To have a niggling feeling that my bf won't propose to me?

He formally acknowledged the relationship by staying when he got your pregnant. He now needs to formally acknowledge it legally and swiftly. Marriage does not need the boileaux of infants in pretty frocks handing over rings. Notwithstanding the fact that the marriage should have preceded the infant.

A mature perspective would be to get married in three months at a simple.register office ceremony, and the money yiu save in the next four ueats can be invested in your family's future.

OP, listen to your gut.
You got pregnant very quickly and decided to go ahead with it.
You skipped many steps in the "normal" run of things.
Unfortunately for many men this dissolves any desire to marry.
They see no value in it for THEM.

My advice to you is to sort out your contraception.
Do NOT have a second child with him while you feel he doesn't share your vision.
3 or 4 years away is I don't want to marry any time soon in man speak.

However, you are not together long at all so his reticence is not surprising.
See how the relationship goes but do NOT have a second child.

I would say to any woman who really wants to be married BEFORE having children, it is madness to just hope it will happen and go ahead with a pregnancy.
There is nothing wrong for wanting to follow tradition.
Likewise if a woman doesn't wish to marry, fine too.
But going on and having multiple children when he has been marriage shy after one child, strikes me as madness.

Women by far make the greatest sacrifices with their body, career, salary, pension, housing etc.
It is foolish not to acknowledge this.
Therefore it is very reasonable that they be proactive in protecting themselves.

He is entitled to not wish to marry if he doesn't want to, but if that is the case you really need to protect yourself.

One of the most STUPID things I read and hear is that marriage is a bigger commitment than having children.

NOTHING is as big a commitment to another person than having a child together.....particularly for a woman.

For men they say that marriage is a greater commitment simply because of money, and not being able to walk away as easily and having to share assets.

But for women the moment you have a child, you are ultimately at the mercy of the sincerity of your partner.

That is why being financially secure and independent if he has zero wish to marry you is so important, but it is also importsnt when you marry.

CMS can be paltry and when relationships fall apart women are ultimately left at the mercy of if the father wishes to be fully involved or a BMD (bare minimum dad).
If they don't wish to be hugely involved they can choose to pay paltry CM and feck off and continue on with their lives untroubled.

Mothers are left to carry the burden of providing a home, education, food whilst juggling childcare if they try to work.

So tough.

That's why IMO humble opinion, going ahead with a pregnancy with a man you barely know is complete madness and that is what I would communicate to my daughters in such a position.

Protect yourself OP, no one else will.

I have no time for men who won’t marry the mother of their child(ren). But the saving grace in your case is that you’re secure financially and the relationship has parity. If he keeps kicking the can down the road you’ll be ok in the event of a split. Meanwhile don’t go part-time or stop paying into your pension or anything like that.

TBH I don’t think that men who are genuinely keen on marriage are that bothered about their daughters being old enough to be flower girls. But maybe I’m being unfair on that score. You know him, I don’t.

What's a "promise ring"? What's a cohabitation agreement?

It sounds like you've been together less than two years. How long have you been talking about engagement as it feels quite claustrophobic just reading these posts.

There was a thread the other week about someone passively waiting for their partner to propose.

Talk in earnest at the right time.
Visit the topic and give it due discussion.

State your acceptable boundaries and listen to his.
Come to an agreement of time and whether he wants to propose or whether you will be ultra modern and agree together and announce an intention to marry and an engagement..

Then trust and let it sit until that time is up.
If he is still tardy to commit consider whether to leave or whether to ask your parents to ask him his true intentions.

This is so cringy 😬

You sound very young OP with all the talk of 'proposals' and 'forever girlfriend' only for you to say you don't really care about marriage and a promise ring would do 😆

You had a baby after 5 minutes which means you didn't have a chance to develop your relationship as two individuals normally would. Take a breath. Pushing the 'ring' thing while on a date day, scrolling on your phone looking at rings whilst at the pub, would put anyone off.
It's not a proposal you want, you've had that. He's proposed the idea of marriage in a few years and you've agreed. What you really want is a piece of jewellery without seeming to understand that it actually is just a piece of jewellery. It doesn't guarantee marriage. It really doesn't guarantee anything. Especially if it's bought just to stop you going on about a ring.
But I guess it's the ring that takes you out of the 'forever girlfriend' category and promotes you to 'maybe wife' one day? 🤷‍♀️

As someone who was strung along for years waiting for a proposal to my now ex, I wouldn't buy a house with anyone without either marriage or a contract.

So really you ARE engaged because he says he wants to get married - you just haven't got a ring.
But a ring doesn't make you more engaged than not having one. It's not a legal commitment or anything. It's just pretty bling.
Forget about a ring. Be honest - you don't want to wait until your daughter is older (his idea of a cute bridesmaid is just fantasy....4/5 year olds can be stroppy little things that insist on only ever wearing a batman costume).
Tell him you want to be married sooner. There doesn't need to be rings. There doesn't need to be a wedding.
All you need to get married is the licence, the registrar booked and two witnesses. That is it.

Stop talking in riddles with him and say straight out that you want to get engaged. Dropping hints when he is having a bit of banter isn't the way to go about it. Some people don't pick up on hints, straight forward communication is always best.
If he doesn't want to get engaged does it really matter? You're already committed and you know he loves you.

OP, my DH played this game. We bought a house together, then after a year or so he made some hints about marriage. But when I brought it up, he immediately tried to shut the conversation down, while implying it was on the cards. So I waited several years (I wanted to be married because of the financial implications of owning a large house together, plus inheritance issues, but also because I loved him and wanted to make that commitment to each other.)

So I gave him time. No proposal. I brought the subject up again. Again got the reassurance that he wanted to, that he was about to propose, etc. He insisted he wanted to do it the traditional way, the big romantic proposal etc, so just be patient, etc. Rinse and repeat over several more years. Then finally he asked me, but then dragged out the engagement for three more years. Lots of other stuff like refusing to tell his kids (from his previous marriage) we'd got engaged, and so on.

In the end I felt completely gaslighted and was thinking about leaving. He promptly set a date. I flat refused to do anything about the ceremony. I no longer cared, and left it entirely to him to arrange. I also made it absolutely clear that I no longer had any romantic feelings about getting married and would only be doing it for financial security. Playing games for seven years, refusing to have an adult talk with me about it and ignoring the impact on my feelings completely changed how I felt about him. Even 15 years on, it has had an indelible impact on our relationship and I have zero romantic feelings about him any more. I stay with him because I can't face the upheaval of leaving, and my kids adore him. Ironically I'm the one who now talks about divorce, and it's him who's desperate to stay married.

Don't be me, OP. This casual disregard for your feelings is so corrosive. Constantly waiting for him to propose, him making it so difficult to talk about it, it builds resentment and will kill any love you have for him. I often wish now I'd just bitten the bullet and walked away years ago. It would have been hard, but I think in the long run I'd have been happier on my own.

Dragging out the timeline now is pointless, you're already connected for life as co-parents. If one or other of you isn't ready for long-term commitment then you had no business having a child together.

There's no way I'd be hanging around in vague hopes of a ring, not with a shared child involved. Clarity is required, and now.

Either he agrees to marry and soon; or you agree to a relationship without marriage; or you both agree to move on to the separated co-parenting phase of your lives (which is likely inevitable at some point anyway).

If marriage is important to you why on earth did you have a baby and are planning on buying a house with someone when you're not married to him?

Be clear on what you want in your own head first, it sounds like you're a bit confused. Then sit down like adults and discuss what you want, what he wants, where you overlap and where you differ, and figure out if you can reconcile differences.

The engagement for him is neither here nor there, as others have said, if you’ve had the conversation about getting married there is no need for an engagement for some people

Agree. I don't have an engagement ring and didn't have an "engagement" period. Just a conversation. He said he'd like us to be married, I said me too.
We were nowhere special, just a local pub. Rang the register office the following week and booked a month or so ahead. Very small wedding, about a dozen of us. Pub beforehand and booked a restaurant for after.

No massive 'proposal moment' and no massive wedding.
We're just as married as any other married couple.

It sounds like it was a very vague conversation. By saying in three or four years, I think he’s kicking the can down the road. Something will come up and it’ll be another couple of years.

His jokey reaction to the engagement rings would be a red flag to me.

I think I am going against the grain here but he has been clear on his intentions. he shows you he loves you in some way everyday - you have a DC, you are saving for a house together and everything is financially equal??? I feel for him tbh - he is trying his best here, and you get a gut feeling after a conversation where he has basically said ‘when the time is right I will buy you a nice ring!’

Children, houses etc all cost a lot of money, maybe he is just being sensible for a while until he knows you can afford a wedding?!

Just either talk to him about it or you propose to him!

yeh, maybe you want to give him more time @Cheesygirl but in terms of financial decisions wrt working and saving, make decisions as though you were single. This is really important. He cannot reasonably expect you to jeopardise your financial future on a promise. Men don't do this. Value your job over him.

Save like you very might well be starting over.

The obvious thing to me would be to ask him.

Rather than hopping about dipping in and out of the engagement conversation every few months/years.

Women should wait patiently to see what men decide for their future? I despair.

When a man wants to marry a women, it isn't that complicated. He will do it. The details don't really matter.

In your case OP, he has all the power as it seems that you want to follow his lead. It is OK, but keep your eyes wide open.

Maybe he wants to do a proper proposal and discussing getting engaged would spoil it?

I think the clear answer in this scenario has to be don’t have another until you know where you stand since it worries you op.

I find the turning the discussion into a joke a red flag and also the whole waiting until daughter is 3/4 so she can be a bridesmaid at the wedding a bullshit excuse. Getting married is about marriage, it’s not about the wedding. So the fact he wants to delay marriage that long when it protects you, your child and the family unit suggests me he’s not currently serious about marriage.

Saying that these are my thoughts I could not wrong so have a serious conversation about marriage not one beating about the bush about haribo rings or gemstone rings.

State to him when you’d like to be married and see if you can make an agreement.

And what if you have another child in the next four years? Would you postpone the wedding further so that they could be old enough to take part?

He might not be. He knew her for three months. From thereon she was pregnant or grappling with a newborn. We all know we aren’t completely ourselves through those months.

Perhaps he’s giving her the benefit of the doubt. If he isn’t feeling sure, would it be better he just gave up? Or just married her anyway? For some reason he wants to wait. She has to decide if she’s happy to wait or wants to move on. But she can’t force him to want or feel differently - even in 2024.