How did you agree to get engaged?

[loverly]

Hi all,

So backstory:

Bf and I live together and have agreed marriage is in our future. I want to get engaged and I talked to him yesterday to explain why I want to...he has concerns over it being too early (before set number of years together) and before we've really hit the rocks (we don't argue and he's worried at some point we will). My perpective is that with two bereavements and a redundancy this year, if we were going to fall apart with problems we would have done so. Think the bereavement may be influencing how much I want to commit - sudden death makes you appreciate all the more.

So to reassure me - how did you get engaged?

We were together just over a year, decided together that we wanted to get married the next year, and announced that we were engaged. It really was as simple as that.

It was weird, it just sort of was something we always knew, without discussing it precisely. We just knew it was always something that we would do, as a matter of fact thing. He proposed after 5 months, we've been together ever since (almost 2 decades).

DH and I had been together four years when we got engaged, he had been married previously. we had lived together the same amount of time. He always knew that I wanted to get married before children... we didn’t really discuss getting engaged, he just proposed in Paris as the time felt right.
He’d been planning it since the year before as had my late great grandmas ring that he with my parents has reshaped for me.

After I was really ill and nearly died, I said i want to be engaged.

We just set a date for the wedding. ‘Be8ng engaged’ isn’t an endpoint in itself.

I proposed and DW said yes - did I miss out a stage "Planning to get engaged"?

(oh, and that was about 3 months after we met, and DW had moved in)

It was just over a year in, we had discussed marriage previously - pretty early on! and agreed that (as cheesy as it sounds) things just felt right between us. I nearly died of sepsis, it was then once I came round from surgery, he brought it up again and we decided we would set a date, there wasn’t a big fuss or anything just a mutual decision that felt right 🙂

Being engaged can only happen if one of you proposes to the other one (and they accept!). You can just decide to get engaged on its own!

We talked about it, decided we wanted to get married, and the next day went and bought a ring together.

I don’t get all this “getting engaged”, and the woman eating around for the big proposal. We’ve been married 30 years, we had no big proposal and a small, private wedding which we organised in 3 months.

I do think your correct that how you cope with the stresses of life is very telling.

How long have you been together?

*waiting around

He proposed. I said yes So we were then engaged. I think that's how it normally works.

We never got engaged as such, it's not something that was important or would have meant anything. Neither of us proposed either...we spoke about it in depth, agreed it was what we wanted so went ahead and arranged it. We eloped too so no big ceremony...it was just about us so didn't feel the need to announce or share it.

Thanks so much for replies :)

Just to explain that I don't want a big proposal - I want to agree it...however he did mention 'getting down on one knee' in the convo so assuming that's how he'd want it.

We have been together nearly a year and living together five months. Not long I know....I do think losing my dad and aunt this year has had a effect in me wanting to show him that I mean forever. He has said he is sure that he wants to get married - I think he's worried people will judge him for it being less than 2 years together.

We had been together for three years and wanted to buy a property together. I had always made it clear I wouldn’t ever buy a property, share money, or have children with someone without the protection of marriage. I was 22 at the time.

I was quite happy to just set a date, but DH did propose on holiday and then asked if he could buy me a ring.

An engagement is simply an agreement to marry. Some of you saying you never got engaged actually did but in a very understated sort of way.

After 2 months he said he wanted to marry me and by then I was already pregnant.
He asked me about 7 months in with the ring, though it was only when we had started planning it that I properly felt engaged.

I never had the big proposal it was just agreed that we were going to get married and I set a date for it, that's not to say I don't want an engagement ring at some point but it's not an important thing.

We had been together for a year, he proposed and I said yes. We went to Hatton Garden the next day to choose a ring and then we set a date for just over a year later. We bought a flat and got married. I remember my PIL thought it was a pretty long engagement.

We aren't engaged OP but I just wanted to give a word of caution on the "if we were going to hit the rocks it would have happened already" mindset because this time last week I had exactly the same mindset. I've been with my partner 3 years and we've had 2 children, a period of debt, and moved house 4 times. It's been mega stressful but we'd never argued, just faced it all as a team, and I very much thought "if we can survive that we can survive anything". But last week I discovered that he's been lying to me for months about having lost his job, only confessing when all the money was gone. I don't know why he's done this and I don't know if I can forgive him, but it's made me realise that even though we've faced stressful external events before this is our first real challenge because of a weakness within our relationship. It's always been us vs the problem, but now it's me vs him and it's a very different thing to cope with. So I do think your partner is right that how you cope when you hit the rocks is important, and I wouldn't assume that if it's was going to happen it would have already either.

In my world, if you have agreed you will marry, you are engaged. Congratulations.

About 5 mins after DH proposed to me, he clarified that his intention was for a long engagement as he didn't want to marry the following year. I set a deadline for the wedding of his 40th birthday. Both of us were happy with his arrangement and we married 3 years later

5 months in my fiance asked me to marry him and I said yes. We then told everyone we were engaged.

DH bought a ring and asked me when we'd been together just under 2 years, but tbh we had informally agreed to marry before that. So we were already engaged before we called ourselves engaged really. We were quite young at the time, didn't give any thought to doing things in a different way, and these days I doubt I'd want to bother with a formal proposal. It seems to really get in the way of a lot of people's plans.

How old are you both?

Both 26 :) i can see the argument behind saying you are already engaged if you have agreed....

We had discussed it previously and he came in from work one day and said 'I think we should get engaged', I said 'ok, I thought we had already agreed we wanted to at some point?' and he replied 'this is me asking now' he's not one for big gestures etc but it was actually lovely and we went out and bought a ring the following week