I’ve been with my DP for 3 years. We are both 34. We’ve always said, from the start, we want to get married, buy a house and have children and I’ve always stipulated I want to be married before we have children and I’m aware of how being 34 I’m running out of time.
Between us we’ve got a substantial amount saved for a deposit, this is mostly from me as I had more savings from before we were together. We are pretty much ready to buy just waiting for a house to come up that we like.
Back in July 2020 he asked me what sort of engagement rings I liked and what was my size. I sent him several links, and got my finger measured. DP is not a huge planner, so I thought that a proposal must be coming very soon. Nothing happened, we went on holiday in August and I half expected a proposal and nothing. I’d often see other rings I liked and show these to him to. He’d say “oh lovely but let’s wait til we’ve bought a house as I can save more once we’ve got that secured”. I have sent him links to more rings which are £200-300, have offered that I pay half of my ring myself, but he says no he wants to do it ‘properly’ and there he’d always feel inadequate if I paid half. I started wondering if whether he doesn’t want to get married at all, so in December I said shall we just look at booking the registry office for 2021 sometime, we actually had the website open looking at potential dates - to which he said no, he wants to propose to me properly in a romantic way and that he only asked for ring ideas last summer so he had an idea of what I liked for ‘when it was time in the future’.
I have brought this all up again today, about how I am essentially waiting for him to decide it is the ‘right time’ and how it could still take months for us to move into a house even if we made an offer today. He feels bad that I took the looking at rings last year as a sign it was happening soon, but is adamant he wants to put all of his spare cash into the house fund for now. Part of me feels this is sensible but part of me is worried he doesn’t actually want to marry me and that after we buy a house there’ll be a new item he needs to save for. He has been engaged before, I asked whether he had reservations because of this and he says absolutely not.
I’m torn between backing off and seeing what happens after we do buy a house (but I fear I’ll be in a mess if we then have to sell and break up because he still won’t seal the deal), and walking away now. I’m feeling hurt today by it all and DP has now gone out for a walk because he is upset that I feel this way 