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?

If his version of love to tell his partner that her life goals are silly, he needs to do some serious work on himself.

Of course, he's upset. The end of any relationship is sad, even when you know it's the right thing for both parties.

Part of the upset may well be the realisation that he doesn't get to call the shots on what happens in a relationship. Either both parties talk about it and come to a conclusion that they can both live with, or it ends.

As his mum, the kind thing is NOT to tell him he's so wonderful and she'll change her mind. The kind thing is to say she's clearly in a different place, and it would have been the wrong thing to pretend he was in the same place just to stay with her. She wasn't happy on his timetable, but he wouldn't have been happy on hers either. A long-term relationship is based on more than attraction and enjoying each other's company - it's about wanting to build a life together in the same way. Neither of them are to blame for wanting different things.

Hopefully the next woman he meets will be more on the same timeline as him, but whatever happens, to keep communication open, be respectful of the things that matter to each other, and to make big decisions together.

stay out of it!

good for her!! hes stringng her along! She told him what he wants sooner than later, he did not commit. She has her own place, knows what she wants in life - good for her!!

shes also 27 and got tons of time to find someone else and settle down!

ideally date for 2 years or so, engaged/move in etc pretty quickly after that!

It's only out of the blue if you ignore that she wanted to discuss the timeline of their future and the fact he dismissed her wishes.

She wanted to know where they were headed and he wanted to just do things on his own timeline.

He's entitled to make that choice, just as she's entitled to decide she wants to move on rather than hang around working solely to his timetable, which he won't even discuss with her.

Saying she's ditched him because her mate is single is just silly, and quite disrespectful really. She's entitled to end a relationship that isn't working for her.

Most couples that get engaged and then married, do so within 3-5 years. If that wouldn’t work for you (or the OP’s DS), that’s fine. But, it’s certainly not unusual or ‘rushed’ by most people’s standards.

Waiting 7-10 years is most emphatically not how it’s normally done, as illustrated by the responses on this thread.

It’s not how it’s normally done. It’s how you want to do it.

Most people don’t wait that long to get married. Especially if they’re considering starting a family.

If he loved her and adored her he’d have listened when she spoke about commitment. He didn’t. If he had, when she said ‘times up’, he’d have been able to produce a ring and say he planned to propose on Christmas Day/New Year’s Eve.

He was unconcerned by her feeling dissatisfied about the lack of commitment. He was unconcerned that she felt he didn’t love her enough to want to get married.

How he feels is irrelevant. It’s how he made her feel, and how he communicated how he feels. And he just didn’t. He let her feel he wasn’t committed. Why would she wait?

She wanted him to WANT to propose. She doesn’t want him to propose only because he’ll be homeless if he doesn’t.
I can completely see why she has rejected his offer now.

I suppose when she broached the question, his response told her he wasn’t even considering it!

So why would she bother?

Maybe your DH was just lazy, which is shit enough.

There's nowt to be done about it from your POV.

27 & 30 aren't particularly young in terms of marriage and starting a family, if that was their plan anyway. He can't expect her to wait. He hedged his bets and now she's gone. She must really want to marry him, but he didn't take it seriously enough.

Well he seems to have been incredibly complacent, not picking up on the cues she was giving out.

This is the crux of it. As for this Christmas nonsense, it’s all meaningless. OP was going to think she was heartless whatever time of the year she did it. Perhaps the GF caught herself facing the end of another year just waiting for some clarity from him and didn’t want to start a new one the same way. Hopefully he’s learned to be communicative and honest about his intentions next time round.

Agree ... I'm a 22%-er apparently, engaged 6 months in, married soon after, and we've now been married for over 20 years....

Op your comments about not many good men out there are really disturbing. She should wait around for him for the life she wants to start when he decides? Suggesting she can’t do better than your boy? Awful. She tried to have a grown up conversation and he brushed her off even though he’s older. He treated her with disrespect and she rightly dumped him. Maybe he’ll grow up a bit now. This is on him-your attitude isn’t going to help him grow up.

Or ignoring them...

I agree

Maybe she won't find anyone better

but least she hasnt lost her self respect and value. That counts for so much

Lost and found

She wanted the relationship to move to the next step. He didn’t. That’s it really isn’t it 🤷‍♀️

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

He sounds like a puffed up little man boy. 'He would do it...'

Good for her getting rid of him. Nobody wants a man to propose only because he's being made homeless.

He sounds like a right loser to be hanging around where he's not wanted until after Christmas. If he had any decency he'd just leave.

YABVU

As the saying goes, if he wanted to, he would. He wouldn’t have waited until she broke up with him to go out and buy a ring.

Also, he’s a 30 year old man, not a child and if I were her and his mother called me to talk sense into me, it would only cement the fact that I made the right choice.

Would you be trying to talk sense into her if they did marry and they had a fight?

Your own words about her age and how she doesn’t have enough time to find someone else at 27 makes me think she dodged a bullet.

She told him what she wanted and he ignored it and carried on doing what he wanted. He has no reason to feel devastated, it is a consequence of his own actions or inaction.

so you are wary of marriage too soon but would happily bounce into parenthood?

I guess you must be because If you are 30 as the poster you replied to suggested and you wait 7-10 years to get married then your chances of having a family have been massively reduced unless you have them prior to getting married.

when means you think marriage is a bigger commitment than parenthood.

which is weird.

Of course you’ve never seen him like this before, he had a roof over his head, was calling all the shots and in a relationship that he would decide alone what would happen next!

Now he’s got none of that, which had probably never happened before.

She sounds awful because there’s obviously someone else.

You don’t spend 3 years with someone and claim you want to marry them and then dump them just before Xmas out of the blue.

Tell him he dodged a bullet.
the shouldn’t propose until he is ready, as after marriage is children so he needs to be committed.
It is possible she is trying to emotionally blackmail him into proposing as she thinks it is good idea/ received some bad advice

What you advise depends on how old they are, their plans, compatibility long term and financial and work situations.

How embarrassing. This reminds me of the time, in my mid 20s, when an ex’s mum messaged me on Facebook to tell me off and ask what my mother would think (admittedly I didn’t go about the break up in a good way but still). Then his dad turned up at my mum’s door to complain about me to her. I had a lucky, lucky escape.

My now DH and I had a chat about engagement when we’d been together 2 years and were the exact same ages as your DS and his ex. He said he wanted to propose properly in around a year, and he did. That’s what it should be like. Good for your DS’s ex for not accepting being kept dangling, and then the panic proposal. It sounds like she knows exactly what she wants, actually.

Dear lord!! Tell the man-child to find some dignity and find somewhere else to stay!