Son dumped by girlfriend because I hadn't proposed

[OneGreenPoster]

Out of the blue on Saturday my ds was dumped by his girlfriend of 3 years.
Just because he hasn't proposed yet.
He's absolutely devastated, as far as he was concerned they were very happy together

A few months ago she did ask him if he wanted to marry her and he said of course he does in the future, but she asked him for a rough timeline of when he might want to get engaged.
He told her he wasn't doing any of that silly timeline stuff and he would do it when the time was right.
She was upset at the time, but it was left at that.
Then on Saturday she sits him down and tells him it's over! Just before Christmas which I think is very cruel
He said she ended it and then went to get ready for a Christmas party! I wouldn't have thought she could be so cold.
I know her best friend is newly single so we suspect she may have pushed her to do this
I now have a devastated son at my house not knowing what to do

It's her apartment they live in so he also got to find somewhere to live after Christmas on top of this

Am I being unreasonable if I contact her and talk some sense into her?

You have a strange definition of "long term."

She’s 27, a woman’s clock is ticking, she had her own place. Your son was very happy to live with her but he couldn’t tell her a future the she wanted to hear. Even if he proposes now she couldn’t guarantee that he will marry her and have children, as he seems very laid back. She must of been devastated that he couldn’t have done the decent thing, when she asked him a few months ago, she must have felt shop soiled.

Two of my 3DDs had to lay down the law as they didn’t want to hang around with someone who was so indecisive, one has been married 17 years, with the boy she was about to walk out on, when she was 26. The other did walkout at 28 but found her true love at the age of 32.

You’re not helping your own argument here - he has wasted enough of her time.

i take back what i said before, go and have a chat with her and then come back and tell us how it went.

The best thing you could have done would be to sympathise with her and say as a fellow woman you could completely see where she was coming from. Your son may have then seen it from her perspective.

But it sounds like you did the opposite unfortunately and have sympathised with him instead and blamed her for upsetting him.

Then on Saturday she sits him down and tells him it's over! Just before Christmas which I think is very cruel
she didn’t owe your son a Christmas living with her while she pretended everything was ok, she clearly couldn’t pretend through the family events and didn't want to have to get through the celebrations knowing he thought the idea of a proposal and commitment after 3 years was silly and no proposal
was coming her way. But being housed by her for years while he decided was fine. She stood up for herself and for her Christmas that she didn’t have to be miserable through it while faking - that’s not cruel that’s good boundaries.

Presumably he can tell her how much he loves her himself. You keep mentioning Christmas… that is irrelevant, she shouldn’t be expected to stay with him because Christmas is around the corner

Maybe your son wasn’t a good man for her. You know nothing about how she feels or what went on I. The relationship and are being totally blinded by your love for your son.

i had an awful boyfriend who treated me badly and had his mum telling me all this when i dumped him as he was her little angel.

show some respect for her choice.

Good for her.
Who wants to marry a man who only proposed when faced with losing the roof over his head.

I do not understand why you think being 27 is so high risk. I, for one, only met my husband at 30, married at 32. Adult men don't dick about. When they meet someone they cherish, they marry them. Your son is still a boy at 30. Maybe this will help him grow up.

The best thing you could do for your son is have a serious talk about him pulling his weight housework wise.
Nothing sexier than a man whose emptied the dishwasher and cleaned the bathroom with zero prompts, time after time.

She's being remarkably generous allowing him to stay. If I'd mentally checked out, I'd have probably loaded his stuff into bin bags and he'd be sofa surfing at mates.

He told her he wasn't doing any of that silly timeline stuff and he would do it when the time was right.

So it’s ’silly’ to let a woman have a hand in her own future?

It’s ‘risky’ starting over at 27?? And you think it’s reasonable that at 30 and being with someone for 3 years that he shouldn’t discuss getting married very plainly with his partner?

And you think she ‘doesn’t know what she wants’ because she doesn’t want a proposal that had to be enforced by a break up?

Oh dear, OP. Oh dear on so many levels.

I’m glad this woman saw the good sense to act on behalf of herself and not your half-and son. Perhaps he can do better next time.

Yeah who is going to want an old hag of 27 🙄

If you think she's cold, why do you want her for a future DIL? He didn't want to get engaged or give a rough timeframe for marriage, and she clearly is tired of waiting around. What was she supposed to do? Beg him or give him an ultimatum—or just wait for him to decide it was finally time? You'd probably have been complaining about her trying to force him to marry her if she did either of the first two, and even if he gave in, she'd always wonder if he'd really wanted to marry her at all. If your son is truly distraught over the idea of losing her, he needs to go to her and see if he can win her back.

Team girlfriend!!

I don’t like the way you have dismissed her feelings ‘he wasn’t going to get into silly timeframe discussions’ perhaps they are ‘silly’ to you and him, but they clearly weren’t to her.

I thought you were going to say they were 20 or something but he’s a 30 year old man - good on her for making what must have been a really hard decision.

Not your circus, not your monkeys OP. Stay well out of it.

I would be interested to see the responses to a man throwing a tantrum and dumping a woman because she said she wasn't ready to commit to marriage yet... I imagine they would be wildly different. Some of these replies denigrating the son and elevating the ex-girlfriend to sainthood status are simply bizarre. He's not a bad person, nor is she. They just want different things.

She sounds sensible enough to me. Not to be strung along indefinately by a man who she has told what she wants and he ignores it.

Although if i were her there's no way I'd let him back to live with me until after Christmas.

If you want to sort it out, tell your son to buy a ring, be prepared to grovel and book a venue to show he is serious.

And I met mine young and we were married at 25; I’d have walked away like this woman if he couldn’t have made up his mind after a few years and we had that conversation.

Oh you’re funny OP!

You seriously think she doesn’t know what she wants because she is imposing boundaries about the way she is treated?!

she wants a partner who listens to her and takes on board her wishes not one that grudgingly states he’ll “buy a ring” because she’s reached the end of her tether

Can't he move in with you? Unless he's hoping to win her back by being under her feet.

Your son doesn’t want to marry her or he would have proposed. She’s probably the one before the one. He won’t make the same mistake again annd let a relationship drift - she’s done the best thing for both of them. Stay out.

It is not dated to want a family.

Too little too late!

Of course she doesn’t want him to propose because he’s scared of loosing her! She wanted him to propose because he loves her and wants to show her that he wants to spend the rest of his life with her.

He should have thought about loosing her before it became a reality. He did get a heads up when she sat him down and told him how she felt.

I think after 2/3 yrs you should know if it's the person you want to spend your whole life with (at that age and being childless). He obviously didn't feel it, after 3 yrs and not willing to put a timeline on it. A belated engagement ring isn't going to cut it.
OP, she's probably done him a favour and hopefully he'll met the right girl and know much sooner that she's the one, without pressure, just absolute certainty.

She sounds very wise, tbh. She is still young, but she knows what she wants and she doesn't want to waste time waiting for a man who won't commit.

Plus you sound like you would be the MIL from hell tbh. I can't believe that you would even consider trying to "talk some sense into her".

Good lord, do not get involved! A woman is allowed to change her mind if she doesn’t feel a relationship is right.
They are still young and have plenty of time to find ‘the one’.

If you contact her you are going to look like a total lunatic.

It's not that he won't rush into anything, but rather he shut down the conversation with the comment 'he wasn't going to do any of that silly timeline stuff'. Not only was it incredibly arrogant of him to assume his GF would just suck it up and wait for him to be ready, but it's also a red flag that he's dragging his heels to commit. Three years is long enough to propose if you're truly serious about the person and she must've guessed that Christmas was going to come and go with no sign of a ring yet and just decided enough was enough.