My fiancé dumped me after I got botox and fillers
How I was dumped is a Yahoo UK column in which anonymous writers share the shocking and heart-wrenching ways their relationship ended.
Sarah*, 29, underwent Botox and fillers to look her best for her wedding day, much to the horror of her fiancé...
Walking towards my front door, I caught a glimpse of myself in the glass and, despite the fact I didn’t have a scrap of make-up on, I felt good about my reflection.
But as I stepped inside our flat my fiancé, James*, 30, gave me a strange look.
"Have you had your lips done again?" he asked with a scowl.
"Yes!" I smiled, pretending to blow him a kiss.
Instead of smiling back though, James shook his head and looked at me disapprovingly.
And then out of the blue, he dropped a bombshell.
"I don’t think we should go ahead with the wedding."
I listened, in total shock, waiting for him to explain.
He sat silently at the breakfast bar, pausing for what felt like an eternity.
"You just don’t…" his voice trailed off.
"I just don’t, what?" I replied, wondering what on earth I’d done wrong.
The harsh truth
Perhaps I wasn’t funny or intellectual enough for James any more. He’d always told me he loved the fact I was top of my class at uni. Whereas he still constantly had his head stuck in a book, I struggled to find time for reading in between work, socialising and exercise.
"Well?" I said, nervously.
"I don’t know how to say it," he replied, turning red. "But you just don’t look natural enough any more."
'You just don’t look natural enough any more,' he told me.
We’d been through so much in our eight years together – his dad dying, us graduating from uni and moving into a flat together in a new city. I thought there was nothing we didn’t know about each other and our wedding was final confirmation we'd grow old together. Now suddenly, my whole future was shattered because of my appearance.
Admittedly, I did look different from when we’d first met at university. Back then, I didn’t even have the money to get my hair dyed, let alone to afford Botox.
Little tweakments
After graduating and getting my first job in marketing, we moved to Manchester and I started treating myself to a facial every few months at a clinic near our flat. When they introduced injectable treatments like Botox and fillers a few years ago, I tried Botox on my forehead first, then a small amount of filler in my lips. They said the Botox would help to prevent frown lines forming and I loved the way the fillers made my previously non-existent lips look plumper.
It was so subtle James hadn’t even noticed at first, but it really boosted my confidence. And now with our wedding just eight months away, I’d asked the clinic to put a little more filler in my lips this time to boost them further. I’d also had hair extensions to add extra thickness and a few more inches to my shoulder-length hair.
We’d always told each other everything. I couldn’t understand how he’d been secretly harbouring these thoughts, without saying a word.
Neither the filler or the Botox was extreme, so I couldn’t understand why James had such a problem with it. With tears streaming down my face, I struggled to speak.
"Not natural enough?!" I said in disbelief. "Why have you never mentioned this before?"
We’d always told each other everything. I couldn’t understand how he’d been secretly harbouring these thoughts, without saying a word.
As I looked at him standing there in his tatty jogging bottoms and faded t-shirt, unshaven and with a receding hairline, I told him in between sobs, "We’ve both changed over the years. I’ve never once criticised you for how you look, and if you really loved me, surely you would be happy that I was happy?"
"I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you," he said eventually.
"Didn’t mean to upset me!" I screamed, incredulous. "You’ve called off our wedding and it turns out I obviously didn’t really know you at all."
Calling off the wedding
I felt sick as I thought about all the wedding plans that needed cancelling and the fact that my soulmate was no longer who I thought he was.
I drove round to my mum’s house in a daze. She couldn’t believe that James had called off the wedding because of my 'tweakments' and after a lot of crying and a few glasses of wine, I started to feel that if James didn’t love me for how I wanted to be, maybe we were better off apart.
After eight years together, it was a huge blow and I felt like a failure having to tell all our friends that the wedding was off.
I felt sick as I thought about all the wedding plans that needed cancelling and the fact that my soulmate was no longer who I thought he was.
Clearing my stuff out of the flat meant packing away so many memories too – our graduation ceremony photos together, the framed nightclub flyer he’d given me in memory of the first time we'd kissed... Part of me would have done anything to turn back time and not go anywhere near the clinic.
But deep down I knew that wasn’t the answer. As the shock subsided, I started to feel angry with him for not telling me sooner how he felt.
It was the hardest six months of my life, but a year on I’m living with a friend and I’ve even met someone else. It’s early days so I don’t know if it will last, but he is constantly telling me how beautiful I am. He even gets Botox on his frown lines, so he definitely won’t judge me for wanting to look my best.
*Names have been changed to protect identities.
Read more: All of Yahoo UK's How I was dumped stories.
