How can I tell if this is going nowhere? Feel so confused.

[tonight2u]

Hi Mumsnetters. I have NC because I feel embarassed about my situation and feel I should know what to do. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I am 27. My DP is 28. Been together for 3 years and lived together up until 6 months ago. My job has taken me to Birmingham and my DP and I used to live in Bath, where he still lives. I now live in Birmingham. My DP visits me every weekend, apart from the time when his work takes him abroad in which case we miss a weekend or a couple of weekends.

During our time living together my DP and I spoke extensively about the future. We talked about marriage, having a family and buying a home. When we moved in, we knew 15 months later I would have to move for my job, but we moved in anyway, and I guess we thought we would just deal with the move later (I hoped we may move somewhere in the middle, and he never suggested otherwise, but it wasnt properly discussed).

I have never felt so happy and so loved as when I lived with my DP. He said that before I started my job in Bham he wanted to propose - he said this very early on. He hasn't done that yet and although I know people say these things in the heat of the moment and don't follow through...it does make me wonder if anything he has said has been sincere.

Recently I have told him I am unhappy with living apart, and said I want to move temporarily to the middle until I leave this job. It has always been the plan that I would leave this job after 2 years, at which point I will have gained essential experience which will enable me to have greater pick at jobs in many other locations. My DP sees this as ridiculous - he says we can wait out the next what is now only 18 months, and save for our home etc and just see one another at weekends. He does not want to commute an hour to work and says I am being unreasonable in asking him to do so. And can't understand why I would also want a hour commute to work when I now have a half hour walk.

Luckily for my DP, I absolutely love Bath and I am extremely keen to move back there, regardless of whether I am in a relatiosnhip with my DP. My DP knows this and the nature of his job means it is much harder for him to move. Whilst we are lucky in a sense that this 'fits,' I can't help feeling like I am the one who is compromising and moving while he sits and waits for me to come back to the area where his life is. My life is there a little, but he has the consistency of being there all this time and then I will just appear one day and take a job to fit in.

I worry that my DP isn't serious about wanting to marry me...he hasn't yet proposed after saying a couple of years back that he wanted to do that before I moved to Bham. He hasn't said he wants to move to the middle and share a home for the next 18 months. What evidence of commitment can I have to know we are going to last? I feel like at the end of the next 18 months, we will have been together for almost 5 years, I will be 30, and we will not have progressed at all. How do I know that in 18 months time he still wont propose or maybe he won't want to buy a house? And then I will have wasted all this time with him when I could be meeting other people.

Another thing that bothers me is when we discuss a family, I have said I want to start that before I am 30 - his answer is 'yeah or in a few years,' with a smirk on his face. I worry that I will get to 30 and he still won't be ready. I'm worried that this living situation is potentailly providing him with a veil in which to hide behind - it is a reason he can give for no progression at this moment in time.

I have talked to my DP about this, and he re-assures me that he wants me to be his wife and he wants a family. He says he wants to buy a home in 12-18 months time, ready for when I can realistically change jobs. I know I can't have 'proof' that these plans he talks of are genuine ones...but the way he has said about a proposal and not followed through and his lack of certainty with when he wants kids, just makes me apprehensive.

Am I being a complete idiot? Am I ruining a relationship by thinking about all this, or are my doubts well-founded? I have never felt so confused in my life and I just don't know what to do.

[CaramelPie]

If he says he 'wants you to be his wife' then does that not mean you are engaged?

Unless, of course he doesn't really mean it.

[InTrepidNation]

The thing that strikes me is he comes to see you every weekend. I think if he was getting cold feet, this would be the first thing he would knock on the head. You'd start to get excuses.

I understand your doubts. I honestly think men are more likely to think about things practically, ie prioritise an easy life getting to work over a burning desire to share a bed every night.

In terms of how to get the commitment you want, I don't know, I know a of people who spent years waiting for their DP to get to that point with one or two even issuing ultimatums. That's not something I would want to do personally, I'd much prefer a non-pressurised full and Frank discussion about things over a bottle of wine?

[Joysmum]

I can't help feeling like I am the one who is compromising and moving while he sits and waits for me to come back to the area where his life is

I'm confused, how are you compromising?

You're the one that moved away to do the job you want for your career. He's the one visiting you every weekend

[Crunchybadger]

You want to know if he wants to marry you. Why not just ask him to marry you?

I don't really understand the "let's discuss getting engaged" thing. He might be dicking about, he might not but asking him seems like an appropriate way to find out if he's serious or not?

[Ouchbloodyouch]

Are you a medic by any chance?

[claraschu]

Why do you never go to Bath to visit him?

I agree with Joysmum, and I also don't get the whole concept of talking about wanting to propose.

Your lack of trust seems based on him not actually proposing and him not wanting to move, (which would mean he loses his current life, has a long commute, then has to move again). I think that expecting him to want to move when you can see each other on the weekends is unreasonable, and I think if you want to know if he will actually marry you, you should ask for his hand in marriage.

[MaudSedgwick]

I don't blame him not wanting to move or commute. Why not enjoy what you have? Can't sees he's doing anything wrong - You moved; hes visiting every weekend. Relax.

[Cabrinha]

I wouldn't move either. From a city I'm happy in with a short commute, where I intend to make my permanent home to an interim life an hour away? Nope.
I'm with him - it's 18 months, don't move.

Why is marriage his choice?
Just ask him to marry you.
If he says yes, you can stop fretting.
If he says no, you can stop wasting your time.

[tonight2u]

Thanks for the responses.

I feel unsure because he said he was going to propose within a certain time frame, and then he never did. It wasn't a formal chat, it was a romantic comment he made once one evening. The fact he didn't follow through has made me Qs his intentions.

I have spoken to him about this but I don't like to make a thing out of it as I want a proposal to come from him and his desire, not my hinting. He does know I want to get married and he always says 'not yet' and deflects by tickling me or changing the subject in a cheerful way.

He is reluctant to talk about any progression in the immediate future and everything he speaks about always is a year or so off. Ie the house buying. He will claim that is due to our current living situation and once my job is done we can crack on. I just don't believe him and have no reason to be sure of his commitment - we don't even live together. Yes he visits, but that's just the bare minimum isn't it. I don't go there because he lives with a ll who won't allow it - dp knew this when he moved out of our home to this new place but went ahead anyway despite my concerns.

[SolidGoldBrass]

Oh dear.On a practical level, he's being the sensible one by refusing to move when it really would only be for 18 months. I think you should sit tight for 18 months, and if nothing happens after that, cut your losses because maybe he does see you as 'Will do for now.'
Unfortunately, constant hinting and bleating for a proposal from a currently-reluctant man is a fairly sure way to wreck what might have been a good relationship, especially as there are valid reasons, at present, for you to be living separately.

[tonight2u]

What if in 18 months my suspicions are correct and I've wasted 2 years on someone who doesn't want a future (or a future I have made clear that I want)

[tonight2u]

Yeah that is exactly the problem. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. After living together this seems like a relationship in the infancy again.

[CaramelPie]

I just don't believe him

There's your answer.

[Crunchybadger]

*I don't like to make a thing out of it as I want a proposal to come from him and his desire".

Then you have made yourself the passive party and are stuck waiting for him to do something about a marriage that you want.

It's not the 1950s. It still counts as an engagement if you do the proposing. Good luck!

[WannaBe]

but progression of a relationship doesn't depend on a proposal. Are you together now? What is the time like you spend together? how do you get on in general?

I'm in a simillar situation in that I live in London whereas my dp lives in Birmingham. /The barriers to us living together are that I am here because my ex lives here so to move would compromise my ds' relationship with his dad and I'm not willing to do that, and he works in a specialised field which would make it more difficult to move here. Not impossible though but it would need to be the right job, it would be unfair of me to insist he take any kind of job just so we can be together iyswim. But in the meantime he comes here every weekend and we spend holidays etc together as much as we can. We are no less a couple than if we were living together permanently iyswim and even if worst case scenario he was never able to change his job to be here, ds won't be a child for ever and will leave school in about six years at which point I will be in a position to move.

It can be frustrating not knowing when things will change, but if you spend time thinking about what you don't have you will lose focus on what you actually do have.

30 is only two years away. if you're not living together atm then he is perfectly reasonable not to be considering starting a family by the time you're 30, given you say things aren't able to change for at least eighteen months.

As for the proposal, just tell him how you feel. If he has genuine reasons why he doesn't want to get engaged yet ask him what they are.

[SolidGoldBrass]

FFS you are only 28. Get a grip. There is so much more to life than fixating on making a man propose to you. And at 28 you still have a fair few years of fertility (I got pregnant at 39, unexpectedly - unless you have specific issues with your own fertility then you are panicking too early).
Desperation for more commitment than a partner is currently offering is not only offputting but it's handing the other person all the power. Start focussing on your own life and your career while treating your relationship with this man as an enjoyable extra, not the most important thing in the world.

[ShellyBobbs]

It seems to me that anything 'serious' has been put on hold for him until you move back and who can blame him really. He does all the travelling to you so I think this shows his commitment to you. Have yoi thought of it from his point of view? What do you do for him?

I don't mean to sound horrible, you sound so sad, but I really think he'll be suffering too.