About talking about our wedding when not even engaged?

[PixieChemist]

DP has been married previously and says he should never have married her. She proposed after a couple of weeks and he said he rushed into it (naively) hoping everything would be okay. They were divorced two years after getting married.

I told him this time around I'd want him to propose to me when he's ready so I know he's serious.

Lately he's been wanting to chat about weddings, what we'd like to do etc. He says he's serious but he hasn't proposed.

AIBU to think I'd rather be engaged before talking that seriously?

Is it normal to talk about your own wedding and what you'd like if you're not even engaged?

Talking about a wedding without being engaged is either 1) trying to figure out if you want to get engaged or 2) stringing someone along. Given he has been burnt before, he could be in either category.

So then if there's no official proposal, how do you know whether he's stringing you along or if he's actually serious?

You don't. Just, eventually, you realise you've been talking about weddings for years and nothing's actually been done. Then you press the issue and he says you're rushing him, or he was about to propose and now you've ruined it, or that he never wanted to get married but he was humouring you because you like to talk about it.

That's assuming he's a complete wanker, though. I'm sure it doesn't happen a lot. It's just that the one difference the proposal does make is that the engagement is now public and quantifiable (you've been engaged 6 months, a year, 3 years), and expectations will eventually arise about making bookings, paying deposits and setting dates. Vague we're-not-engaged-but wedding talk can be dragged out a lot longer if one partner doesn't really want to get married and is just avoiding conflict on this point.

One year of talk would be my limit. I hate to sound like some sort of retro get-your-man manual, but if a partner talked about our wedding for a year but never actually proposed or considered us engaged, I would wonder what was happening. I'd wonder that about anyone who discussed any plan of action for a year without doing anything remotely practical towards it, even just making a traditional gesture.

One year of talk would be my limit. I hate to sound like some sort of retro get-your-man manual, but if a partner talked about our wedding for a year but never actually proposed or considered us engaged, I would wonder what was happening.

This ^^ makes a lot of sense.

I think it depends on the situation. I think it's perfectly possible to talk about plans for marriage and a wedding, even if you aren't engaged, as long as it's a mutual thing (not one sided, pressured, etc., which doesn't sound like it is in your case). My dh and I definitely talked about wedding plans before we got engaged. In fact, we researched venues before we were engaged as well. It may be slightly different because I was living overseas at the time (I'm not a British citizen) and we planned a wedding to coincide with my move to the UK to live with him (we both lived overseas together, then I moved back to my home country and he lived part of the year there with me when he could get away from university/work while I sorted out my home, finances, etc. in preparation for the move). For immigration reasons, we needed to have a firm plan in place about the wedding so I could time my visa applications well in advance. We had a ring made with a stone that had sentimental value to us, so it wasn't a surprise that an engagement was coming that year, but I didn't consider us 'engaged' until after he officially proposed. That didn't seem weird, but it was mutual and we knew early on in our relationship that we wanted to get married, so we sort of always talked about it, but I know our situation is kind of unique maybe because we did have to be really organised about the whole thing because visas take time as do international moves.

Tell him that you don't want to start making any plans or talking about a wedding until you're engaged. Seems pretty reasonable to me.