...to want to get married sooner rather than later?!

[amandine07]

Hello good people,
So after several months of on and off discussions OH has decided he does actually want to marry me (this was a whole other thread).

However he is adamant that it won't be at least til 2014. The thing for me is that I am 34 and would like to try for a baby sooner rather than later, but would prefer to get married first. OH is 30 and male so clearly does have this biological clock issue.

He also wants a big wedding whereas I am not so fussed. Another reason is that my 2 younger siblings are getting married next year- October and December, so he thinks we should not steal their thunder etc. however both my brother & sister are younger than me and have babies already.

AIBU to want to get married next spring or summer rather than wait it out til 2014, and delay TTO til I am 36 going on 37?
I can take whatever comes my way, I'm a big girl ;-)

I'd discuss the implications of TTC as an older mum.

He may have no idea that fertility declines, risks of problems with baby increasing, more likely to have multiples etc.

I think it's easy to get lulled into false sense of security - newspaper stories of older mums/celebs having babies do not mean it is easy.

Also what alot of people forget if you want more than one child is the age you will be when TTC the second or third.

Hi when a man says he is ready to marry but in the year 2020 in my book it sound like the never never saying they will to shut you up hopeing you will forget or somthing will come usually the line is we cant afford

You have diffrent views on marriage and it sounds like you almost had to talk him into it

I wouldnt be having a baby with somone whom i have findermenal diffrent values on important things it sounds like he is not very commited

I was married with in two years it dosent take serval years to know if you want to spend you life with somone the money issue is a smoke screen it costs £150 to get martied in the town hall

Please op don't waist any more time what if you wait and hes not ready in 2014

You should spend your time looking for someone who is already on the same page

I dated someone like you he wasn't ready i left was married with in two years five years later the ex is still just moving from gf to gf

When I was 33 I told DP that he either needed to shit or get off the pot, and that if we did get married I was't falling for one of these never ending engagements that seem to happen nowadays.

We'd been together for 12 years and I guess it was an ultimatum but I was prepared for it to go either way and would have walked away if he'd done any stalling. Marriage was never an issue until I decided I didn't want to have kids without being married first, and I wanted kids so something had to give.

In event he manned up, bought me a smashing ring and proposed (even asked my dad who said "Are you sure? Best of luck with that then" ) We got married 9 months later. DD arrived 10 months after our wedding 2 weeks before my 35th birthday.

Not sure what to advise really, he doesn't seem overly keen but best you know sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, for ladies our age this is the time when big decisions have to be made.

MaidenDevon i am amazed how many women fall for thisgetting martied on the 12th of never

I know women who have been engaged for 10 years pah once your past 30 your to old for bf

Look, talk to the chap

Explain fertility declines. Explain your concerns. See what he says. If he is still humming and hawing you will have to set an ultimatum, sadly.

On a purely practical note, we got married last year when our DS was 2.

It was a great day but....I wish we'd done it before he arrived as looking after a toddler on your wedding day (even with lots of family help) can be a bit of a pain to be honest plus, and this prob is a bit shallow, we didn't have a proper two week honeymoon because of said toddler.

We had 2 nights in Seville while DS stayed with my parents and yes it was a lovely break but I would've much preferred two weeks on a sun lounger in the Maldives.

It if was me, I'd get hitched quick sharpish, have a fab wedding, luxury honeymoon and start TTC straight away. I doubt 6 months will make much difference.

I agree with Paiviaso. I remember your other thread, and I have to agree that he is stringing you along. You sound highly intelligent, so presumably he is too. There is no reason at all why he can't get his head round this.

Have you discussed the fact that TTC at 36 or 37 will run the risk of secondary infertility even if you get pregnant with no difficulties first time round? (I should add that I have an only child and am very happy with the situation, but having more than one child is very important for some people.)

His being such a wally about marriage/TTC does not bode terribly well for him becoming dad of the year. I speak from experience - having persuaded an immature manchild to have a baby with me, it did not end particularly well. Now my no 1 piece of advice would be - have kids with somebody who actually wants them too (now and not X years in the future).

Sorry to be so harsh - you sound great, and you are in a really unenviable position. IMHO, you are doing exactly the right thing to push the marriage issue, but things don't seem to have moved on massively since your last thread. I think your DP needs to shit or get off the pot, as somebody put it upthread. In your shoes, I think I'd give him until Christmas to decide whether to get married/TTC straight away, or walk away from the whole thing.

ok I'm not actually suggesting this so dont anyone flame me but I knew someone who said they were pregnant to get their DP to hurry up with wedding plans then 'faked' a miscarriage.

"For me it's definitely a case of wanting to marry the man I love, not just wanting to marry someone, anyone, feeling that 'time is running out'."
Sorry to be cruel, but how do you feel about NOT marrying the man you love and NOT having children with him; but instead just continuing to live together while he umms and ahhs about when the big date will be? And how will you feel if, should he ever deign to be 'ready', you then struggle to conceive? How would the resentment you might feel, having been mad to wait, affect your relationship?

Poorchurchmouse makes a very valid point that men who are reluctant to commit very often string a woman along for ten years or more, claiming they aren't interested in marriage, before the woman eventually gets fed up and leaves and then hey presto within a year the man has met & married someone else. I've seen this happen multiple times in real life, it's very common.

You have got time to meet someone else, but you need to take action NOW. Don't waste any more time with this partner - ditch him, move out, get gone - and then set about meeting more people so that you can find someone who wants what you want and who wants you. This guy is stringing you along because, hey, he thinks you're okay, and it's better than being alone, but he wants the option of trading you in somewhere down the line. Nice, eh? Run like the wind!

Thanks for all your replies!

As predicted, there doesn't sound like much hope for getting the man on board & listening properly to what I'm saying...rolling his eyes & making 'that face' when I, infrequently, mention the topic of babies & weddings.

He seems frustrated at me for being so impatient- I call it making plans for the future. I think I may have to go back to the drawing board.
One thing is for sure, I have absolutely no plans to get myself accidentally pregnant- I'm not that desperate! Plus as someone said further up, the worst case scenario is finding myself pregnant- or mother of his child- and finding out for sure that he has no plans to marry me.
Getting pregnant changes nothing- I imagine men just feel mandore trapped or pushed into the whole. Complete disaster in my book.

I'll take some hope from some of the posters in a similar situation where things ultimately did work out. I think my new favourite expression is "either shit or get off the pot" ha ha ha!

We started ttc when I was 34, then-DP 36 (and newly engaged) and luckily got pregnant right away, to our surprise.

We'd planned a spring wedding, which would have been the weekend before DD was born, so did a bit of rejigging and married in Feb instead. It's definitely possible to plan a wedding in 6 months, I did it!

My previous long-term partner strung me along about having children and/or marriage - he didn't want to get married and dithered about starting a family before finally dumping me when we were 30.

I feel very, very lucky that I met DH who DID want to have children with me, and we conceived so quickly. I wouldn't be putting it off till I was 37, for sure!

Oh and when my ex finished with me, I grumbled at him 'I bet you're settled down with a younger model 5 years from now and I'm still single'. To be fair to him, he didn't fulfil this prediction & stayed single, as he claimed he wanted to be, for several years, and carried on living the student lifestyle in rented flats while I got on with buying a house.

He does have a GF now, I believe, but when I last heard they were already running into difficulties.

NB when I met DH I very purposely looked for someone a bit older than me as I didn't want another partner the same age as me or younger who didn't want to settle down. DH at 2 years older is the perfect age gap!

It's not reasonable of him to be impatient with you for merely acknowledging that there is a huge element of risk to delaying pregnancy. There REALLY is a risk you might sacrifice the chance to be a mother just to avoid him rolling his eyes. He knows this too. ON one level he really does get it.

Yeah it's all really depressing...I just think that after 4 years we should be moving forward with our relationship.

Actually, with hindsight, we should have had the proper marriage chat and compare what our expectations were. Don't get me wrong, we did talk about wanting to get married, having kids so I never worried that it would be an issue and was convinced that we would do it one day.

I feel rather stupid & naive- how does everyone else get their shit together with marriage, kids etc?!
I was so certain it was all what he wanted too, I think that's why I've been knocked about emotionally this year, with him first saying he no longer believed in marriage & now he wants it, but basically on his terms eg 2014 and no sooner.

Rocks and hard places...

• I mean the proper chat before moving into our home together- we live in a lovely rented flat.

On another note, I'm trying to save to buy a flat, my partner is not very on board with this at the moment.

No idea how I'm going to do it in London, but i really want to get my own place and stop renting. He prefers the flexibility of renting- I think this may mirror our relationship, oh dear...

Op, as the saying goes ' never make someone your priority when you are only their option '

Don't waste your time hoping for something that will never happen

Well, I read your other thread, too. He's stringing you along. You want to get married and have kids. He doesn't.

The only talk you should be having with him is who's moving out - you, him, both of you, who's taking what, etc.

You don't have time to waste.

If you want an answer then just propose to him this weekend and you'll soon know where you stand.

Not on board with marriage, family OR buying a home together? That sounds horribly like my situation but luckily I was only 30 when it all fell apart for me.

I bought my house by myself aged 31, finished doing it up aged 32, met DH aged 33, pregnant & engaged at 34 and married with DD born at 35. (what am I going to do aged 36 I wonder? )

So it can be done if you set your mind to it...but the time to get on with it is now.

I'm new to MN and I'm pretty staggered that so many people with such a limited insight into your relationship based on a few posts, are just telling you to get on out of there.

I haven't read your old thread, I'm not sure where to find it... but I can gather that this guy has been pretty inconsistent and non-commital. When you mentioned here that your DP no longer believed in marriage & now he wants it and is not very onboard with saving to buy a home, I do agree with the other posters that it looks bad. Looks bad - not necessarily is bad.

You and your DP are the only people with the full picture. Ask yourself whether, aside from this (ok, pretty major) sticking point, you make each other happy? If you think it's worth trying to work this out with him, I may be a lone voice here but I strongly recommend working it out!

shanghai of course you're right that only the 2 people involved really know what's going on between them, and perhaps this relationship is worth the effort....but it does seem horribly reminiscent of the situation I was in where I used to tell myself 'it doesn't matter that he doesn't want to marry me, we love each other enough already' and 'it doesn't matter that he won't buy a home with me, we don't need to be mortgaged to each other to be committed'.

Most of my friends who were in relationships WERE getting married and buying homes together at that age, so I had no frame of reference to compare me and my ex to. As far as I was concerned, we were doing our own thing, and if we really loved each other, we'd make it work.

It was only when I joined MN I saw how many other women had been through similar experiences and how my ex's behaviour was very symptomatic of emotional abuse (in lots of other ways, not just because be wouldn't marry me!)

So believe me there are lots of people on here who have been where the OP is now and have had an outcome like mine. If I'd found MN sooner and realised about the EA aspect to the relationship i was in, I would have got over my ex much sooner than I did.

Not saying of course there is an EA element to this relationship, but it reminds me in many ways of the one I was in.

oh, amandine07 I am sorry. You are ready to move on to the next stage of your life, and he just wants to drift along, keeping it "flexible".

"I feel rather stupid & naive- how does everyone else get their shit together with marriage, kids etc?!"
You are not stupid, and as for naive, all you did was trust someone you love. Shouldn't we all be able to do that? So with your latest posts it sounds as if he is now shifting the goalposts too. Ignore the 'not before 2014', that's just there to shut you up (so he can roll his eyes and accuse you of nagging if you bring it up before then). He is saying he no longer believes in marriage. How do you feel about that? Does it change how you feel about marriage? Does it change how you feel about him? Do you want things to remain as they are (unmarried, childless, renting)?