Saying 'I Do' When You’re Not 100% Sure

A series unpacking the messy, beautiful struggles of committing to crazy big life choices

I considered walking away from getting married.
Not because I didn’t love him.
But because committing to forever was the most emotionally intense thing I’ve ever done, and I was wildly unprepared for it.

So, instead of a gushing anniversary post marking one year of marriage, I’m starting a series about what it actually felt like to make such a crazy big life-altering decision.

Because the older I get, the more I feel I’m being asked to choose paths that seem permanent. Buy the house. Get married. Have the baby.

And while in these moments we’re often expected to be purely joyful, for me they’ve always been mixed: part excitement, part serious, terrifying panic.

Honestly, I don’t know how we’re meant to make decisions in our thirties that will last until we die… but somehow we do.

Illustration by @imogenmarycreative (the author)

The lead up to my wedding was the hardest period of my life, and that is so hard to admit. I thought that if I shared my worries, people would question whether I loved my then-fiancé or not. So I kept quiet. Which is very unusual for me.

But the truth is I felt alone. I felt like something was wrong with me.

We still romanticise marriage like a fairy tale. The dress. The rings. The honeymoon. But we rarely talk about the fear and uncertainty—the parts that creep in even when you’re choosing something you genuinely want.

We ask brides, “What shade of tan are you going for?”
But not, “How are you feeling—really?”

A year later I realise there was never anything wrong with me, or my relationship. I was just dealing with the weight of a commitment for life.

And when you put it like that, no wonder I was so scared?

If you’ve never been engaged, or if marriage feels a million miles from your life, stick around anyway. This series isn’t about wedding planning. It’s about identity. Freedom. Love. Life choices. And that voice inside us that constantly wonders:

What if I’d chosen a different path in life?

That’s what this is really about. Not flowers or shoes but the big, messy stuff underneath it all. The things we’re afraid to say out loud, like:

• What happens to your identity when you become a wife

• Why commitment can feel like both safety and suffocation

• Our obsession with the other paths we could’ve taken in life

• Mourning the old versions of ourselves

• The unbearable confusion of uncertainty (and how that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re making the wrong choice)

• How the hell anyone is supposed to make a life decision at 30 and still feel good about it when they’re 90

• And the reality of having sex with just one person, for the rest of your entire life.

Because I was so sure I wanted to get married. Until I wasn’t.

So without further ado, shall we begin?

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A Dream Come True… Until It Wasn’t

Getting engaged was supposed to be the pinnacle of my life. If there’s any point at which I’ve actually managed to channel manifestation, then it was in the lead-up to the proposal. I imagined it every night when I went to bed, and every morning when I woke up.

I pictured it happening on holiday, on a beautiful balcony overlooking a lake. My partner would be down on one knee, reciting an emotional, heartfelt, lengthy speech about how damn incredible I was.

I was someone who thought I’d get married later in life (I was 29 at this time). I thought I’d focus on my career first. But I couldn’t hide the young Imi coming out, who could direct you to the best YouTube videos of surprise proposals — not just any, bog-standard ones but the most emotional, stunning, and tear-worthy. This was what she was building up to, and no amount of ‘independent woman’ vibes could mask her one true desire, which was to get the fairytale, and marry her Prince Charming.

Sure enough, the manifestation worked because there I was, March 2023, with a diamond ring on my finger.

What an achievement! I thought. I was ecstatic. My dreams had come true.

I walked around with the biggest smile on my face, so proud of my new status as fiancée and you can bet that I got straight into wedding planning.

The day after getting engaged, I showed my partner a shortlist — ok fine, it was a spreadsheet — of wedding venues. Call me crazy, but I needed us to get going if we were to secure a 2024 date. I’m a planner, and what better project to pour myself into than the greatest life event of all time: my own wedding.

Within a month, the venue was booked. Guest list complete. Save the dates sent. All suppliers confirmed. Wedding dress found. I was ready, set, go, all the way to the altar, 14 months later.

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When The Doubt Creeps In

About six months before the big day, something awful and wildly unexpected happened. I realised I wasn’t 100% certain that I wanted to say yes.

What. The. Hell.

It wasn’t one major turning point, more a series of small things, questions that built up. One thing was for sure, they all led to one thing:

What if I didn’t actually want this?

When people asked me if I was excited, how the planning was going, what I was doing for my hen, exclaiming that I was “getting married soon!!!” — my stomach would twist. I’d get the same anxiety I had before a big job interview or a client meeting. I’d start to sweat. I wouldn’t know what to say back, because I just couldn’t sit there and fake excitement when I was a chaotic mess inside.

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Googling Divorce Costs on the Bus

I started playing out scenarios in my head, about what would happen if I did call it off. I calculated the money we’d already spent and what we’d lose.

One day on the bus home from work, I googled how much a divorce costs.

I began to gravitate towards people who felt like freedom, excitement. My mission was suddenly to make the most of my independence. I went out lots, drank lots, and flirted a lot more than usual.

I began to feel like the world’s most awful person. Everyone was so over the moon for me — so why was I so afraid? I even withdrew from friends, too scared to reveal how lost I felt inside.

I couldn’t bear another question on my shoes, or my hair, when the biggest question of all was hovering over my head:

Do I go through with this?

I immersed myself in stories of people who were breaking up, engaged but didn’t go through with it, or divorced before 30.

I wasn’t just curious, I needed proof that walking away didn’t make you broken. Or, just that I was justified in being scared.

Everything felt like the universe was trying to tell me not to do it.

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Freedom vs. Forever

I did want my then-fiancé but at the same time, I wanted something else.

All through my twenties, I was adamant that I would carve out my own path. I didn’t want my identity to be tied to a man, or to be defined by doing exactly what was expected of me and tradition, and marriage felt like the most conventional path of them all.

I was only 30, but many friends were already married, talking about houses and babies and moving out of the city.

I remembered one married friend who had talked about nothing else in the lead-up. Her entire life was the wedding. I have no idea who she was outside of that.

And I had seen first-hand how the very minute you get married, people expect the well-trodden path of other life milestones. It felt so predictable. I felt almost cliché.

And so despite trying to forge my own way for my entire life, being engaged suddenly felt like I’d ended up exactly where I was expected to be. That terrified me.

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Wife. Or, A Role I Didn’t Recognise Myself In

Suddenly, I felt like I was signing my life away, and well and truly placing myself onto the path of no return. Of no freedom.

My entire identity and existence would become: wife.

The thought made me panic.

In my office, people started to guess my age as a few years older than I was. In my workplace before, they always guessed it as younger. Someone told me it was because I was getting married. Imagine the horror on my face?

Marriage meant you are old. You are grown up. And I felt so, so far from grown up. I didn’t want people to think I was grown up!

And I didn’t want to be labelled as conforming to society’s expectations. I didn’t want to lose myself.

Was I about to sacrifice my identity for a label?

It felt like I was stepping into a Jane Austen novel — where the story ends the moment you get married.

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What I Know Now

You might be glad to hear that I did, in fact, say yes. If you’ve read any of my other Substack pieces, you’ll know that I speak about my husband a lot, with genuine love, care, and commitment (I hope?!).

And I did stand at the altar, and smiled and giggled my way through our vows.

But jeez was I a mess in the lead up.

I now realise that committing to someone is of course going to trigger a lot of panic in some people. It’s a massive life decision, and the brain understandably spirals.

But the worst part of it was that I didn’t think anyone would get it.
There was just so much “you should be so excited” energy, that I didn’t want to disappoint anyone.

And all the time, the same question was circling in my head:

How do I know that I’m doing the right thing?

Now, a year later, I look back and think — wow. You were a complete and utter mess, girl. Dramatic, chaotic, emotional. But also, totally understandable. I want to give her a hug and say everything will be okay.

And sometimes, it’s through the hardest moments that we learn the most about love, freedom, and what really matters.

My engagement was one of the most painful periods of my life. But I’m glad I went through it, because it makes how I feel now all the sweeter.

And I write this series because maybe, if someone else is sitting in that same quiet panic, afraid to admit it out loud, feeling alone — then they'll know they’re not broken either. I was there, and I got through it. And now I have a lovely, handsome husband. Happy days!

Next up: I’ll be deep diving into the identity questions that come with marriage, what it means for you as a person and a couple and perhaps most importantly, what I’ve learnt about the incredible parts of becoming a wife.