First time poster, apologies for a long rant...
I got engaged recently, which is something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. The problem is that my fiancé does not seem to be excited about it.
We are in our early 30s and have been together for 3 years. I was open with him early on that I would like to get married and start thinking about children relatively soon. He seemed to be on board with it, and he still says he's sure he wants children etc. About six months ago I initiated the conversation that since we’ve been living together for some time I felt there wasn’t much more for us to find out about each other. So we should decide whether we are making this commitment or parting our ways. I got a bit emotional at the time but he said it was good that I was sharing my feelings with him. Over Christmas even his parents commented that we are moving really slowly in our relationship (in our culture people get married younger than average for the UK, the vast majority of our friends are already married with kids). Anyway, after several conversations like that, he got a ring and proposed.
But now every time I would mention anything related to wedding planning or if we see a wedding-related show on TV, he gets a bit sad and is not keen on these conversations. I did bring it up, and he’s quite open that he is very nervous about getting married and how this is probably the first decision in his life that will be irreversible, especially the having children part. Which I get. But I still cannot shake the feeling that I am forcing him to go through this, and deep inside he doesn’t want to, he’s just trying to convince himself that it will all be ok. When I tried to challenge him, he said that if he didn’t want to he wouldn’t have proposed. And that he doesn’t think that waiting longer before the engagement would have made him feel any more sure about it. Still I feel like he’s looking at our life and thinking “Shoot, is this how my life is going to be forever from now on?” and that doesn’t make him happy. Despite the fact that I thought we had a happy relationship and I have been certainly trying my best to be a good partner.
It also doesn’t help that when he is excited about something, like a holiday etc., he usually is very excited. He’s not one of those people who is always ambivalent about things.
We did tell our parents about the engagement but almost none of our friends. The ring is being resized, so I haven’t got to wear it properly yet. I just always thought I’d be so happy after it finally happens, and now I’m back to being upset and uncertain about the future, and it really sucks. I am even considering giving him the ring back because I feel like him forcing himself to go ahead with this may be a huge mistake for both of us.