AIBU to hate the ongoing concept that 'the man must propose'?

[moderndilemma]

So many threads where people are waiting for a proposal...

But also personal experience where the youngest (grandchildren equivalant age 4/5/6) are asking when Uncle Bob will propose to Auntie Alice.

What kind of world and systems and ideas are we perpetuating?

@Happyinarcon my dh is like you. He had a very miserable upbringing. His parents divorced v acrimoniously when he was a child. His mother then had several abusive relationships & more children but no more marriages.

He never wanted to get married (was quite against it) till we met. I had no interest in marriage either (& I'd had 3 previous boyfriends talk about it & I knew it wasn't for me)

But when we met, we both just knew this was something special & different. He says it made him want to do everything the right way & he couldn't explain it - he just needed to.

So he proposed. I was utterly surprised. And utterly delighted (which also surprised me). It was private & intimate & just the two of us in a place of v special significance to us & he'd had an incredulity beautiful ring made. It's the ring of my dreams..

We got engaged & married within 9 months of each other, so all in the one year. No hanging around for years.

We had our dc 2 years later & we've been incredibly happily married for over 20 years now.

I kept my own surname. I experimented with using his (far nicer name than mine) but I couldn't make it stick especially in work where I was established prior to getting married. Dc has dh's name.

Most things done under the guise of “it’s traditional” need to be done away with imo. Fine if individuals want to adhere to certain traditions - many of which began as ownership and subjugation of women - but they shouldn’t be overarching societal narratives or expectations. It was once tradition in this country to have public hangings but times move on, don’t they.

Traditional does not equal romantic, and the other ideas that come along with it are often borne of nothing more than misogyny, like the whole “men don’t like being proposed to” - it’s uncomfortably close to “men don’t like women having agency in their own lives”. The blindly taking a man’s name drives me mad too. Why so readily throw away your identity? If the reason is to all have the same name then he can take yours or you can all choose a new one!

Romance can be alive in a relationship through all sorts of displays of love. It doesn’t need to be done through traditions that reduce women’s autonomy.

The men who “don’t like” when a woman plays an active role in planning her own life plans can get in the bin.

Whenever I see a woman cooing over how she likes her relationships and her men to be "traditional" my eyes roll all the way back in my head and frankly I just think how silly she is. Traditional gender roles are there to box women in (and men too tbh) and hold them back. Good luck with your traditional lack of freedom and your traditional having no life beyond the domestic sphere. Meanwhile, men invested in traditional masculine roles are gigantic red flags. He thinks he knows better than you, he thinks he should control you and he doesn't take you seriously.

Marriage is a huge life decision and I can't imagine just waiting around passively if it was something I wanted. You wouldn't buy a house or take a job or move city without proper conversations and thought so why anyone does that for marriage is beyond me.

Hear, hear.

How 19thc a proportion of youngish women in the developed world are in 2024 has been one of the genuinely baffling, fascinating revelations of being on Mn for me. In RL no one I know (and I’m 52, with a wide set of friends and acquaintances in several countries because of moving round a lot) was ever frantic for a proposal, been ‘given away’ by their father, or changed their name on marriage.

I think that's fine if you're happy and it all worked out for you. I have no issue with that at all.

What annoys me is when it clearly isn't working for people but they seem to adopt this position of helplessness as though there is nothing that they can do about it.

If people want something to happen, then they need to make it happen.

As PP have pointed out, any man who really didn't like me having a say in my life is not a good man to have.

But I'm curious about the presumably rigorous, scientific survey you've done where you can confidently apply this across the board? I know multiple men who definitely did not have a problem being proposed to. Almost every marriage I know was a mutual decision made after a normal conversation between equals.

This. Though the men who are ‘traditional’ seldom seem to extend their 19thc ways to traditions which are less convenient for them, like ‘no sex before marriage’.

I decided to propose to my husband partly because I thought it would be good to mix it up a bit. It was very nerve-wracking and I almost cried. I am pleased I've given that example to my kids though.

Agreed. My husband didn't propose, we discussed getting married and both agreed it was something we wanted.

I agree OP.
But while there are some really on board with this idea, there are just as many who are 'old fashioned' and will vehemently argue against it.

There's no reason why women can't propose, why she can't be taller than a man, why she can't ask the man out, pay on a date, have a 'small' ring (or a ring at all!), why she can't be the main breadwinner...

Many women absolutely insist on the above, still!

My partner has never proposed to me, but, we’ve spoken about getting married, agreed when and even where that will be and both know it’s what we want in the future (we are waiting until DC are older and we can live together). So technically we are engaged as we are planning to marry.

That’s what I can’t understand when you see posts on here saying ‘oh we’ve spoken about getting married, we both want to, but he wants to propose when he’s ready’ and the woman is still sitting there waiting 2 years later, waiting for this, because she has to have the ‘proposal’. He obviously doesn’t want to be married or you would be!

Indeed!

I'd also point out that it's all very well for women to frame their desire for "tradition" as an individual choice, but children who grow up in a household where the parents place importance on traditional gender roles aren't going to have a great time of it if they don't conform.

I’m 55 & none of my friends had a proposal either. They went out with each other. Talked about their hopes, dreams, aspirations. Decided they aligned & that loved each other &’got on well enough to get married. Then they did.

Rape within marriage used be a tradition too.

Getting married is a contract & with all contracts there comes obligations, terms & conditions. Seems daft to let somebody else be the main driver.

Actually, it was prompted by little girls in my extended family asking 'Uncle Bob' if he was going to propose to 'Auntie Alice' and I thought it was a bit sad that in 2024 these children were being fed such a gender stereotypical expectation - whether that's come from media, other family members or friends.

Even though your opening line was So many threads where people are waiting for a proposal... 30 mins after a post about exactly this. Ok.

I think there is something more going on though.

Basically, if a man doesn't want a woman but she is chivvying the relationship along and he's meh about it - then you get the scenario whereby she wants to press go and he isn't bothered, until someone comes along who he IS keen on.

Then you get the whole 'he never really loved me, he looked at other women all the way through, he isn't a very good quality guy, he's lazy, he's not good enough, but I wanted it so I chivvied it along and now he is leaving or I've had enough'.

I've done it myself - found a man, thought he was great, found him a job, helped him dress better, helped him in a hundred ways only to realise he wasn't that interested and he wasn't that good - it was me that wanted it and pushed it all along.

So yes, to me personally - if a man loves me, he will want to ask me properly to settle down. If he isn't that interested in me or our lives don't really align very well, he won't be that keen.

I wish I had been less keen on certain men and not wasted my time tbh. I wish I had sat still and waited to see how keen they were - do they text, do they make plans, do they show their interest or is it me? And when they do show interest, I still wish my standards had been higher at times, not that they were bad men, just that they were not right for me personally.

I know, I really regret not giving the kids mine.

I also agree re proposing. I think it puts the ball so much in the man’s court, and gives him too much control. With the woman either feeling she has to wait until he wants to propose or feeling pressured to accept a proposal she might not actually want due to centuries of societal conditioning . Almost like “well he’s put himself on the line to propose, you must have been expecting this to give him the impression it would be accepted, so you have to accept now”.

I definitely wasn’t ready to be proposed to by my ex when he did - I’d spent most of the relationship thinking how would I end this without hurting his feelings (wtf?) and ended up married with two kids!

This makes me sound ridiculous and passive but it was before I had any counselling, got my arse in gear re my own needs and boundaries.

Edit - I should say it was me who decided I wanted to have the kids.

The biggest red flags are the men who suddenly become traditional when it comes to proposing, but are modern enough to be shagging, having kids and living with their unmarried partners otherwise. Always a bad sign.

This is my view of it. I've been married to a bloke and am now in a civil partnership with my female partner. In both cases, it was simply a mutual decision and nobody proposed to anyone else.

I find the women on here waiting for proposals from men and getting upset about it a bit sad, if I'm honest. Have some agency and dignity in your life!

I think it's irrelevant what the man wants. The point being women generally still have more to lose, therefore it's important the men we marry actually want to marry us. So buying a ring, proposing and setting a date at least shows some effort.

Best case is clearly both people just agreeing to be married.
However it's very easy to move in together and simply stay in long term relationship for no real reason. I don't think it's helpful for women to,propose to take it to the next level unless she has actually nothing to lose. Men don't give birth, mens age matters less than womens, women still have a more to negotiate in terms of physicality. Men proposing acknowledges the fact it's not a level playing field, not that it's a romantic ideal.

I guess I never felt that it wasn't a level playing field - I never felt that I had more to lose than my DH, or that I would benefit more from marriage than he would.

You seem to be starting from an assumption that women have more to gain from marriage than men. I don't think that the research necessarily backs that up, but it's typically how our society likes to frame the issue.

I agree, it's such an outdated and ridiculous way to start something that is so important. I think it should be something you agree together and plan together. You wouldn't wait for someone to get on one knee and and surprise you to decide to make any other important life choice. Imagine saying I want to move house or have a child but I waiting for DP to decide when he wants to do it and to surprise me, gosh I hope it's this Christmas. Bananas. But then I also hate women routinely giving up their names for their husband's name.

We discussed getting engaged before we did it and everyone knew we were in a serious relationship anyway. We also discussed DH proposing and I knew when he would it- we're not big on surprises. It was intimate and perfect. It was technically an opportunity for a formal declaration of intent and marked the moment we felt we could "tell" people we were going to get married. We've also both had a rough time at the hands of others and DH wanted to give me my moment. I think he also wanted his moment. Neither of us is particularly self confident and the "traditional" set up suited us in terms of what we needed and got from it. DH just wanted to do something nice.

I took a similar view on tradition with our wedding- if we liked the tradition, we had it. If we didn't, we didn't include it. The only tradition I included that I didn't like was being walked up the aisle. My mum had a shit fit when I tried to leave it out, saying my dad would be heartbroken. I'm an only child in an extremely male heavy family and my dad is nearly 90. It made him happy. He also has more sense of occasionally than I do, so I probably did it better with him pace setting!

I am changing my name but slowly. It works for us. We also waited to get hitched to ttc as we felt more secure that way.

Doesn't bother me what others dalthough though but I don't see myself ever doing the proposing. My cousin was proposed to by his wife - no one cared about her doing the asking, we were happy for them. One of my friends admitted she was relieved her now DH proposed though, she was getting up the nerve to ask him but was glad she didn't have to! She's also not especially self confident.

I do wonder how many women don't propose as they're conditioned not to vs people like me who personally get more from being asked than asking.

I didn’t give up my name but it is completely unfair to criticise a woman who does choose to take her husbands name. I acknowledge I still have a man’s name, my Fathers.

Men overall still out earn women, we are also still the only ones that can get PG and give birth. Women don’t especially need marriage but women who have children are almost always more vulnerable so do.

It is very much about economic viability.

When it comes to proposing, we did agree it’s what we wanted but DH did propose in the garden of his great grandparents house and it was very lovely. I would never have had a child with him without marriage.