Think my relationship is over

[Tweetiepie1000]

Pretty sure my relationship will be over in the next couple of days!

Huge backstory but too long and complicated.

Been desperate for partner to propose been waiting 13 years! Gone away on holiday and was led to believe he may propose but absolutely no sign of it and only one day left.
I am getting older and he keeps acting like he wants to marry me when we have spoken about it but never has asked. I'm getting too old to have kids so I need to start thinking about my future.
I'm so sad that how I feel doesn't matter. He knows how desperate I am and has said he wants to marry me.

I want to be married before kids and it's really important to me and something I want for myself so am not willing to compromise on it.

I'm sure I'm being U but I just cannot see his point of view at all.

Are you sure you want to live your whole life with this man? Would he be a good role model for your children? Can you rely on him to know what makes you happy and do everything that he can to give you that?

Really, OP, it sounds to me like even if he did propose you should turn him down. End the relationship. It's not the right fit for you.

Even if that was the plan I have 'spoiled the surprise' anyway so...

Oh, how convenient... Why the next holiday and not this one?

Don't let him blame you for this arbitrary 'if you hadn't ruined it' passive-aggressiveness.

Don't let him keep stringing you along. And if he makes an effort to get you back, don't even consider it unless he's holding an engagement ring. You need something concrete. And consider whether you even want someone who likes to keep what you want just out of reach, you may have to go though the same waiting game with the wedding and the baby.

OP, I understand your upset but you're pinning yourself down now, giving in to the sunk costs fallacy. By which I mean, well you've waited this long - a tiny bit more can't hurt, can it?

Only it can. Yes it bloody well can. You've had your eyes opened even more than they were. You've had validation from every person on this thread and you are not a stupid woman. You know that he is lying to you, it's just that your hope is trying so hard to triumph over this and still win the day.

When you said, "Even if he did propose will I always feel like he never really wanted me and I just had to push for it or he gave in for an easy life.", that's when you knew deep down that it's over. He knew how much you wanted this and he deprived you of it. You wouldn't have done that to him. Your partnership is unbalanced, unequal and you know it.

Spend this last day of your holiday mentally saying goodbye to him and when you get back to his mother's house, don't unpack. Add more stuff and go to your own parents' house for a bit. It cannot be worse than this push me-pull you crap that he's been making you complicit in.

I don't know if you will have children or not but I do know (and so do you) that you will never have them with this man. He has already primed you so effectively, you would forever be waiting for a proposal that didn't appear and, as you said, even if it did - it would be tainted.

You deserve better; go out there and get it. Give your mum a ring and let her know that you're coming home for a while... I bet she'd be relieved. I would if it would be my daughter in your position.

He's taken 13 years. He's not to have any more of your precious time.

You need to take back control, at the moment you're letting him hold all the cards. Either walk or ask him to marry you but don't waste another day.

"Surely you get to a point in your relationship where you talk about marriage and decide together to get married. It sounds like you've had this conversation - you've said you want to marry him , he's said he wants to marry you. Isn't the next step to set a date and get married?"

I agree. If he was planning to propose on your next holiday then presumably that means he is happy to marry you and to set a date to do so? The "proposal" is missing but if you want to get married and so does he, then surely that bit is redundant anyway?

Take him at face value- if he was going to propose on next holiday he should be happy to set a date, great, sit down with your calendar and pick one. If he's not happy to do that, then he wasn't going to propose and isn't happy to marry you in which case you have your answer.

Ugh, I'm so sorry you're in this situation. I was with my ex for 9 years, mortgage with him for 5 years. Always said he wanted to get married, have kids etc.
Every big birthday, anniversary etc I truly believed it was the time he'd finally propose, but it never happened.
Eventually I was so obsessed by getting engaged to him (I loved him more ham anything) that I would cry when friends & even people on TV would announce their happy news. A "friend" of mine rubbed her engagement in my face (or so it seemed) when she knew how much I wanted it to be me, and the ex gave me a jelly sweet ring as a bit of a joke in front of her to try to show we were happy for her engagement and it hadn't upset me (think he may have felt a little guilty at this point that he knew it had!)
Anyway in the last, 9th year, that we were together I kept pushing and pushing for the engagement and eventually instead of getting what I wanted, he ended it.
That was 6 years ago and he is now living alone, very happily, with no intention of having a girlfriend in the near future. He is 42.
I am happily married with a baby.
It was never going to happen with the ex, I just couldn't see it.
Him ending the relationship seemed like the worst thing in the world at the time, but I realise now it was such an uneven balance of power where he called all the shots, so glad I'm out of it!
I think you need to do as other posters have said - toughen up, call his bluff and say you're out of there, and be prepared to make it happen if it comes to it. Hugs to you.

I agree, if you've both said you want to get married then the next step has to be to plan the wedding, surely?

And while I absolutely understand the romantic view of being proposed to and think there's nothing wrong with a man proposing to a woman, I do think that there is something incredibly wrong with the notion of both wanting to get married but having to wait until the man decides that it's time.

TBH I wouldn't be offering ultimatums at this stage. Given how important this is to you I would just walk away now. If he's for real he will soon realise just what he's lost. If he doesn't then you've had a lucky escape.

Don't throw good time after bad.

So.... If he was going to propose next holiday, surely that means that he is saying that he has clear plans to marry you. And you want to marry him. In which case you are now engaged and can get on with booking a venue?

Clearly not. Because it's bullshit that he was going to propose.

Sorry you are in this relationship OP. As everyone else has said, now it the time for ultimatum.

The issue of commitment isn't just my only concern for you, it is the convenience of having you in his home helping his elderly mother too. How much care does he do for her? how much more would he have to do without you? how secure would you be financially when his DM passes away?

I just get this awful feeling, he likes your company yes, but has no intention of committing to you, but doesn't want you to go anywhere as you are very useful to him.

LTB...and soon, not his soon though, MN soon, like NOW.

It's situations like this that make me think we women were better off in the 1950s, when there was no sex before marriage. He would not have waited 13 years to propose in THOSE circumstances.

He's getting exactly what he wants. And giving nothing.

Ltb. Please! There's a life out there for you waiting to be lived. Don't let this selfish sod steal it from you.

I couldn't marry somebody who only proposed because I was desperate for it to happen. He should want to marry you. This will not make a happy marriage and he will always resent you for forcing him into it.

Had a talk last night and he had no intention of proposing this holiday. We have another coming up and that was when he was planning for supposedly

He was in his arse! He's lying to you.

It's situations like this that make me think we women were better off in the 1950s, when there was no sex before marriage

Well I for one like sex, can't imagine getting married to someone I had never had sex. Sex is not a bargaining tool for the false security of marriage.

I dunno OP. If I was in your shoes I'd walk. If he really loves you but is just being a bit daft and dithering he will come after you. If he doesn't then well, find someone else, it's his loss.

Sorry get rid

it don't take 13 years for someone to know they want to spend there life with you

On the other hand if he knows you won't have a child with out marriage he may be trying to avoid. Ababy

Op I can only echo what other posters have said. This man is stringing you along, he hasn't done it in 13 years so he won't unless you issue an ultimatum. You are so deserving of more than that. He has managed to take over a decade of your life don't let him take your opportunity to have a marriage and children with someone who values you that much

It's situations like this that make me think we women were better off in the 1950s, when there was no sex before marriage. He would not have waited 13 years to propose in THOSE circumstances.

He's getting exactly what he wants. And giving nothingmy nan always said a man won't by the cow if he's getting the milk for free

You will live with him , buy a home treat him in every way Like a husband why would he want to

I told my dh he dosent have to ever marry me but we would never live together have a house of children until I was more than just a gf

He sounds like a right catch.

Please listen to Arf they are giving you suchave good advice.

Like may PP I have also been in your situation. I ended it, he cried I cried it was shitty. But 4 years later I am married with two children.
Even better me and my ex are friends! He has a new DP who, like him, doesn't want marriage or children.
He sayes me ending it made him realise what he did/didn't want.
Please don't think my story will be yours too, but maybe he is scared of admitting the truth. To you and himself .

Oh God, bad grammar and littered with typos.
Sorry!

Oh god, this he is ridiculous!!
Unless, there is some particular relevance to a proposal on the next holiday (it's where you met, the one place you have always dreamed of going, where your parents met/got engaged...) and he's squeezing the last 13years worth of non-romance into one romantic gesture HE HAS NO INTENTION of proposing next holiday either.

If marriage & kids is more important to you than being with him but without those things, then leave. Don't unpack after this holiday, just leave.

Something was niggling at me last night, and I know it is going to sound ridiculous but is there any chance he could already be married? If you are both in your 30s and have been together 13 years, is it conceivable that there is a short lived teenage marriage?
How long have you been living with his mother? Did he stay on his own before this, or has he been with her the whole 13 years? (I.e. could he have moved back home after a relationship broke down?)

I know someone in a similar situation, although her now husband knew she had (years before) been through a messy breakup after a longterm relationship, he didnt know they had been married.

When he proposed, she kept agreeing to wedding dates then cancelling just before. It eventually emerged that she had never divorced the ex. I think at the time she felt she wasn't ever going to marry again, so why should she go through the bother & expense!

What's he waiting for? He is stringing you along. I'm so sorry you are going through this.

The thing is, isn't the point of marriage to have the proposal when it's freely given. If you have to drag it out of someone reluctantly, it doesn't really mean the same romantic thing, does it?

He clearly can't see why this is so important to you. (I'm not going to comment on whether I think it being important is a good or a bad thing, because I think what matters is that this is a highly significant issue for you). If it really is as much of a deal-breaker as you suggest, then I think, unfortunately, you already have the answer you need. I'm not sure any proposal will really 'mean' what you want it to from this man.

There are more fish in the sea and there is a guy out there who really WILL be desperate to marry you. You deserve that!

To be honest OP that 'oh not this holiday but the next one' is gaslighting. You have your answer he is planning to continue this exercise in stringing you along for as long as he can get away with.

I personally agree with you in that I wanted to be married before having kids. We did a really small registery office do before having our first. DH said he did not believe in marriage and I told him that was a deal breaker for me so he was willing to change his position to stay with me and I love him all the more for that. I would have no respect for your DP at this stage in your circumstances. He is being a complete arse.