to ask my DP why we arent engaged yet?

[BumbleNova]

I dont know if I am being unreasonable or not. I probably am. We have been together 4 years, we have lived together for 3 1/2. I am sure we both want to spend the rest of our lives together, we have discussed it and we have agreed we want kids and (roughly) when we expect that to be.

So the issue is that "we" are buying a house together at the moment. well - I am buying the house (I earn a lot more than he does) with the understanding that it is intended to be our family home.

I am making a real and very hard earned commitment to our future. I have no problem that he isnt contributing financially, but I am unhappy that he isnt committing to me to the same degree? i.e that asking me to marry him should be his part of the deal?

we first looked at rings two years ago today. I honestly couldnt care less about a ring, I dont want a diamond. its what it symbolises. I feel very taken for granted.

how do I raise this in a non-accusatory way? I tried to raise it in a jokey way on holiday about a month ago and he got very defensive. I clearly tried the wrong tack. we got back from a few days just us in a very romantic place last night and I found myself crying silently in the kitchen when we got home. just sheer disappointment. help?!

Sorry, I don't think you're in a situation which screams 'must be engaged', it's perfectly normal to be together longer than you have and not be.

Would you actually want to him to be a SaHD? Risk if you broke up of you having limited time with DC and (if you'd been married) paying spousal maintenance!

OP you are coming at this from completely the wrong direction.

Look at it this way. If he wanted to marry you he would have asked you.

It really is that simple. He doesn't want to marry you and that's what you have to understand.

All the conversations, planning the wedding, talking about keeping your name, etc. are irrelevant because there will be no wedding.

The only way you can be sure is to ask him and to insist on a yes/no answer. Even then, he may agree to get engaged and put off setting a date but at least you will be a bit closer to finding out for yourself

Sorry but it's glaringly obvious. Men who want to get married, get married.

There really isnt a problem with you doing the asking and also with your future DH being SAHP.

I think that some people are quite happy with the status quo. It doesnt mean that they dont want to be married just dont see the need to do it.

If making a change matters to you then you need to be the one to suggest the change. At the time of buying a house together is the ideal time to do it.

If you ask and he says no/not yet/lets wait a bit then I think you have your answer.

I have yet to meet anyone who can genuinely read minds so what have you got to lose with asking?

My DH would never have done the romantic proposal and ring thing. If I hadnt asked then I doubt he would have done so for a long time. It can work and for us it did work (silver wedding anniversary this year).

me and my dp did a similar thing but the other way round. I.e. He bought our flat in his name and I paid him some rent then after a year when we were sure we got on living together he put my name on the mortgage. However when we were looking at flats he gave me as much input as he had himself. He then proposed a year after that so we had been together 3 years. I felt like it was never going to happen, but he wanted to do it in his own time and had saved up for an expensive ring. We also had been away on romantic trips where I had been expecting a proposal and it hadn't happened. So he could be telling the truth about waiting to afford a nice ring. He could be getting defensive because he is planning on proposing soon and doesn't want you brining the subject up as then it won't seem like as much of a surprise. As you are so upset and the fact that you choosing a house for you both, I think you should sit him down and ask him honestly what his intentions are. If you don't want the same things, now is a good time to find out.

Chat to him on the phone about it tonight, let him know how you're feeling, then he has some time to think about it.

When he arrives back at the end of the week it won't be sprung on him. He can give you his considered response. Otherwise this is going to go on forever.

Sometimes these chats are easier on the phone as well.

I think some people are being harsh on the DP, before i got married to DW we did speak about weddings and getting married before I even asked her to marry me. I didn't ask her sooner because the timing wasn't right and I didn't feel ready even though we lived together etc, it wasn't because I didn't want to marry her.

So it isn't as black and white as 'he doesn't want to marry you'.

And I can't help but feel that some of the advice would be different if the genders were reversed, people would be screaming at the male OP to propose and get married so that DP is protected.

He hasn't proposed because perhaps you are not 'the one' for him or he is just plain lazy and thinks he can have his cake and eat it. Maybe it is the idea of a wedding itself (rather than marriage) that he is trying to avoid. You need clear communication with him.

Whatever the case - you are the easy option for him. You are the easy option because you allowed yourself to be an easy option. Don't be the easy option. Respect yourself.

Buy your home - make sure he has no legal interest in it. Prenup is the way to go.

There is nothing better than a cool ultimatum (i.e., without anger or joking). Simply ask if he plans to propose and get married soon, because if he doesn't then you would rather call it quits now, rather than waste your time being strung along by someone who can't make up his mind. If he walks away - then it is a lucky escape for you. But hopefully it will just get his ass into gear.

Never settle for less than you deserve and let him know it. Show him you respect yourself more than you need him. Sounds like he needs you more.

Maybe all of this is happening to show you he isn't 'the one' for you as well or perhaps he just needs this wake up call/kick up the back side.

OP, I was in a similar situation some years ago with my now DH. We had discussed and agreed that we wanted to marry each other - it was only the timescale that hadn't been decided. I wanted to get married soon, he was in no hurry.

Two things changed that. First, I did the maths for him in terms of having DC (which I knew he wanted) - if we got engaged at X age, a wedding would take Y long to plan, then ideally we'd want a year or two married before TTC... on his timescale we would be TTCing in our late 30s, not ideal biologically. He hadn't really considered the "lead time" for having DC in that way.

Second, I said if he hadn't proposed by February 29th, I would. (I knew he was traditional enough to want to propose himself, though I wasn't bothered).

devoncreamtea said "I think that your dp is unsure about asking you because it is the gesture that he is in charge of and wants to get it right. "

I think that my DH felt exactly this. He proposed almost a year after I started thinking that I wished he'd hurry up and do it and a good 3 or 4 months after I had said outright that I really wanted to get married. He absolutely had to do it in his way, in his own time. Your DH may feel this even more keenly due to the disparity in your financial positions.

My DH did not choose a ring for me as he knew he couldn't guess my taste. He did get down on one knee but it was fine to do that without a ring to present (we were on a ski slope and I thought he'd fallen over actually...). We really enjoyed choosing it together; it was a nice little project to jump straight into once the excitement of the proposal had died down.

Instead of telling your DP that he doesn't have to get an expensive ring, why not just make it clear that you'd not really like to have one chosen for you. Maybe mention an imaginary workmate who was given a ring and didn't like it? OK it doesn't take away the issue of him thinking he can't propose till he can afford the type of ring he thinks you "deserve" but it does separate the ring and the proposal a bit and may make him more willing to take the risk.

Pp seem to be very quick to say he doesn't want to marry you!!

I don't think that at all, he talks about future, about wedding, engagement ring and having children.

You are both 30, and putting finances in order to buy a house, you haven't fully committed financially to him by having house in your name only (which I agree with until you are married), he is working abroad, maybe he just thinks in a year or 2 when you are living in the house/ finances more stable/ able to save for wedding. Maybe he didn't envisage a long engagement? Or quite a few of my friends/relatives only got married before ttc.

If you are sure you both want to spend the rest of your lives together and if marriage is important to you, and he doesn't have a specific reason that he can't/ barrier/ideologically opposed to marriage. Then I think the chat will just be about timescales and you making clear that engagement is something you want.

If I was you I wouldn't propose, I'd rather come to an "agreement" of engagement personally, even though people say "he got down on one knee" or "she asked me" it is usually after some agreement/moving towards engagement on both sides. Having said that, my DH did ask me and it was a bit of a surprise/not really discussed, and I burst out laughing. If he had been waiting for sometime for me to propose/silently crying in the kitchen about it, I think he might have taken my reaction badly.

Good point john

In my situ I would be like the dp here, I am at home with kids don't earn much, but definitely contribute by raising the kids. That was our agreement and what I wanted to do with my life. I would hate for that desire to have a family, home, animals, kids be interpreted as being a freeloading maniac. Life is complicated.
you know what you feel op, and I expect you know how your dp feels. You are just frustrated, don't make it a bigger deal than it needs to be.

I don't agree by the way with all the posters who say that he doesn't want to be married and if he did he'd have proposed. Some men do want to get married, to their GF, but just think they'll get round to it "some day"... they just need a bit of a kick up the arse

I hear you op. I've just got engaged and was expecting my dp to propose on a romantic holiday last year and when he didn't i was upset. We had a conversation about it and he said he hadn't realised how important it was to me (we have both been married before) he had some time to think about things and proposed 6 months later on my birthday.
I also wanted him to ask and whether thats considered as old fashioned by some or not it's something i understand and is not nonsense as a pp suggested. I do think a conversation needs to be had as it could well be crossed wires as it was in our case.
Good luck op.

I agree with other posters who think that the cost of a ring / wedding etc at the same time as a house purchase might be freaking him out a bit if he is already in a tricky place financially. The fact that the media keeps telling us all that weddings are so expensive probably doesn't help. Perhaps you need to propose but tell him that it's not 'the wedding' that you want but it's 'being married'. But have a frank discussion soon. It's what DH and I did - OK it wasn't any sort of romantic proposal but it sorted us out. Turned out he thought we'd marry after buying a house together and I wanted to do so first. But if I hadn't asked to talk about it we'd probably only be looking at (2nd hand and not expensive) rings now! Instead we're coming up to our 4th anniversary, very happily.

Sorry to be blunt but this all reads as if he wants to live off you. He has his niche little job, a higher earning partner who is about to buy a house for him to live in, she's bending over backwards to find a property that suits him that meets his requirements, he says he wants to be a SAHD etc. The way he gets all this with the freedom to do what he wants is by dangling an illusory carrot of marriage.

Are you really sure this man is for you? From what I've read, it sounds like this is a two-way resentment bomb that will explode in a few years.

Can I just ask a question?

If you have the house in one person's name, then get married, does the getting married not legally over-ride the previous agreement?

I thought when you married, it would be much harder to make any defence against a house jointly lived in, especially if he was the SAHD. Surely if he was married, and looked after the children at home, in the event of a split, he could register an interest (home rights?) in the house as the children's carer and the Op would have to leave?

Sorry I totally disagree with those saying he obviously doesn't want to marry you, what a load of shit.

We were engaged above 6 years and we'd bought a house. We wanted security and to own a property first. I think people that get engaged (and intend to have the big expensive wedding) before buying are idiots.

After.

It just seems odd to have gone to all the trouble of buying a house solely in your own name, not as a joint enterprise, and then make yourself vulnerable by marrying (if keeping your house is very important to you).

From his perspective, I would not move into or contribute financially to a house unless I had some rights, it would be foolish to do so. If you married, then your house would be a joint asset, I would never give my career as he is proposing, and take the financial hit of that for many years, without a name on the deeds.

Oh and the house is jointly owned, though neither of us have any idea who contributed what really as we combine everything.

Sorry to be blunt but this all reads as if he wants to live off you.

^^
This

Orda1

The key part of your post is "and WE'd bought a house". At the point that one or other of a long term partnership is BUYING a house, you would expect that the conversation about marriage and engagement would have happened and the "I'm buying a house" would have become "WE are buying a house".

The fact this is OP buying alone, irrespective of their financial positions, is a big red flag as to his long term intentions I think.

Why is the OP buying alone a signal of his intentions? Surely it is a signal of hers (that she alone will have a financial interest in the house they both live in?)

OP, I wouldn't buy this house and install him, it's going to get very messy if he then doesn't want to marry.

I can't see why he would get all defensive and cross about marriage, unless he didn't want to marry!

I would clarify his intentions re marry before buying a house for him to live in, for yours and his sakes.