To not understand why he hasn't proposed yet...?

[Tanz825]

Hi,

Me and my partner have been together 5 and a half years now and he still hasn't asked me to marry him. We have been living together for 4 years and have bought our own house together last year and are living there with our 9 month old daughter. There has always been talk of getting married ever since very early in our relationship, not just from myself but from my partner too but he still hasn't asked me to marry him. I'm starting to wonder why and sometime get upset about it because he knows how important it is to me. I wouldnt be so upset but he keeps referring to where we might get married (abroad) but he hasn't asked me yet and it's like pouring salt in a wound. Over Christmas two of my friends have got engaged and they have been together half the time we have which I was so happy for them but at the same time I felt like it was my turn. His family keep asking him why he's waiting and he just says theirs no rush. He is a romantic at heart and I believe he wants it to be perfect he says we can't afford it. I think hes setting his expectations to high, which is lovely but i dont care about those fancy things. He also thinks that once we get engaged I'll want to get married straight away which is not the case. I've told him I don't care about fancy rings or a big wedding all I want is to be married to him and have the same name as him and my daughter and be his wife. I just feel like the longer were together the less he thinks it matters and that he's just taking his time because he knows he can. Iv thought about asking him but he said a while ago that if I ever ask him he'll say no coz that's his job. I know I may sound selfish but it's getting to me and I'm feeling a little resentful which I don't like. Anyone know how I can't stop feeling like this? I generally just push it to the back of my mind but then something comes up about marriage or engagements and I get a hollow feeling in the pit on my stomach and all those feeling come back. I know I shouldn't feel like this and I should just wait till he's ready, which I will, but In the mean time I need to find a way to block these sad feeling. Anyone have and suggestions?

Thanx
Tanya

Maintenance isn't really the big factor though in the financial advantages to getting married - these days if the father is on the birth cert it doesn't matter if the couple are married or not when it comes to child maintenance. The key issue is getting a good financial settlement in divorce - I've known divorced women who can continue to be SAHMs because they got the house paid for, a good pension and cash settlement. There's also a sad thread elsewhere about a poster having to live on less than £65 a month after splitting with her partner - the army would have helped apparently if they'd been married.

Well. my dh had had all the milk and free sweeties he wanted, but he still married me, so there. Have to agree that the talk of buying the cow when you can get the milk for free is deeply sexist and very offensive.

OP, don't despair at the really negative posts here! We got married after 7 years together and 2 children. But we did have to have 'the conversation' and as soon as he realised that it was a marriage that I wanted not not just the big wedding day (I realise you can have both), we planned a small, intimate but very beautiful wedding together.

Only you can judge whether he is fobbing you off, or whether he really is waiting until you can afford the wedding he wants. Only you know your relationship - but ime hinting and minor stropping didn't work. I had to actually discuss marriage with him - that's marriage and what it meant to me (don't care about anyone else, it's fine to be unmarried if that's what you want) - marriage and not just the 'Wedding Day'.

It is, sweetlily

It is 'lie back and think of england' mentality.

sex is something the woman 'gives' to the man. It's not something she is an equal participant in, it's something she knows the man wants and therefore uses it as a bargaining tool. Men want sex, women allow men to have sex with them.

how very 'pull me nightie down when yer done'

Cor, the teachers at my kids' school must spend a lot of time judging those feral offspring begat out of wedlock, given that so many of us have failed to haul our sorry arses to the altar. No wonder they look so knackered all the time.

And ahem, some partners do stay in a happy relationship where they'd prefer to be married but the other person doesn't want to. Mr Inferior, for one. He appears to feel he'd rather live with me even though I won't accept his frequent offers to commit a spot of matrimony, rather than huffing off to find someone whom he might not like as much but would marry him.

I hate the implication of having achieved something eg he married me! It is about 2 people not one waiting to be asked. Just because I do not wish to marry doesn't mean I have a problem with it for others at all but the passive nature of the big wait and the distress at the proposal not happening is very odd. Why does the man get to decide when he will make the commitment legal?

I do think the big problem is these men who stall and stall when they know that their partner wants to get married (not the ones who sit down with the partner and explain that they object to the institution or whatever, who make their position clear to the partner). It's not very nice to keep fobbing someone off because you want them to continue looking after you when all the while you are aware that actually you want to keep your options open.

cantspel, if thats what being a wife is , I'm glad I'm not married

So were all those making the cow and milk references virgins on their wedding nights?

Tanya, I have re read your OP and don't think my first reply applies to you. Your dp does want to marry, but thinks he can't afford to do it in a lavish way abroad it seems.

How about you sitting down together and writing out a wedding budget? Then begin to save up towards it. Plan something that you are both happy with, it does not need to cost a fortune to be romantic and beautiful.

If it is abroad, will that be a problem for the guests?
Perhaps the honeymoon could be abroad and the wedding at home?

Talk to him about it...tell him marriage is something that you really want, and if he wants it as well, then it is time to plan it out.

This thread is depressing, cows and sweetys bloody hell

I'm getting worried at this thread.

I am married.

I am married because I love my DH and because I wanted to make a legal and open commitment to him. I didn't give a flip about a wedding. I can have a party any weekend. I hope that I only stand across from the man I love and make a legally binding promise to bring our lives together one time.

I don't judge those of you who arent. But I do think there is value in it, I think it is an outward sign of the commitment we feel to each other and if I am ready to get a mortgage and have kids with someone I am sure as hell ready to do that.

It's nothing to do with sex.

Sad I feel I have to come on and defend OUR desire to be married isnt it!!

However on a legal front.

My MIL kept her waste of space partner for years after he lost his job. Despite her working part time in a shop her wages were high enough and they were counted as a couple legally so she had to keep him.

When he had terminal cancer, she found out that she wouldn't get any widow benefits because they were not legally married. They married so she could pay for the funeral.

So there is a case for being legally married still affording greater protection.

I think the point someone was making earlier is that children grow up and mortgages get paid off, but marraige licenses never go out of date? Not saying yeah or nay to that, just pointing it out.

where's the OP? would be interested to know what she thinks of this thread. personally, if you have children with someone that's it for me... can't see the big whoop about marriage once you've crossed that rubicon. (other than pensions etc)

The problem with these threads is that views seem to be so black and white - cow/milk references being an obvious example.

If someone doesn't want to get married it doesn't mean that they are just waiting for some fresh-faced innocent to come along and make them produce the ring before deigning to allow them to have sex. It could mean that, I suppose, but it could also mean that they don't believe in marriage, or that they they don't see the point of it, or that they want to do it in a particular way at a particular time, or that they are uncomfortable about the way the other person views it or any number of reasons.

I agree with other posters that it is terribly depressing that so many people still seem to subscribe to the idea that marriage is the only possible end result of a relationship, and that it the man needs to be enticed into closing the deal or have his motives and feelings viewed with suspicion.

DP and I aren't married and are unlikely to marry for anything other than tax reasons should we somehow become fabulously wealthy - so unlikely to marry at all! We are in agreement on this issue, but even if I was desperate to get married and he didn't want to, that still wouldn't mean that he wasn't committed to the relationship or that he was about to do a runner or marry someone else - it would just mean that we had different views on this one aspect of our relationship.

If it is so important to you that it is making you unhappy then you obviously need to talk about it, but you can't force someone to want marriage when you want it. Ultimately, if it is so important to you that it is spoiling your relationship then you are the one who has to make the decision about whether marriage itself is more important than staying in a relationship with the person you currently want to marry.

TSC - I am about to produce illegitimate number 2. Clearly the poor little bugger is doomed to a life of underachievement and crime.

[joins TSC in clutching pearls and thinking of the children]

Oh don't be so ridiculous and prickly, UsualSuspect about being 'happily unmarried'. Who cares? It's your life, your relationship. I didn't see you post on and on on this thread or the other one telling everyone how 'you don't have to be married and that you're happy not to be and that if he wanted to marry you, he would so stop asking....'. scottishmummy has done that, all through this thread and all through the other. She can, of course - but will be picked up on it, for the 'digs' to the OP if nothing else. I think she sounds a little 'bitter' for some reason.

Marry, don't marry - nobody else is interested in what anybody else does when it really comes down to it.

I haven't read the whole thread, but TBH, what's the point of getting married now? You've been together ages and have a baby, the biggest commitment one can make to someone so how will a wedding matter, aside from the financial implications?

Friends of ours got hitched recently after 12 years together and 1 child and they are struggling with the change.

They clearly are bothered though, or am I reading a different thread to you?

I don't give a stuff if someones married or not tbh , but the digs on this thread towards unmarried couples are frankly bloody depressing to read

ComposHat - when you become a parent, you aren't necessary committing to the other parent, you are commited to that child - now, that will normally mean you will be in the other parent's life for the next 18 years or so, but it in no way suggests commitment to the other parent.

Buying a house together also in no way suggests a life long commitment. I know people who bought houses with friends, they weren't planning to live together forever, it was a financial decision, not emotional ones.

It is a big error to assume that doing things like house buying and having children means that someone is commited to you. Those aren't things you can point to as 'proof' that someone is committed to you , they are commited to paying the mortgage on a property and committed to raising those DCs. Nowt there says "till death do us part".

many people do live together without getting married and are committed to each other, but that commitment is independent of other commitments they have taken out that you also are commited too - both having a responsibilty towards something doesn't assume you have a responsibilty to each other.

I feel really sad that this type of thread polarises posters into 'married' and 'unmarried'. It really seems to cause a lot of bad feeling when in essence, it's answering an OP's question. Posters just apply the answers to themselves and their situation. Some of the retaliation is horrid and really unnecessary, nobody's judging, surely? :(

UsualSuspect... Well that's how I feel too. I don't care whether people are married or not. The biggest and most positive change would come from making biological parents responsible for any children they produce from birth till 18 - no missed payments, no excuses.

I'd also like to see civil ceremonies available to ALL so that marriage isn't the only other option for protecting a partner.

The worst views of all are the ones telling the OP to leave her partner because he won't put a ring on her finger

Absolutely bonkers imo

YY to that, usualsuspect. It's all so easy to give that kind of 'advice'. Some posters might be trying to 'help' by suggesting things like that but there are others who enjoy a good old stir, after all, they won't have to pick up the RL pieces, will they?

The whole argument about sex and sexism is a straw man.

Sometimes it is the man who wants to marry and the woman who does not. The same points can be made regardless of gender.

scottish, mmelindor, & yonder - just an update from last night. Thanks for your advice and kind words. I feel a lot better now after a good sleep. Yes, I am very, very lucky to have a DP that would do that for me, he is pretty amazing and I made sure to tell him so last night.

I've also been reading the debate going on and there are a lot of good points. I think it depends on everybody's individual situation though, you can't really generalise. Marriage is a personal choice and like every other aspect of the relationship you need to have compromise. If both of you do want to get married for whatever reason then great, if one of you doesn't then it is surely best to discuss the reasons why and reach a compromise.

To me it sounds as though the OP's DP is actually planning on proposing but is just waiting until they are in the financial position to have the wedding they both want.

As for me, I'm very lucky to have a DP who would put me above anything else and I'm going to offer him up a compromise tonight. I want to marry him for so many reasons; the romance, being able to call myself his wife, the legal advantages for myself and our child, and yes, the day itself. I don't think I'd be happy with us never marrying and I'm lucky that he wants to do it regardless of his own feelings. (he just wants to grow old with me, nothing else matters) so I'm going to see what he thinks about us having a very small wedding with no fuss. Hopefully he will agree to that!

Op - it is really worth having a chat with your DP. I'm glad that I did. Thank you for starting this thread, and sorry for hijacking!