Son dumped by gf -update

I agree with the poster above you. She wanted to marry him 3 months ago and now feels so cold to block him.

She seems like one of those fiercely practical people with low level of emotional attachment that she blocked him. It seems like she wants to get married by certain age and as OP’s son didn’t propose or provide any timeline for proposal.

OP’s son didn’t handle well the conversation about tentative time line, but I don’t think he deserves this level of coldness. To not allow a conversation shows that there wasn’t real attachment in the relationship from her side.

You’ve got way to much time in your hands and I seriously over invested!

🤣🤣

A man in a relationship with a woman who wants children will need to bear in mind her potential “timetable’.

Neither are unreasonable to want marriage and children / not want marriage and children, but the relationship is probably incompatible.

And at 27, it is a normal age to be thinking long term, family planning, etc..

She did propose to him. He said no way, basically. So on that answer she broke up with him. All perfectly logical. There is nothing wrong with him not wanting to get married, there is nothing wrong with her wanting to get married. Now they are both free to find a person whose expectations are more aligned with each of theirs.

Suspect it’s not just this incident. We’re just hearing about one incident. I wouldn’t want to be with someone who says the things I care about are “silly.” She’s quite smart to finish with him straight off rather than dragging it out.

What’s the chances that he’ll find someone else (rebound?) within the next twelve months, and he’ll be married within a year?!

Well that is young. I think at 27/30 they are still young. My firend got engaged at 18 and everyone (especially her parents) was shocked. But we're all different and have different expectations. We got together at 19/21 and DH proposed 11 years later - I wasn't itching for him to propose in those intervening years, but, I suppose, I always knew we'd be together for life (maybe naively after reading some MN threads! Fortunately I was right (so far😄)).

Disagree with this. She loved him enough to want to make a life with him. He messed her around. Why should she waste her fertile years waiting for 'the right time'?

He's gone into overdrive now because he's going to have to jump off the gravytrain, shame on him.

Yep. That was really all she was asking, not a ring on her finger and a big white wedding in six months. I was with my DH for five years before we got married but we discussed our future, we knew we wanted to be married to each other but we wanted to get on the housing ladder first, get a bit further along in our jobs so we were a bit more financially stable, that sort of thing. But there was a plan in place and a verbal commitment made, after about a year! This poor girl waited three years while the OP's son just drifted along and when she asked to have a conversation, she was dismissed. Now she is free to find someone who can give her what she wants, good for her for knowing what she wants and going after it. If he wants to just drift along in life with no thought for the future, he needs to find a woman who has the same mindset. But as PP have pointed out, he is going to find that harder as he gets older.

Of course not everyone is the same but, honestly, surely you should know after THREE years and at least some of that time living together, how you feel about each other? It's pretty strange not to.

If they were 18 and 19 I could understand it although I have known several couples of that age not take forever to get engaged and then married

No but they need to be mindful that if they want children then women DO have a timeline. Do men really need to be taught that?

No, it means the woman can leave if it doesn't fit her timetable. He was asked to discuss the issue, he dismissed it. In fact he said that HE would set the time when HE felt he was ready. Surely, women aren't expected to plan their lives by the man's timetable either.

No everyone has the right to live to a timetable they want but that comes with consequences and that is what he needs to learn from this - long term relationships need compromise to survive and if you don’t want to compromise for someone then they aren’t the right person

OP should be advising him that at the moment he is in a heightened state and is figuring out what next having been made homeless. They both need time to work out if they want to be together and that includes him working out if this reaction is just the break up

You know what he was thinking?? Wow, that’s a skill and a half.

“Women may not have forever”

Does that mean that men must plan their lives by womens’ timetables?

My husband must’ve missed school the day lads were taught that.

That doesn’t sound fair to me- she’s away with a friend, probably on a pre-booked trip, and probably hoping for a chance to clear her head, and instead she’s got your son refusing to respect her boundaries and leave her alone for a few days. And you just sound like you’re enabling him, tbh. He’s reaping what he’s sewn, let him learn from this.

Good for you not everyone is the same

But not an untruth. He is a gown man you are treating him like a child. You have raised a man/child. You are not helping him step up to become an adult & have respect for other people’s feelings. He has not been kind to someone who he has been with for 3yrs. You are encouraging that behaviour. She seems like the catch not him. Otherwise if he was an adult he would have his own house & he hasn’t.

Yes, and he's now ageing out of being able to ignore that.

There's nothing wrong with him preferring and seeking out a flatmates with sex type relationship in the future, rather than a bigger commitment, if that's what he likes. Plenty of people do. It's just that as time passes, it's not something that can be assumed. Certainly there are couples who live like that in their 30s. But unless he's unusually attractive or charismatic, his days of being able to not think about this stuff at all and just live in someone else's house are probably over.

He may not be in the best place to take that on board this very minute, but it's important he does emerge from this having learned that lesson. Otherwise he may end up with the same problem 4 years down the line, equally heartbroken because he didn't realise there's often a time limit on how long you can hope to live with a partner with no thought for the long term.

It isn't necessarily about marriage either. If for example he'd said he didn't want to do it without owning a joint property but he would like to speak to a mortgage advisor about what he could borrow, that would've been something tangible.

That’s a lot of “ifs”

What else are you inventing: Was he already married, ortrans? She’d won the lottery maybe?

Unbelievable…

I’ve been fascinated by this thread. If I had sat my DP down and said I’d like us to have a future together and make long term plans and his reply had been ‘No thanks’, I would have assumed he didn’t love me and the relationship was over.

I want the person I live with to be excited about being with me, delighted to announce that to the world and enthusiastic about what our life will look like. If DS didn’t feel like that, she’s done him a favour. She’s certainly done herself one.

And three years which also includes living together so spending every night and weekend together isn’t long enough? Surely you know by then?

As for the PP who said she could have asked him a second time, then a third time. WTAF - how low do you want her to feel?

27 and 30 are not that young and she was not wanting to get married after 3 years but engaged.

I wouldn't be waiting around for 3 years for a proposal that's for sure

Or used by mothers with sons who fucked up.

Hardly rushing into something when they have been together 3 years is it? He must know whether he believes in marriage or not and should, by now, know whether she is the one he wants to marry.

She wanted to get engaged not get married next week

I honestly think, particularly at those ages, if couples don't know whether they want to be married or not then they are probably not with the right person.

When we met I was 25 and DH was 23. We knew very quickly we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together and got married 5 months after meeting. We didn't live together first either. We have been married 45 very happy years.

Most of our friends who waited years before getting engaged and then more years before getting married are divorced!

I think your son wasn't listening to his partner. She must have expressed beforehand that she wanted marriage. Perhaps her putting her cards on the table was a much bigger deal than he realised. It was ultimatum time for her and he took it as insignificant.

It's a harsh lesson for him.

I'd be interested to know if he was paying rent or putting their salaries into a joint account - if they were splitting bills but he wasn't paying anything for his accommodation then she has already saved him a great deal of money while they were living together, so he has actually got a cash bonus from her property ownership already.