Is anyone else's DP like this?

[HateThinkingUpANamechange]

Namechanged as he knows my posting name & I don't want him to feel hurt.

DP admits he has no drive/life plan and just takes whatever opportunity comes along but doesn't actively work towards it. Partly thanks to being the right age/from the right background/quite clever he has done well for himself without it. I'm not the opposite but I definitely know what I want to do with my life, or at least I have a range of ideas about things I would like to try in all aspects - holidays, relationships, work, houses etc.

His only wish is to "live in peace/live a quiet life" and I understand why (he has a difficult family). So he tells me to decide what we do and when and just says no if there's something proposed that he doesn't like. However 9/10 I have to be the one to start making suggestions. If I ask him to suggest something he just says he doesn't care.

We've been together nearly three years (lived together more than a year) and have vaguely discussed children (no big hurry due to my age and employment prospects). All the talk of marriage on the chat/AIBU/relationships boards has solidified in my mind that I do want to marry him - we both say we want to spend our lives together - and I would quite like to ask him. OTOH I want to be sure that I'm not forcing him into something (see above where I always have to be the one to suggest things - although I know when he really doesn't want to do something, a part of me is always concerned I am making him do things he wouldn't normally want to). I did have a mini-explosion a few weeks ago and listed all the things I wanted to do (in response to a question from him) and it included marriage and he said he "didn't have a problem with any of that".

I have the possibility in a week of hearing some life-changing news. It will put me in a better financial position. At the moment if I were to ask it would be a very long engagement as I would want to split the costs of a (no frills) wedding but I don't have a brass farthing. I don't want a long engagement, would want something simple - it's the means to cementing us spending our lives together.

We also have some close friends who got married after ten years together. They are approaching the age where they need to hurry up if they want children (they do and keep saying 'in the future...'). I also have fairly elderly parents who got married late in life (before they had me). I don't want this for myself - I'm not rushing into children but I always promised myself I wouldn't repeat what my parents did and having found someone I love I want to commit properly.

I am in no doubt that he loves me and that I love him. I don't doubt that he wants us to stay together. But how do I talk to someone who 'doesn't care' and ascertain whether he does want marriage (since the consensus on MN seems to be you discuss it first and find an equal footing, which seems wise). Does anyone have a DP like this? Or a DH, and if so, how do you approach it please?

Never mind whether or not he wants marriage. It sounds like he might well agree to it cheerfully on the grounds that it's a way of making sure you carry on looking after him and making him happy.
But what would you get out of marrying someone as passive as this? Do you want to spend the rest of your life with your boot up his arse? Organising every single bloody thing about your lives, and if you ever get tired having him look at you gormlessly and go 'Oh but sweet baboo, you're so good at all that stuff, you know how useless I am...'

You can get married for £77 if you don't care about the ceremony.

But yes, it is frustrating when your OH doesn't seem to care what happens to them. When I first met my GF she was just as you describe. The more she understands that she matters as a person and the more new things she tries, the more she figures out what she wants. Recently she organised her birthday party completely by herself. Last year she didn't have a clue what she wanted.

My extremely limited experience suggests that your DH may still be carrying baggage from his parenting, which is going to need counselling and time to sort through.

That said, there are some things people genuinely don't care about*, so don't expect an opinion on everything. My GF is massively visual, I'm totally not. I've told her not to paint the walls hot pink, anything else is fine.

*Marriage not included- it would be nice if he wanted to marry you! Has he been rejected on that before?

Thank you both of you. I think it's more as 21YrOldMan describes as it's not that he thinks he's incapable (my DF does this... a) I would never stand for it in an equal relationship and b) DP doesn't try to shirk anything, he just doesn't care about the outcome as 'long as you are happy').

I think a big part of it is related to his DM. Last year I made him draw up a list of ten things he wanted to do (so fed up of always getting my own way) and on January 1st I put a money box on the windowsill (one of the ones you have to break to open). We are putting our spare change in and he's choosing something off the list to do with it. But, until I suggested this, it hadn't occurred to him that he could do it let alone want to. Yet he isn't constrained by anything material, more a sense of inferiority I think. Not intellectual inferiority but maybe fear of being told how shit he is generally? I don't know. It's all tied up with his mother and I don't want to go into specifics as it's a betrayal of his trust.

I agree it would be nice if he wanted to marry me He's never asked or been asked before as far as I know. I really need to wait for this news though - at the moment I couldn't even split a £77 wedding without going into my overdraft! I have spoken to him about leap year marriage proposals on MN... probably got too excited and mentioned it too many times. He didn't seem adverse. I mean, he would surely have said something other than 'That's sweet'.