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Dragging his feet? Or am I just BSC?
anonymous
Silver Member Posts: 64
in Married Life
Probably a weird post for this category but I would like some advice from those who have 'been there done that'.
Thanks in advance for taking the time to read and respond!
Background:
My boyfriend and I have been together for 4.5 years. We are both 24. No infidelity or health issues. Sex is 4-5 times per week and I rarely refuse if he initiates. He tells me he feels lucky that I am like that. We did not sleep together the first 2 years of the relationship so he does like spending time with me other than sex lol. First long term relationship for both of us. He has a job and I'm almost done with grad school. Marriage has always been on the table, in fact the first 3 years he used to be the one asking what we were going to name our kids, what age I wanted to get married etc.
Problem:
We planned on moving in together a little after the 4 year mark but I saw no evidence of him planning to propose so I asked him where he saw our relationship going in the next few months. He said he wasn't sure so I told him I did not feel comfortable moving in with him unless we concretely planned on getting married. I explained that since I am a woman who wants to have kids I also can't stay in a relationship with someone who is unsure about me after 4 years. I told him I loved him and wanted to be with him, but that if he still didn't know about me after 4 years maybe we aren't right for each other. I told him to take as much time as he needed but I wasn't going to sit around waiting; until he could make up his mind about the future of our relationship I was going to date other people.
This lasted 3 days at which point he told me he had figured it out, he wanted to marry me. The caveat was that he wanted the official proposal to be a surprise not "forced". I didn't want him to feel forced, so I agreed to continue the relationship and sign a lease together with the understanding that a proposal would be forthcoming in the near future (because, if I'm going to marry this man I should be able to trust he will keep his word, right?). I told him I only wanted to do it if he was 110% sure, otherwise I wanted to continue with our break. He said he was definitely sure, those 3 days made him realize he didn't want to be without me. I did not give him a deadline but I did tell him it would make me happier if we were engaged either before we moved in together or not long after. We've now been living together for 4 months and it's been 8 months since we got back together/made the compromise and we are still not engaged. I don't bring it up with him because really I don't want to nag someone into proposing.
On one hand he's never broken a promise to me and I have no reason to think he would start now. The other day we were at a restaurant where another couple got engaged and unprompted he told me not to worry he has a plan. His parents even allude to the fact we'll be engaged soon. But on the other hand it's eating at me that it's been 8 months since our compromise and he still hasn't made it official.
What's the hold up? I'm trying to be patient but it's hard to find a balance between not pressuring him and maintaining my self-respect. Ladies have you ever been in a similar situation? What did you do? Men, any idea what my boyfriend's deal is? Am I wasting my time?
TLDR: I asked my boyfriends of 4.5 years if he planned on proposing soon and he wasn't sure so I dumped him. He quickly changed his mind and said he wants to marry me and a proposal would be forthcoming if I stayed with him. It's been 8 months since, is he just pulling my leg?
Thanks in advance for taking the time to read and respond!
Background:
My boyfriend and I have been together for 4.5 years. We are both 24. No infidelity or health issues. Sex is 4-5 times per week and I rarely refuse if he initiates. He tells me he feels lucky that I am like that. We did not sleep together the first 2 years of the relationship so he does like spending time with me other than sex lol. First long term relationship for both of us. He has a job and I'm almost done with grad school. Marriage has always been on the table, in fact the first 3 years he used to be the one asking what we were going to name our kids, what age I wanted to get married etc.
Problem:
We planned on moving in together a little after the 4 year mark but I saw no evidence of him planning to propose so I asked him where he saw our relationship going in the next few months. He said he wasn't sure so I told him I did not feel comfortable moving in with him unless we concretely planned on getting married. I explained that since I am a woman who wants to have kids I also can't stay in a relationship with someone who is unsure about me after 4 years. I told him I loved him and wanted to be with him, but that if he still didn't know about me after 4 years maybe we aren't right for each other. I told him to take as much time as he needed but I wasn't going to sit around waiting; until he could make up his mind about the future of our relationship I was going to date other people.
This lasted 3 days at which point he told me he had figured it out, he wanted to marry me. The caveat was that he wanted the official proposal to be a surprise not "forced". I didn't want him to feel forced, so I agreed to continue the relationship and sign a lease together with the understanding that a proposal would be forthcoming in the near future (because, if I'm going to marry this man I should be able to trust he will keep his word, right?). I told him I only wanted to do it if he was 110% sure, otherwise I wanted to continue with our break. He said he was definitely sure, those 3 days made him realize he didn't want to be without me. I did not give him a deadline but I did tell him it would make me happier if we were engaged either before we moved in together or not long after. We've now been living together for 4 months and it's been 8 months since we got back together/made the compromise and we are still not engaged. I don't bring it up with him because really I don't want to nag someone into proposing.
On one hand he's never broken a promise to me and I have no reason to think he would start now. The other day we were at a restaurant where another couple got engaged and unprompted he told me not to worry he has a plan. His parents even allude to the fact we'll be engaged soon. But on the other hand it's eating at me that it's been 8 months since our compromise and he still hasn't made it official.
What's the hold up? I'm trying to be patient but it's hard to find a balance between not pressuring him and maintaining my self-respect. Ladies have you ever been in a similar situation? What did you do? Men, any idea what my boyfriend's deal is? Am I wasting my time?
TLDR: I asked my boyfriends of 4.5 years if he planned on proposing soon and he wasn't sure so I dumped him. He quickly changed his mind and said he wants to marry me and a proposal would be forthcoming if I stayed with him. It's been 8 months since, is he just pulling my leg?
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Comments
How would you respond?
I'm concerned, that if he chooses to propose you'll always feel it was "forced".
To be clear though, you do realize that the way your story reads is that you expected him to propose before you moved in, but didn't tell him that. Then when it didn't happen you dropped the bomb and broke up. There's no way now for him to not feel forced or pressured into marriage with you at this point. Imo anyway.
Yep, that's because on some level this was a combo loyalty & shit test. BF passed the loyalty part by coming back and saying he wanted to get married, and did the best he could with the shit test part of making the proposal be on his own terms. But I question will it ever not be forced, unless you two split again.
Most women nag and hint at wanting the question popped, but there's a big difference between that and demanding a proposal.
on one hand, you just seem a bit uptight and a bit control-freakish instead of just chilling and letting him run his proposal plan ... you say that you have no reason to distrust him, so just relax and trust him ... once you're engaged, it wont matter how it happened or how long it took .. but what WILL matter is the precedent this scenario establishes - it will play out in the wedding planning, the timing of children and a thousand other ways if not corrected... you will likely be unhappy if you have to drag him along your life together according to your timetable instead of one that is mutually agreed upon and he leads ...
but on the other hand, you handled yourself exactly the way i think you should've by being direct with your expectations ... i think you went wrong by moving in with him without the proposal that you stated as your nonnegotiable .... if it gets as far as a year living together, maybe refuse to sign the lease renewal and let him know that he had an entire year and didnt ... in my opinion, that would be cause for you to break off and move on
but only you know if you think this is a root cause red flag or just some kinda weird blip in an otherwise high quality man
good luck
============================
Fuck Culture. Live your life - Beatrice
I wouldn't be that worried about the proposal at this stage. Your boyfriend did say he had a plan, so let's hope he does! Also, his idea of "near future" might be a year or so.
1. telling him to take as much time as he needs and that we can still date each other while he figures it out, just I want to be allowed to date other men as well incase two years from now he decides he doesn't want to marry me and I'm 26 having spent 6 years of my twenties in a dead end relationship. (I didn't write that on the original post but it was long enough lol.)
2. agreeing to go back in an exclusive relationship and moving in as long as we were on the same page about where our relationship was going, no deadline for him making it official. What I wrote on here about me worrying about it is not known to him, or at least not directly known to him.
But probably still those things don't completely fix it. Any thoughts on what I should do to alleviate the "forced"?
you have to own the reality that you DID force it - well, you can take comfort and just tell yourself that you only 'nudged' it .... but i don't think there's anything wrong with stating your needs/and wants ... you did the very thing that guys always say we want - you didn't expect him to read your mind - you told him in plain english ... choices have consequences
by standing in your truth, you can alleviate the power of the 'forced' ... something only has power over you because it attempts to disrupt the lies you tell yourself ... the bigger picture concerns whether or not you are going to be a ballbuster in every other facet of life ... if he is not enough of a leader for you, then you need to understand that ... maybe you can cultivate the ability to 'let go' or maybe its just in your personality ... i can tell you that a lot of guys find it exhausting to try to lead a woman who is that headstrong and focused and 'timetable' driven ...
good luck
============================
Fuck Culture. Live your life - Beatrice
My bad, I was unclear on that: We had been discussing moving in together but it wasn't set in stone. Then he started saying things like "if we break up" which was a big step backwards from what he used to say "I would marry you tomorrow if we weren't in college". So at that time, before we signed a lease, I asked him where he saw our relationship going. He wasn't sure and that's when I said I couldn't continue to be exclusive with him until he made up his mind.
When we broke up we were not living together and had not signed a lease. The only negative repercussion for him from us breaking up was losing our relationship. And not even completely, we could still date eachother if he wanted, just not exclusively.
As for not being ready, that matches up with what he tells me. Says he always knew he wanted to marry me but he feels like he's young (why he didn't say that when I asked his intentions rather than "I'm not sure", I don't know. I would've felt much more secure with that answer). But anyway, 24 isn't that young. We live like we are married. Tells me all the time he is so glad we live together now. Half of his friends are engaged/married. I understand men take longer to be ready to settle down than women but at this point I'm unsure of what more he needs. And as a woman who wants to have children I don't want to put myself in a situation where I spend 5 or 6 years of my twenties with someone who never commits. I figured maybe he needed to sow his wild oats but when I suggested we date other people he didn't take the opportunity! OH, and I told him way back when we got back together I don't care how much the ring costs. Get one from the quarter machine for all I care, it's about the commitment.
As a man who has been there (or anyone else), what is it that makes you feel ready? If he has unmet needs I'm happy to do what I can to meet them but I'm avoiding the topic of marriage altogether right now so I can't ask him lol.
You hit on a good point. In fact, I work at a fertility clinic and that has put the fear of death in me about waiting too long to try to conceive and not being able to have children (def want to be married before kids and not rush into it with anyone be it him or someone else). Probably has something to do with my anxiousness about this whole situation.
He and I have actually discussed this and agreed when we are 28 we will stop using protection. If he ever proposes that is lol.
It's already been 8 months since the conversation so you are right about the near future thing lol!
Please trust me me when I give you this advice: do not marry a man who is not wildly enthusiastic about marrying you.
Be very clear, "I am breaking up with you because it is clear to me that you do not value a future together. I wish you the best." From there, if he exhibits an extremely clear plan to be married very soon, maybe you can reconsider. Maybe. But he's already strung you alone for quite some time so don't be too eager to accept his empty promises.
What I'm hearing from the men is that he's probably not ready and feels pressured. So I'm going to try to find a happy medium (pretty much what I've already been doing the past 8 months) and not say a word about it for another few months. At that time all of the major holidays and anniversaries will have passed, we will have been dating for 5 years, and we will have been living together almost a year. Plenty of time to ready himself and make it on a holiday if that's what he wanted. If he hasn't proposed by then I'll assume he was not truly sure and leave. I don't think it will come to that but just having it in my head that I won't stay forever will keep me sane. Some would say that's passive aggressive because I'm not telling him about it. But really I've already made my feelings about the situation quite clear, and I'm not going to nag him to propose. Rant over lol.
Thank you all for your advice and I welcome any more thoughts as they come!
I was that guy in my 20's who was anxious as hell about committing "forever", I whiffed the proposal so badly it's probably a critical moment of neglect. But I did eventually get there, and knocked her up on our honeymoon so made up for lost time
In short it took me a while to commit to being all in, but once committed I was in.
And look what the decision to make no decision has brought him!
- A live-in girfriend
- who's very understanding and empathic
- who's probably doing a lot of wifely duties
- with no long-term commitment whatsoever on his side
It's a 100% win for him, so why should he change anything? He's got the best of two worls: Relationship comfort and safety from your side AND all that on a low-commitment basis on his side.I, too, think, your best way of action is to set a timeline (only for yourself). You could give him 4 more months, then it's one year after you clearly expressed your expectations. Or you give him one more week - that's up to you. Don't talk about it, don't pressure him - otherwise you'll always wonder if he would have proposed to you on his own initiative.
If he hasn't proposed then break it up. Make it short and sweet, no long explanations, no long discussions, no more ultimatums and opportunities for him to string you along further. Don't waste the pretty.
You two probably make great friends, but might not be cut out to be married to each other.
A word of caution in addition to that: Are you really sure you want to marry your boyfriend, even if he should propose tomorrow? His levels of anxiety (from your older threads) strike me as uncommonly high and I fear whatever lead to his dragging his feet in the proposal situation will lead to multiple difficult situations in the future.
Good luck!
If you want us to be unapologetically feminine, be unapologetically masculine.