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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To wonder why my brother hasn't proposed to his gf yet?

232 replies

amibeingunreas · 22/12/2014 15:03

They have been together for about 5 1/2 years, they both want to get married one day as far as i can know.

We got married at 19 so perhaps i'm a bit bias but do you think 5 1/2 years is too long to just be 'in a relationship'?

they are 23 and 26.

J

OP posts:
Original poster
amibeingunreas · 22/12/2014 17:11

Thurlow - I can't say I've heard of that... they may have decided to get married together but there has always been a proposal. Facebook is littered with them around summer time.

Signals in that she's often talking about weddings, colour schemes, weddings she enjoyed but perhaps I misinterpreted her enthustiam for weddings as an enthusiasm for her own wedding.

OP posts:
StackladysMorphicResonator · 22/12/2014 17:11

This thread is bizarre! OP, your attitude is very peculiar - getting married isn't a competition, and the average age for a first marriage is 28.9 for a woman and 30.8 - 23 and 26 is very young to be married.

You sound extremely nosy and condescending - I would butt out if I were you, it's really none of your business!

springlamb · 22/12/2014 17:11

I was never proposed to. I'd have found the whole sparkly ring and him on his knees thing excruciating.
We were packing up our flat to move to our house.
He shouted from the bedroom to the kitchen "so really I suppose we ought to get married now"
I called back "well I suspect it would make sense"
We were married 5 weeks later.
I got my engagement ring 16 years later.
Strokes for folks.

Thurlow · 22/12/2014 17:11

Just because she likes the sound of a wedding or has ideas on what she'd like eventually doesn't mean that she is desperate to get married right now

MrsKoala · 22/12/2014 17:13

I don't really know anyone who had a 'proposal' as such. Just a chat about their future together then a mutual agreement to get married. That's how i have done it with my 2 husbands and the way my parents and my sister and bil did it.

WineWineWine · 22/12/2014 17:14

it doesn't matter to me really, it is just a bit embarrassing for the gf.
It clearly does matter to you as you are posting about it - and the fact that you have googled it, is just beyond weird!

I thought she might be embarrassed because we married so quickly and she might feel left out.
That has to be one of the most egotistical things I have ever read. I suspect that she doesn't measure herself against you!

Your attitudes towards women and marriage come straight out of the 1950s. Most of us have moved on since then.

Original poster
amibeingunreas · 22/12/2014 17:15

I am shocked MrsKoala, as I'm the opposite, I counted 15 pictures of sparkly rings with knees bent on Facebook this July (sad I counted I know). I didn't have a big proposal but I thought it was the norm.

OP posts:
MrsKoala · 22/12/2014 17:16

I bought my first engagement ring without exH even being present.

MaryWestmacott · 22/12/2014 17:17

well, the average first time mum is 30 now, so even if they want to be married before having DCs, they still have years before hitting the average. Most middle class people I know got married when the bride was between 26-29, had first baby from 29-32, I don't know many who were married as young as 23.

I was 28 when I got married. We'd been together for 7 years engaged for 1, that was about normal for our friendship groups. However, many of us had been dealing with older relatives who seemed to think you should be married off within 12 months of leaving uni/before if you didn't go or else was never going to get married or have children and wasn't it a tragedy .

OP, ignore your desire to 'hurry them along' - they are still very young and probably have a lot of things they want to do before getting married and starting a family - and if you are like this about getting engaged, I bet within 6 months of the wedding you'll be pointedly looking at her stomach and giving them knowing looks if she dares order a soft drink. I would suggest they are very sensible not to get engaged or married until they are actually ready to start a family, you'll be a bloody nightmare waiting for a double line!!!! Wink

Original poster
amibeingunreas · 22/12/2014 17:18

I am impressed.

I've learnt a lot from this thread, in America weddings are a huge thing, you get proposal videos, showers, parties... I know it's not like that here so much.

Thanks everyone, I will keep my mouth shut (not that I've said anything to anyone) and see where nature takes us.

OP posts:
MaryWestmacott · 22/12/2014 17:20

oh but most of my friends did do the big proposal thing, it does seem odd that so many of people on here just did terribly practical conversations instead! (I got bended knee proposal in a rainforst, most friends have a 'story')

Tyzer85 · 22/12/2014 17:24

OP you sound insane, leave them to it as it's none of your business.

5madthings · 22/12/2014 17:28

Yabu dp and I got engaged after less than year together, next year after 17 years we are getting married :)

No getting down on bended knee from either of us.

We have never felt the need to be married but figured it would be nice after all this time to make it official and have a day for us, the madthings and friends and family to celebrate.

spinduchess · 22/12/2014 17:31

Ah - I think I get it now. Young Christian bride in a Southern state by any chance OP. Makes sense. Context is everything.

Mrsfrumble · 22/12/2014 17:35

I live in the USA, right in the Bible Belt. Here in Oklahoma, the median age for first marriage is 24, the 5th youngest in the country. 4th and 6th places belong to Arkansas and Kentucky, which also share the highest divorce rate with Oklahoma. All three states are among the poorest in the US too.

I'm not saying the three things are inextricably linked, but I think they point to a trend which may explain why most folks in the UK wait a bit longer to get married in nowadays and why this is a good thing.

Mrsfrumble · 22/12/2014 17:36

X-posted with you, spinduchess!

Letthemtalk · 22/12/2014 17:42

Myfurbyisalive, nope not bothered at all. If I was bothered then we'd get married. We got engaged 3 months after we met, never intended to get married straight away, and the longer we've been together the less important it's become. I think the mortgage, 2 kids and life together pretty much shows enough commitment.

velourvoyageur · 22/12/2014 17:42

Marriage is not the default you know Hmm since I was about 15 I've hoped I'll never get married.
Maybe I'll be persuaded to if it puts me in a safer position legally, financially, whatever in the future, but I'll be quite disgruntled about it and it'll be a strictly box-ticking exercise.

loveareadingthanks · 22/12/2014 17:44

I thought traveller family as well on reading through too. Surprised at these attitudes from anyone else in the UK.

I think that in some ways you've had a hard time here OP. I can understand being a bit curious about why it hasn't happened yet if they are a committed couple, talking about marriage/weddings. But there could be lots of reasons other than your brother not wanting to marry her, which is what you seem to assume it is. They may have decided not to marry or have kids at all, they may have decided to get married before having kids in their 30s, they may have decided they want a big wedding and are saving up for a few years but don't believe in long engagements. Lots more possible reasons.

It's your use of 'embarrassed' that has got us all going, I think. Maybe you define that word a bit differently to most of us. Embarrasment: a feeling of self-consciousness, shame, or awkwardness. Why do you think she is supposed to feel self-conscious, ashamed or awkward about not being married. That's a very odd concept to most of us.

Cabrinha · 22/12/2014 17:44

I think you should have said that you're in the US, on a UK site that has predominantly though far from exclusively UK nationals and residents.

As PP have said, context is everything.

It would be possible that she IS embarrassed if she's living in a culture where it is very much expected. I feel for her if so.

But you're still being somewhat self obsessed - she would then be embarrassed by not fitting the social norm, not specifically jealous of you.

I feel sorry for anyone with such a cultural pressure.

Beangarda · 22/12/2014 17:45

Yes, Spin, that makes a lot of sense.

OP, this is 2014. Do you honestly think most women are still sitting about dreaming of sparkly rings and one day their prince will come? Like previous posters, my experience of other people's committed relationships frequently doesn't involve them marrying because they don't see it as a priority, or marrying as a result of a conversation between them both, or the woman proposing to the man (or the other woman, for that matter!)

I would have had zero respect for someone who thought I would have any truck with diamonds and down on one knee shenanigans.

RattieBagTheOldHag · 22/12/2014 17:51

Shock. Yabvu. It's not nice to go around feelng 'sorry' for other people for no good reason. You do realise that they might be feeling sorry for you that you got married so very young.

It's far more Shock to get married so young than not to be proposed to.

CheeseBuster · 22/12/2014 17:58

I would be embarrassed to join a family where everyone was married off before 20.

YABU.

Floggingmolly · 22/12/2014 18:08

We got married so quickly that she might feel left out Left out of what?? The Royal Society of Smug Marrieds???? You are not a part of their relationship; and they're not a part of yours.

There's nothing for her to feel left out of.

spinduchess · 22/12/2014 18:09

This thread reminds me of the girl at 4:25