People who have ended their engagements and decided not to go through with their wedding have revealed why they took the big step.

We spoke to five people who confessed their reasons for ditching their partner before the big day.

She wouldn’t take my surname

Haider said his fiancée’s refusal to change surname was the catalyst to break his engagement. 

“She was making such a big deal over this one issue. She thought it would mean she was being submissive to me or something.

“I saw a whole different side to her over this issue.

“She thought she was being independent, but it came across as stubborn and spoilt.

“Everything had to be her way or she would throw a tantrum.

“If she is behaving like this during the engagement period it will only get worse after marriage, so I ended things.”

She refused to live with my parents

Nadeem spoke about the change in stance of his fiancée as they approached the wedding date.

“Before we got engaged she was so obliging.

“I told her I want to live with my parents because they are old, and she was happy to do that.

“She had even picked out colours to do up the bedroom.
“But as we got closer to the wedding, she said she didn’t want to live in the house because my younger brother lives there too.

“Then she said he should move out. Then she said my parents and brother should move out so we could live in the house. 

"I can’t abandon my family for my wife. I was honest about the living conditions from the very beginning. 

“In the end I had to pick my family.”

He hid the fact that he had a child already

Ms Patel said that her fiancé concealed the fact that he had a child from a former relationship and she only discovered this when she saw him in a park with the child.

“Everything was going fine with our preparations for the wedding.
“I thought I knew him really well- we had been dating for a year before the engagement. Never once did he mention a child to me.

“It was by chance that I was taking my niece to the park when I saw him with a child who was calling him ‘daddy.’

“I don’t mind him having a child with his ex-girlfriend and I would have been happy to be in that child’s life, but his lies were what ultimately ended our relationship.”

His family re-used tea bags and served cake using their hands

Hina said the dining etiquette of her future in-laws was the defining reason for ending her engagement. 

“Our families had met a few times before the engagement, but it was always in a restaurant or at our house.

“When we went to their house after the engagement we were horrified.
“They re-used the same teabag for three different cups of tea.

“When the cake was served, his mum broke a piece off with her hands and placed it in my mum’s dinner plate after she had finished eating. They didn’t even bother with a fresh plate.

“They expected my mum to eat cake with salan on it. The next day my parents rang them to end the engagement.”

They borrowed a relative’s car to pretend it was theirs

Nisa revealed her engagement ended after her family discovered her fiancé’s family had borrowed a relative’s car and house to pretend it was theirs to give the façade of being more wealthy. 

Nisa said, “When they would come to our house they would arrive in a really expensive car.

“We had no reason to question it. 

“Who asks an uncle or aunty if they own the car they drive? 

“My engagement ring I later discovered was actually an imitation but at that stage I wasn’t even surprised.

“When we went to their house, or the house they claimed was theirs, it was weird, because they couldn’t find anything in the kitchen.

“There were photos of other people in them. They didn’t know how to turn on the TV. I asked my fiancé upfront if this was his parents’ house.

“He was living in a flat with a friend so I had never seen his house before.

“He admitted that the house and car belonged to a relative.

“We walked out of the house there and then and ended things.”