said “I honestly don’t have a good answer for you. We were planning to and got off track and never picked up on it again. So it was just literally something I didn’t think about anymore.” I reminded her to checked with her in July to see if she’d gotten her orders. She said “if you respect it than why are you pushing it?”. So I explained that I’m trying to understand how she went from being so in love with me she was ready to marry me and make me her wife to being in love with me but not enough to marry me.

We haven’t talked about it at all since then and I’m just really struggling because everything about our relationship feels different than it did before. She used to tell me all the time how she wishes she could be with me everyday and that we could live together to “it is what it is” but then other days she’s super attentive and telling me how much she misses me and how she wishes the kissing emojis were real kisses. And how she wishes she were here with me. We live an hour apart right now and she works until 10:30 pm and I work until 9:00 pm so we see each other Thursday night to Sunday afternoon before she goes back to base provided her duty section doesn’t have watch.

Communication since we called off our plans to marry has been more strained with arguing more frequently and just in general not being able to see each other everyday complicates everything. From the day we met I knew she is the one for me. I have gone through so much in my life and never felt comfortable with anyone and from the first day we met, our first date wasn’t awkward at all. We talked like we had known each other our entire lives and she told me that before I’d even said it. She feels like home and I’ve never felt that with anyone in my life. We used to tell each other all the time that we hope in our next lives that our souls reunite sooner.

I’m really struggling with how we got from that to where we are right now. I want to talk to her about how I’m feeling but I don’t want her to feel like I’m trying to pressure her into taking that step either. I expressed fear. Especially when it comes to the navy and the real possibility that she could receive orders to leave in a day or week and us not having time to figure anything out. Plus just her possibly deploying and it hurts knowing if she does, she’s not coming home to me she’s coming home to her barracks.