While overseas, my (34F) long-distance fiancé (46M) broke off our engagement. I already spent $ on visa fees to move in with him, and now my work visa in my host country is about to expire.

*tl;dr—Am I the problem? Fiancé broke off the engagement citing not wanting another kid, cultural differences, and relationship expectations*

This has been a tough 24 hours.

I’m currently doing a 2-day solo trip after spending 10 days with my fiancé in Europe. We had fun for the most part, until it wasn’t.

We got engaged in August this year. We’ve been together for 6.5 years, and only long distance in the past 2.5 years.

Since August, this month was the next time we could meet. I live in NY, he lives in London. We try to see each other every 3 months. The plan was for me to move to London as soon as my UK visa is issued. I’ve spent roughly $3200 of my own money to apply, with the agreement that he will cover half of the costs.

During this recent Europe trip, I would be making some comments or start small talk when we’re together and he never responds. And after 10 times of repeating myself, he would shout “I heard you! I don’t have anything to say!” This happened several times.

I blew up and said I can’t believe I’m repeating myself. I haven’t seen him in a while and I just wanted to start some face-to-face conversation, even if it’s about something mundane. He said I wanted attention so much.

1. Then one night last week, he said he cannot get married to me because I expect too much of him. Like how whenever I say I love you, he accuses me of wanting him to say it too. Of course I do, but it’s never forced. He also never said it during the entire 10 day trip. As a relatively newly engaged couple, I thought that was weird.

2. Another reason he pointed out was our cultural difference. I’m from a Southeast Asian country and he’s English. When my parents are unable to take care of themselves, I’ll be expected to support them. I made it clear that I won’t be asking any support from him to do this when we’re already married.

3. And probably the biggest one—when he proposed to me, he knew full well that I wanted to have a kid. At least one. He agreed to that. I was ready to break it off last year when this topic was something he was so against of. Before he proposed, he said he was okay with having a kid with me. Now he says he’s too old and it will cost a lot.

Note that he has a kid of his own from a previous marriage, which is the biggest factor why he feels like he cannot raise another child (financially and physically)

I returned the diamond ring to him yesterday and told him he should decide if he really wants to break it off. I said “give me the ring again if you want to marry me” — and he didn’t.

He said he didn’t like how me telling him what I wanted made him feel stupid. He said I made him feel like everything he did was wrong. He kept saying this over and over again. And I have apologised several times to say it wasn’t my intention, I was just communicating how I wanted to be loved.

I fully acknowledge that we have some differences. But I thought they were all reconcilable since we’ve lasted this long. What sucks is we just co-bought a startup company as a side hustle (equal equity, but I do more work on it because of my skillset). My grandma, who raised me, also just died last week. I was not yet over with grieving that—All this with my visa situation makes me feel like I’m being abandoned at a very inopportune time.

I’m very hurt about all of this. But at the same time, I just don’t know how to claw myself out of this predicament right now.