I've messed up my own game (Skyrim) Help!

Hi everyone. I'm not able to complete the marriage quest now because I went a little crazy and decided it would be fun to run around Skyrim getting "engaged" to any and all guys that I could find. Now I can sort of complete the ceremony (with the last guy I spoke to) but afterwards the dialog with him is not the "spouse" dialog, but just the housecarl dialog instead.

Now that I've messed things up though, I'm not sure how to fix them, and so I thought I'd post and see if anyone might know how I can get things back to normal so I can eventually "settle down" again?

(I've posted about this on some Skyrim forums but haven't heard anything yet, so I'm hoping someone will have an idea for me. I hate to start the game all over again or uninstall and then re-install it, which are the only ideas I've come up with so far)

Thanks so much you guys,
Tracy, who obviously needs a mod that lets you marry everyone you want so I don't mess my game up again

Thanks Tracy! That's a good warning to me not to get too carried away...

Tracy, I've never married anyone in the game. Do you have a saved game to go back to?

After reading how bad husbands were in this game I decided to remain single

Ha! I caught you, Tracy. You see this is all my doing. I warned you to stay away from my husband, but you didn't listen, so I sent a little hex your way! Har har har har

Annie !!!! How could you ????

Sharon--You're welcome! (I'm just getting to respond to you guys today-thanks for waiting!)

Looney--Hi there. Well I did go back to several different earlier saves, but the problem still seems to be there, darn it. That's what I get for not being willing to settle down w/ just one guy---LOL.

mcc-LOL!! I don't blame you! They aren't the greatest looking bunch, plus they won't go out of the house and work. What's up with that?

Annie-You naughty girl! I couldn't help it---Balimund's voice is just yummy and one day around the forge...well, you can guess the rest! But take off the curse, please! I promise that I'll end the relationship right away.

Mad-ROTFLOL!!!

Here's the notes from the Skyrim Wiki about marriage with some bugs addressed. Maybe this will help. I've had to use the console to correct several bugs in the game. It's always nice to have that choice for emergencies.

Notes:

As of the initial release, there are no Khajiit nor Bosmer characters that the player can marry (without using console commands on the PC version of the game).

If your spouse dies, you will not be able to remarry.
It appears that if you resurrect your spouse using the console then they are no longer married to you. You can still buy/sell merchandise, but other spouse dialog is not available and, if you moved them to your own house they no longer live there. [verification needed— see talk page]

Maramal says to meet back "tomorrow, from dawn til dusk". Technically this is incorrect; if you first asked him to host the wedding at 1 a.m., he will conduct it at 11 p.m. that night. Simply try waiting some hours (T) until Maramal begins his wedding dialogue.

Certain quest paths and character interactions can make the disposition quests for some potential spouses permanently unavailable. If you wish to get married to a specific character, do so as early as possible to minimize the risk of this. Additionally, most disposition quests are in a Radiant Group with similar quests, only one of which can be active at a time, so doing a favor for someone else may make your intended's quest unavailable until you complete the "blocking" errand.

If you are not sure what property a spouse has before marrying them, you can follow your spouse and find out where they usually sleep at night. If they always stay in the same bed, that is usually their property. Next, check if the chests and items near the bed are named in red, indicating that to take from them is stealing. Do the favors or quests required by the potential spouse and check the chests and items near the bed again. If they change from red to non-red, then those items are your spouse's property. Note that some items owned by the potential spouse may not change to non-red until after marriage. Any items that change from red to non-red in your spouse's house after marriage belong to your spouse. Likewise, any items still red after marriage never belonged to your spouse. The same goes for beds: check the ownership of a bed before and after the favor/quest. If it is still owned afterward, it probably isn't your spouse's property. Any bed that changes to be unowned after marriage belongs to your spouse. A spouse can own an entire house or just part of it, especially if they live with other people before marriage. Special care should be taken with chests, as chests may be owned by other members of the house. A chest owned by your spouse after marriage is a safe place to put items, whether you move in or not.
The chest at the foot of Sylgja's bed is NOT safe storage for her spouse (PS3), though it seems she owns the entire property herself.

Special care should be taken in determining what property is actually owned by your spouse. Being considered a friend after doing favors for them allows you to take items from where they live without stealing, but that does not mean the spouse owns the whole house. If you are not sure if your spouse owns a house or not, simply put items in chests inside the house AFTER marriage and after you have moved in. If your items disappear after a while, then your spouse probably only owns a bed, not the whole house. You can put items in different areas of the house (and inside chests) to determine the extent of the property owned by your spouse. Sometimes chests belonging to other members of the house exist too, so don't let that hinder your determination of property ownership either. Follow your spouse around to see if they always sleep in the same bed. If so, that bed is your spouse's property. Kill other members living in a business property will usually trigger your spouse to be the default merchant listed, to verify whether they are actually selling the stuff listed.

If you kill the other merchant or merchants of a business so that your future spouse can become a merchant themselves, they may not give you the marriage dialog to start the marriage. This happens for Camilla Valerius.

If you decide to store stolen items in your or your spouse's home, some spouses will alert the guards if they see you take the items. This does not apply to stolen items in a container.

PC Note Steps to re-marry using console commands:
Select spouse.
Enter the following console commands:
removefac 51596
player.removefac C6472
resetquest 74793
resetquest 21382
setstage 74793 10
Wait for 24 hours.
Then proceed to marry as normal.

[edit] Bugs

Some followers will never sleep even after marriage, making it impossible to gain the Lover's Comfort bonus.

Although listed as possible marriage options, there have been many reports of some NPCs (Lydia being the most common example) as not having the dialogue required for marriage. This can be fixed via the console, in which using the command addfac 19809 1 after clicking on them adds them to the potential marriage options faction.
PC Only This issue has been addressed by version 1.5 of the Official Skyrim Patch; it is unclear if any NPCs other than Lydia are fixed by this patch.

If one of your followers dies before the marriage can take place, their body will turn up at the temple, causing you to fail the wedding ceremony mini-mission. The priests will then ask you to leave, and the bride or groom will storm off, angry. You can make amends by leaving a short cool down period of a couple of hours, and then going and apologizing to Maramal and then your potential spouse. The wedding will take place the following day at the same time. To avoid failing the quest a second time, drag (or use unrelenting force to push) the corpse from out the way of the door. If you are using the PC, you can also use the console to resurrect the follower then apologize to avoid a problem.
PC Only This bug is fixed by version 1.2 of the Official Skyrim Patch.

In most cases the NPC spouse disappears after exiting the Temple of Mara, unless you exit dialogue with Maramal and rush after them before they reach the door. If this happens, you may find your new spouse in the spot where you first met; you can then talk to the person to decide where you'll both live. In some cases, the spouse seems to disappear from the game completely. This is easily solved by using the console command player.moveto (NPC RefID), which will move you to the spouse position.
When the spouse disappears, the game still treats a spouse as "alive" even when they have disappeared forever.
It is also possible for NPCs who attend your wedding to vanish forever in the aftermath, however this is considerably more rare and seems to only affect Camilla Valerius.

If you move your spouse directly into your own home, the Lover's Comfort effect may not activate correctly on sleeping. This can be fixed by asking them to move back to their original home (you should get a "Visit your spouse's house" journal update at this point, if things are working properly) and sleeping there to activate the effect, then telling them you want to move to whichever house you actually want to live in. Spouses who stayed at inns before marriage may not actually sleep in those places, but Lover's Comfort should activate if you pay to spend a night at that inn.
This is especially broken if you marry your Housecarl. Telling e.g. Jordis that you should live in your house in Solitude will not fix this bug: you have to use the conversation option for "their" house, even though it's the same place.

If you ask your spouse to move into a house with you, any items that you have stored in the house could disappear and show up under your spouse's Sale option. You will have to buy the items to reclaim them if they are lost. Beware the money-grubber when asking them to move in with you!
It appears that Speechcraft is not a modifier for buying items from your spouse. You will be required to buy the items at full price if you want them back.

You cannot sleep in Vilkas' bed to gain the Lover's Comfort bonus if you've agreed to stay at his home.
You can, however, sleep in your own bed in the Harbinger's room to gain the bonus.

One day you may find your spouse no longer offers you a Homecooked Meal because the dialogue "Would you mind cooking something for me?" disappears.

Wow, that all sounds like a lot of work! Thanks for posting

I hope it helps

Wow, Debra, thank you so much for the great information!! I'm going to print it out so that I'll have it in front of me.

Tracy