Life has to be perfect for us to marry

[Magneticlotus]

Dp and I have been engaged now for nearly two years. So I wanted to start discussing potentional planning, all still very rough.

This made dp announce that he didn't want to get married till everything in life was perfect as he wanted our marriage to be symbolic over turning over a new leaf when all our hardships are fleshed out. On one hand I understand what he is saying as our situation in life is less than idealic right now, but on the other hand part of me thinks people get married when they have nothing simply because they love each other. A wedding can bring happiness instead of just waiting for everything around us to align and bring happiness.

I'm starting to think dp doesn't truly love me, I know this may seem a stretch but this mentaliy just feels wrong (or maybe I'm just an unrealistic hopeless romantic). We've been together long enough have. Have a child together. I can't not shake this feeling that this is a reflection of US as a couple rather than life's predicements around us.

Aibu?

Life is never perfect. Even the Queen with all her privileges never had a perfect life.

He needs to define what he means, ie 10k in savings and all debts paid. Then he needs to give you a realistic time frame of when that will happen. Will, not may. He needs to be more proactive, more enthusiastic, and less woolly. Only then can you decide if he's stringing you along or not.

How is he on day to day household chores, or how much does he look after your joint child? If you do the majority now then just fucking run like the wind.

He doesn’t want to get married to you. He’s done you a favour by saying this, but it would be better if he just came straight out with it directly. The ‘wait until everything is perfect’ line is a bit of a cop out. Life is never perfect.

Better though than going through with a wedding because you never find the right moment to say ‘I don’t want to do this’.

I don’t think you want the same things from life so better to get out now and give both of you a chance of finding someone else, or being perfectly happy not with someone.

I’m not convinced by her options if she does leave him. If it’s his parents they’re living with where would she go? He’s got debt but at least she’s got no housing costs.

I can't find one poster who agrees with @Magneticlotus . He's being practical. Living with mum and dad, he has debts. He has a girlfriend and child to worry about. It's not great. He's not got a lot to look forward to. A wedding is a daft Idea. How can you payout for a wedding and ignore the debts?

Because you don’t need to “pay out” for a wedding, ja trip to the closest registry and an 80 pounds license will do it. Unless you view a wedding (like a lot of folk) a way of feeling like a princess for a day and impressing people instead of making a legal commitment to your family. You can leave the big party and impressing people but once you pay your debt and have your own place.

Getting married is cheap. We got married with two witnesses in a register office. I think it came in at under £250, including taking our witnesses for an excellent lunch.

His stringing you along.

He is just coming up with excuses.

Talk about missing the point!

He has 10k worth of debt and they're living with family as they can't afford their own place. Marriage should be the last thing on their minds.

He has 10k worth of debt and they're living with family as they can't afford their own place.

Actually....how has he got so much debt if he's been living at home with so little expenses (I assume). You are both earning but living with parents...where the heck is it going?

If they is no marriage you need to make sure you look after you and your DC. DO NOT help pay off his debt. Make sure you save your money in your own account. Make sure you work or study to better yourself and your situation. Remember you need a pension and a roof over your heads. Don't give him your hard earned money.

I wondered about this. He uses the excuse of wanting everything to be perfect but in actual fact is gambling his money away and using the "life to be perfect" excuse is buying him time to try and fix his issue (but not really fixing it, just gambling more!)

Yanbu, it doesn’t look good I’m afraid especially if you already have a baby together. I’d tell him you want to be married by 6 mos/year/whatever and stick to it. Even if everything gets to be ‘perfect’ then some hardship comes along he’s going to cancel the whole thing?

Maybe, rather than issuing an ultimatum, you could sit him down and tell him how this is making you feel, @Magneticlotus - the worry that life is never going to be perfect, and so the wedding will never happen, or that it will happen too late for your father to be there. It sounds as if you are very hurt by his refusal to discuss a wedding, and you can tell him this - or tell him again, if you already have. You have every right to tell him that the wedding matters a lot to you, and that his refusal to marry you is sending up red flags. You could ask him outright if he does actually want to marry you, or whether he is just stringing you along.

Then maybe you say you want a compromise - you understand he doesn’t think the circumstances are right now, but you want to set some realistic life goals that would make the circumstances right for a wedding.

He doesn't want to seal your relationship with marriage in his imperfect world, but was fine with adding a child to it?

Maybe there is a healthy compromise to be met in this type of situation
eg.
Let's have a common goal (or 2), that is reachable by a certain date and then arrange the wedding for after that. This goal could be paying off a certain amount of debt or saving up a certain amount of money towards your home, that type of thing.
Agree that it is time limited and that even if those goals aren't reached, because of unforseen circumstance/life has changed things, that you will at least start planning the wedding and that you would like to have a realistic max time line on how long you are happy to wait.

Life will never be perfect. He doesn't sound like he wants to get married.

It seems like he's happy enough to stay with you for now, but doesn't want to be trapped by marriage in case something better comes his way at some point.

People who are sure they love someone enough to marry them would be having a conversation about dates/times in the year that are meaningful to them, where they think would be a nice place to do it, show a little excitement about eventually becoming your husband. They most certainly wouldn't say what he did...

Would they be saying that, though? Really? When they don’t have a roof over their heads and are paying down debt while having a small child? Most people in that situation wouldn’t be planning a wedding. The parents with whom they still live might question their priorities and perhaps suggest that they use the money to get a flat. And if you love someone, don’t you want to do the best to make sure they have a safe, happy and secure future? Spaffing money on a wedding when you haven’t even got your own front door seems an odd way of showing you care about another person’s wellbeing.

I don't think this is fair - OP has said that she is happy with an incredibly cheap wedding. There's no reason marriage has to involve the "spaffing" of tons of money. And I am certain that if people who had debt were banned from getting married, the wedding market would contract suddenly and dramatically!

Not everyone cares so much about property ownership and money. To me, financial security has always been important but for other people, symbolic things like marriage are more meaningful than owning a house. Just because we are different does not mean they are wrong! The issue seems to be that her DP does not hold the same values, which is where the friction comes from. What's needed is a conversation where both of them understand the other's priorities, and they work out a way to balance marriage and finances.

Op how old are you both? How old is your child and was it a planned pregnancy? It's hard to advise without context and his perspective.

Not everyone cares so much about property ownership and money. To me, financial security has always been important but for other people, symbolic things like marriage are more meaningful than owning a house.

We're not even talking about owning a house though - they currently live with family as they don't even have a rental together.

I'm sorry but there's no way I'd be planning a wedding or a marriage if I didn't even have a home to go to afterwards.

I dont think you are engaged. You certainly arent engaged to be married.

@HeidiUpTheMountain raised some good points. And FWIW, marriage IS NOT ROMANTIC. It's a legal contract and it's why you need to read the link another poster shared on the difference between marriage and cohabitation.

It frustrates the hell out of me that women are sold an idea of love and happiness around marriage when the reality is that you are making a legal contract about assets and making a commitment to work hard at seeing those through.

From his point of view, he has all the convenience if living at home with parents and a subsidised life and a lice in girlfriend. Of course he doesnt want to change anything. And you dont want to move out because of love and your child. But there is no incentive for him to marry you.

And bluntly, its anticlimactic to marry on a Saturday with a showy romantic wedding and go back to parents house in debt. Either wait, and accept that he is either being practical or stringing you along - you dont know which yet - or drop the emotional ties you have to weddings as a romantic thing and nip off down the registry office for a low key affair and accept that whilst it isnt "romantic" it is the adult response to getting your head down for the next 5 years and gives legal ties that I'm assuming you want after reading the Previous Posters link.

Marriage is compromise. Maybe he compromises on the time and you compromise on the romance and just go and do it. If you dont want to compromise on the Big Day idea then you cant be surprised that he doesnt want to compromise on the timing or his savings/debt repayment plans.

Of course it doesn't, but a house also doesn't need to be more than 4 walls and a roof. It's absolutely fine to want something a bit more than the basic version of something, it's fine to want a bit of luxury or indulgence. It's fine to want to save for the wedding you want rather than settling for the version that will 'do'.

It's not fine to string someone along or make promises you have no intention of delivering on. So I do agree with you, I was just trying to highlight that it's fine to want to wait/save up for the wedding both parties want.

She thought marriage was going to follow the engagement.

This was quite naive of her, because it turns out engagement has no meaning whatsoever to this man - it was a means to an end for her BF.

The father of my sons love bombed and begged for marriage when we were in our early stages. I got pregnant 2 years in and 16 years later, we weren’t married. We didn’t love each other enough and that was the truth of it. I am glad in retrospect as when it finally ground to a halt, I just left. No legal wrangles and no paperwork. I am remarried now for no other reason than we love each other (no more kids and no real ‘need’ apart from that commitment in the eyes of society and the law). Sooooo my own experience and those folks I know in similar boat does say that this is basically a recognition that he might not see this as forever.

I agree with him, I wouldn’t have wanted to get married if I was living with parents. Yeah it’s cheap to get married but what if he’s always dreamed of a lovely big wedding? He obviously feels it’s not the right time for a wedding and I would agree