I know a wonderful young man who broke his engagement and 6 months later started dating again. I wanted to set him up with another girl and asked his mother “what should I say” (I knew the whole story) she told me to simply say, they were lucky enough to realize it was not meant to be. That was all I was to tell a potential young lady.
The mother told me, that after the 3rd date, if it seemed to be going forward, the young man would then introduce the subject and explain what had happened This was the advise he got from his Rov.
He is now married to a wonderful girl !!
I remember years ago, my daughter was engaged to a man that over time, appeared to be very innapropriate for our daughter. After much thought and tears, we went to our Rav who told us we must break the engagement immediately. After the engagement was broken, we called our Rav who said “mazal tov, mazal tov”. I asked, why mazal tov and why twice. His response was, breaking a “bad” engagement was even more a cause for joy than an engagement. He said a broken engagement ended the possibility of years of unhappiness or worse.
So you see, from my point of view, a broken engagement CAN show maturity and guts, it all depends on the why and how.