To be annoyed about proposal before he’s even proposed….

Yes, my friend is the OP’s partner. His (now ex-) wife proposed to him when it was clear he wasn’t going to after 7 years, organised the wedding, asked his friend to be best man, organised the house purchase, organised several rounds of IVF when they struggled to conceive, and raised their children and the household while working FT. My friend is also ‘easily overwhelmed” and doesn’t cope well with his stressful job — but, bluntly (we were colleagues), I did the same job during normal office hours, while he stayed in the office late and often went in at weekends. The mere idea of organising anything made him stressed. In the end she just ran out of energy. But to get him out of the house, she had to find him a rental, organise a removal van, and get his utilities turned on.

Don't ever marry and have children someone who can’t plan or organise. It sounds minor, but it’s arrogance. The gruntwork is your problem,forever.

When I met my first husband he made lovely plans for our first Valentine's day. By the second one we were engaged( asked me to marry him in my room at teacher training college) and getting married that August.He did absolutely nothing,not even a card. I asked if he wanted to go out for dinner. He wasn't bothered. His comment was " Well we live together now so why do we need to bother". Oh how I wish I had called it all off. The wedding planning was all me . By seven years in we had 2 children but he left when they were 3 and 2. I had doubts and weird dreams in the months before the wedding but I loved him so I dismissed them.I dare say you love him Op but he isn't really there for you is he. If he wanted to do these things he would. He may well do it all for someone else in the future. I suspect that that person won't be you. My second marriage is entirely and absolutely different. My husband adores me. I wish I had known how a relationship is supposed to be but I thought that, if I loved enough for both of us , it would be fine. It was sadly never going to be fine.

I'm so relieved that you don't have children with this man, because you'd be doing 100% of the childcare as well as everything else.

If he's working late every night he won't won't to be disturbed to look after a crying child.

But she doesn't want that - she wants it the romantic traditional way.

Sounds like a nice guy OP. TBH, it's unlikely that he will plan a wedding/formal proposal. If you really want to get married, why don't you propose? Seems it's the only way. It's 2024, women do that

His crazy working hours make me think he's as bad as organising his professional life as his private life.

Could he have forgotten your agreement? Sometimes if something isn't as much of a priority for someone else as it is for you, even if they are keen it could slip their mind. Not an excuse but perhaps what has happened. I'd be annoyed too. Tell him to get himself to the jewellers pronto.

If you have kids with him, be prepared to be a single parent in all but name.

You're not compatible. Dont marry him, definitely don't have kids with him.

It's not sweet that he pays for a cleaner, by the way. His live in woman refused to do it, so now he outsources it to another woman.

I’m struggling to get past the working all hours to be honest. Every relationship needs to have relaxation time, effort devoted to each other, sharing conversations, hobbies, etc….. He needs to learn how to time manage, then you can have a proper relationship. With that will come better organisational skills.

Sorry but it wouldn’t be for me, unless I have read more into OP’s first post.

It must be very hard to have a relationship with someone who works until 11pm every night and hasn't taken time off at the weekend since July (except to go to the football), who doesn't organise anything, clean the lav or have an opinion about how they'd like to spend time on a special weekend away.

It must be very hard to have a relationship with someone who specifies how the housework must be done, tracks where you're spending your money, has set ideas about things that might make organising things for them a problem for fear of picking the wrong thing.

Oh OP.....a long married life is going to founder unless you two talk openly to each other and iron this shit out. Rings, proposals and stuff are all nonsense when it comes to the real issues of children, financial or health problems, bereavement you need to be a team.

Are you in a relationship that requires no effort from either side?

A friend of mine went away on a lovely long weekend with her bf. She was late 30s, very keen to get married. In her mind there were a few perfect moments to propose on the trip and they passed by. She was getting increasingly angry and eventually exploded at her bf on the final morning. He then showed her the ring and said he’d planned to do it later that day as he knew how excited she would be to tell everyone when they got home. They did eventually get engaged a few weeks later but she realised how crazy she had been about the whole proposal.

My DH proposed on the couch on a Monday night while we were watching tv. We’ve been married 20 years and are extremely happy.

However I do echo PP’s warnings. This is going to be your life from now on. Be certain it’s what you want. Your DP is always going to be too busy and important to get involved in the day to day running of your lives and you will have to do everything. That will impact your career too, especially if you have children.

He's not a planner, he just can't do it. It's understandable that you'd like him to be one at least occasionally, but realistically he's not going to change. I'd be more concerned with whether his lack of planning abilities will impact your future life together, rather than this one particular instance.

Threads like this are genuinely a real eye opener for me. It sounds mad to me that you’d have discussed marriage multiple times, but not agreed to get married, and therefore be engaged at that point. Instead you have to wait for him to ask you, when you’ve already discussed it?

The more of these threads I read, the more I realise I am the one out of step with most women. It genuinely baffles me though!

We have spoken lots about getting married, he will openly chat about ‘our’ wedding

If you have already talked about getting married, why does he need to ask?

If you want to marry him then ask. But I think your relationship has problrms that go deeper than a proposal or lack off.

And hiring a cleaner is also not a red flag ffs.

He should be cleaning the bathroom after himself, not paying for a cleaner to do it. Honestly, OP have some standards.

From an outsider’s perspective he can’t be bothered to prioritise you. He has clearly had many years to prepare for a proposal and even had a deadline of your birthday, but he still hasn’t bothered. You are important enough to him. Get out and find someone who wants you and automatically cleans up!

@Fuzzyhead992 you say he’s loving but in what way does he demonstrate love? I’m not seeing any evidence of it from your OP 🙁

Well, for a start off, he doesn't need a ring to propose - most couples choose the ring together.
However, proposing at a fancy hotel/ on your birthday would also be something of a cliche.
But you don't sound as if you like him very much, tbh - are you sure you want to marry him?

I actually disagree with the messages saying that it is a red flag that you do most of the organising in the household. If one partner is working 9-5 and one is working 9am- 11pm it is fairly obvious which one the bulk of the household organisational labour is going to fall on, and also not inequitable that it should be the person working shorter hours. As long as there is commensurate financial contribution to the household (which there is here as they have a joint account for all expenditure) this is a totally fine and normal way to live.

OP, I think you should talk to your DP and just tell him you would like a bit of an effort for your birthday AND for the proposal.

Sorry OP but he just doesn’t sound like the kind of man who is going to have the time or mindset to create the kind of proposal you want, you could wait forever. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to marry you, but some men just are not the type to do the whole proposal thing. Some people find planning ahead very hard. O

I see a few commenters saying that there may be wider compatibility issues, I don’t know about that but it is worth considering. Could it be that he isn’t really ready to make the changes he would need to make to be the husband and/or potentially parent you hope he could be? Worth talking about. It sounds like he has so much work stress there is not room for much else…if so is he aware of how that could be a problem and affect you both?

He sounds like a good man OP. Sometimes you have to take the bad with the good.

I guess you need to have an honest open discussion about your desire to get engaged and for him to plan it properly. Even if it doesn't happen on this weekend.

My absolute 'couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery' level chaotic husband put together a photo-book and took me for a walk on a beautiful frosty Christmas morning to propose with a lovely ring at my parents farm, a place I love...... one big drawback was he had got drunk and accidentally told me this exact plan a few weeks before so all surprises were off 😅

I would talk to him about this problem trying to find a compromise ( but not expecting magic change 🙂) but also I would remind myself more often about his other good qualities.
I absolutely feel your pain, it’s the sort of thing my DH is not good with too. I can imagine him helping to prepare everything but not organizing a surprise party or something similar. I do feel upset from time to time but try to look at bigger picture and remind myself that I’m not perfect either and we have different strengths and weaknesses.

Maybe I've missed something, but what makes you think DP is planning to propose over your birthday week? Maybe he won't think of proposing at all. Maybe he thinks that indicating that he wants the wedding to happen will be enough to make it happen. Sorry if I've got the wrong end of the stick here.