What would you do if your partner hadn't proposed after nearly 3 years

[Theresalwaysmoneyinthebananastand]

Or even just said after 3 years that they wanted to marry you and were intending to get engaged soon.
Would you wait a bit longer or leave?
Assuming the partner is not 21 or something incredibly young

You sound very naive. Almost child-like. How old are you?

I waited 11 and then never married him in the end!

Three years is loads of time to know someone well, especially if you live together. Its astonishing to me that people have children together but say they're not ready for marriage.
Why don't you just ask him?

In my first relationship I knew I wanted to marry him after six months (but didn't expect a proposal).

After three years, I was starting to get frustrated, like my life was stuck on hold and couldn't progress until this next step. Felt really insecure in the relationship because I doubted he felt as deeply for me as I did for him.

I stayed for another two years and with hindsight I should have left as it was not the right relationship for me.

My husband proposed after four months. Obviously we were much older and wanted children. But I wouldn't wait for longer than three years again if I doubted the man's feelings or didn't have a good reason. Messy divorced or something.

That's me though. I know plenty of people who lived together for a decade before marrying. Mostly they married just before wanting children.

Hi OP!

Your feelings are valid, and I understand them

I’m 27 and my husband is 30

I got engaged at the 3 and a half year mark and married 6 months later on our 4 year anniversary of being a couple

Are you living together? DH didn’t want to propose to me without moving in

I basically had a serious conversation with my partner after being together for a couple of years and looking at moving in that I didn’t want to live with him for years on end and not be engaged or married

I’d say you need to speak to your partner about marriage if it’s important to you. I feel like if marriage is something you’d want then surely there must of been discussions about this before? After 3 years I would be surprised if not

I personally wouldn’t want to be engaged to someone after only say 6 months / a year but 3 and a half years and living together for 6 months felt like a good time for my DH and I

This is a controversial subject and you will have many woman asking what’s the rush wether that’s because they personally didn’t see marriage at the 3 year mark as important or their DH took longer to propose. You’ll also have people who got engaged earlier asking why your DH hasn’t proposed yet. Everyone is different and has personal choices which are all valid

You need to speak to your partner, basically

Who knows? I was with my DH 11 years before he decided it was time. We’d had a baby by then too.

There’s not enough information to know what to advise. Numerous posters have asked have you talked about it? Have you discussed marriage and your expectations in the past? Have you said that you’re looking for that level of commitment? If you have and he responded positively then I’d raise it again. I wouldn’t leave and I wouldn’t propose but I would raise the issue. Three years is enough time to know if you want to start thinking about heading down that road or not in my opinion. If you’ve never raised the subject, which would be odd for me because my experience is that couples tend to talk about stuff like that at some point, then it would be unfair to leave as he doesn’t know what you want. You need to let him know want you want and need and then he can decide whether that’s something he feels he can give you.

I think it's generally when the man is ready, because in general the man does propose, and they generally don't propose unless they are a) ready and b) sure she'll say yes!

In my relationship actually it was when I was ready, not him. He proposed quickly but I said no and only accepted 7 months later.

Why are you waiting?! Just have a conversation with him. Ask if he ever wants to get married and when. I didn't sit around waiting for my DH to propose. We had a chat about the future and whether we both wanted marriage and kids. We didn't actually get married until we'd been together for 10 years but that was fine as I knew we were both on the same path.

Personallyi think 3 years is plenty of time to know whether you want to marry and spend the rest of your life with someone.

We have been married for 38 years and were engaged after 3 months and married 3 months later. I know that is extreme and we were fortunate that it worked for us, but after 3 years you must know, surely.

Me and my husband spoke about marriage about 6 weeks after we met. We both knew what we wanted and were in the same place in our lives. We got engaged 5 months after we met and married 8 months after that. Married just over a year now and expecting a baby in February.
Our timescale would frighten a lot of people but we were lucky to be in the same place commitment wise and we are extremely happy. I get wanting to wait and get to know someone over a few years but after a while it starts to feel like your just a place filler while one/both of you look for something better (been there before).

Op, be clear to your partner what you want in life and if their plans don't match up you have to decide what's really important. 3 years is enough time to decide if you love someone and want to make a lifelong commitment.

If marriage was what I wanted then I’d be an adult and have a conversation with my partner about whether they wanted it too and if so when we could do it

Men don't tend to propose out if the blue. Mostly marriage has already been discussed. You've been together 3 years and you need to talk to him about how he sees the future regarding cohabiting, buying a house togwther, saving for pensions, kids and marriage. And if yes to sny of these talk about the time line. Stop giving him all the power over your future (probably without him even knowing it!).

I'd leave

Even after 21 I'd expect after 3 years a proposal is at least being discussed

If being married is important to you, I would ask him if he wants to get married. Perhaps point out some rings in shop windows and leave wedding magazines lying around. If he runs away, you’ll have your answer!

Why can't you just have a conversation about it? That would be the mature and sensible thing to do 🤷‍♀️

My partner proposed after 6 years, there is no set time to do it, you can also take the initiative and propose.

Depdens how happy you are in your relationship and whether you've had convos about the future in any extent.

We moved in together after 6 years (and moved abroad at the same time), got engaged after 9years, bought a joint house after 11y and got married then too.

All on our own timescales because we are (and were) happy.

I'm always surprised that in this day and age women are still playing this waiting game and leaving everything to a male partner. Admittedly, we'd been together for 18 years before we married but by three years in we knew this was a permanent relationship and that at some point we'd decide to get married. And we did. All this came about through discussions though. Not some silent hopes and unfulfilled expectations.

Only you know how important it is to get married. If it is a priority then you need to have a sensible conversation with your bf where you make this clear and both of you reach a conclusion about marriage. It's all right to be unready. It's perfectly reasonable not to know when you will be ready. There's no set period of time after which it is wrong to be unready. But it isn't reasonable to continue being on completely different pages in a way that makes your relationship all about waiting for a proposal that may never come. Just have a proper talk your bf and get all this sorted one way or another.

Less about length of relationship, more about circumstances surrounding it.

Echo pp that three years is not that long really. It’s probably about the earliest I would think getting engaged is advisable. It’s not like you have been waiting 10 years or something.

I wouldn't, I would raise the subject like an adult.

Id talk to them.
Tell them that I wanted to get married and ask them whether they felt the same way.

My opinion is that if you cannot sit down and have an open and honest conversation with him about your wants and needs then he’s right, you shouldn’t be getting married

By circumstances surround it I mean it depends what else you have already done and whether you are in a position to actually get married. My fiancé “proposed”after 6 1/2 years. He could have proposed after 3 years as we knew we wanted to stay together but we were renting a 1 bed flat and had no idea where we wanted to settle. We got ourselves sorted, house bought, jobs secure and financially able to hold a semi-decent wedding and then we got engaged. If we had got engaged after 3 years it would have been a 4 year engagement which is just a bit pointless imo.

what would I do? I’d just ask them about it if I was bothered!