Would it be unreasonable for me to pay for my own engagement ring?

[RubyRain]

My partner and I have been together for 7 years and have lived together for just 3 months. The long wait was due to financial reasons. The discussion of engagement came up and he said he wanted to propose but couldn't afford a ring and might take a while to save up for one.

I told him I don't care about a big fancy ring but if it was a ring he wanted in order to ask me to marry him I am willing to lend him the money to buy one and it could happen sooner.

He wasn't happy at all with this, acted as if I had suggested he drank lighter fluid . He said there's no way I'm paying for my own ring. Technically I'm not paying for it I am just lending him money which he will pay back, so he would be buying it.

Am I being unreasonable to suggest this and be ok with it?

Oh, by the way, for those who may wonder why I don't just ask him or why we don't just go ahead and get married and skip the ring thing, my do is very traditional and wants the whole engagement experience :)

[Burren]

Another voice to add to the 'you're already cohabiting and in a long term relationship -why on earth would you go backwards to the 'getting engaged' stage'?

Skip the ring, either way. It's not compulsory. I don't have either a wedding or engagement ring. We were also living together long term when we decided to marry, and pretending to 'get engaged' would have felt juvenile and artificial.

[JumbledAndTumbled]

I didn't get an engagement ring until my DH and I had been married about 15 years, let's just say it was worth the wait

I would let your DH get a little ring an upgrade it in the future.

[DrOwh]

At this point of the relationship, even a ring from Argos would do.
Or he could borrow from the bank or somebody else.
Are you sure marrriage is actually on his plans?

[kentishgirl]

I think he's stalling. How long to save up for the ring? then how long to save up for the wedding?

He hasn't fallen for all that crap from the diamond marketing board (or whatever they are called) about engagement rings having to be diamond, and having to cost 3x monthly salary? This is a new thing - and it's a marketing exercise. Don't be so naive.

What's important to him? Getting married or putting on a show?

You can get beautiful rings for a couple of hundred pounds, or less. I love the rings from Monica Vinader, for example. Plenty of people on this thread have cheap rings monetarily, that mean the world to them in sentiment.

[Bunbaker]

I'm in the skip the expense of an engagement ring camp. It is only a bit of metal with a stone in. The fact that you have moved in together shows far more commitment.

OH and I didn't have "an engagement". We just decided to get married and went and got on with it. We were hard up and I don't like rings anyway, except for my plain wedding ring, and OH was pleased that I wasn't bothered. (This was nearly 34 years ago and we are still together)

I, too, am baffled by people who get engaged without a thought that it is a precursor to getting married. On more than one occasion I have asked engaged couples when the big day is and they look at me as if the thought hadn't occurred to them. Weird.