I don’t understand timing. Is getting married just luck or could I help along the process?

[PuertoVallarta]

I find myself a few months into a new relationship, a-bloody-gain, and as usual the specialness of me seems to have worn off. I’m not a game-player, I’m always very honest and I think I am a nice person. I can honestly say all my exes still love me a lot, but they are not IN LOVE with me...and perhaps not a single one of them ever were.

I find all my relationships stall eventually. I’ve had a lot of relationships! They seem to peak at around six months in, and then we will just ride the plateau with lots of happy times for another year or two, when they tell me they just aren’t feeling it and move on to someone else they will marry rather quickly.

I just want to be married. It’s too late to have children, but I want a family even if it’s just two people. I come from a good working class family. I do have the skill set for a happy family life.

I just severely lack the skill set for getting to the point where I’m someone’s family; for getting to the point where they see me as the woman they want to be a family with.

I have been seeing someone absolutely lovely. But I can’t tell anymore if we’re moving forward. Is this once-a-week thing good enough for him? I never push for commitment. But I also do not hide my desire for one.

I don’t want to waste another two years with someone who isn’t moving the relationship toward marriage. But on the other hand, I wonder if somehow I’m supposed to be the one who’s moving it toward that, only I just don’t know how? I absolutely know how to be committed and loyal. I’ve spent so much money and time and emotional energy on men. I don’t regret it. But I’m at an age where suddenly I will resent it if I get years down the line with someone and then find out he didn’t consider me good enough to spend they rest of his life with.

So what should I do? Put my cards on the table? How soon is too soon? I’ve said I wanted stability and he agreed. Is that enough for now? Or am I supposed to do something to make him think about me as more than a really cool girlfriend? Does there need to be some element of fear of losing me?

I’m calm and I do live life happily day to day. I don’t stress about this in public.

I don’t want to mess it all up. Is it just luck and I have to keep being patient, loving, open, generous? Do I continue to wait for the stars to align and the man I live to look at me one day and see his whole future? Or is that not enough action on my part? And how do you take it slow to figure out if it’s right, without setting the tone that what’s good enough for now will be good enough forever?

(I suppose I should add that I was married in my early 20s. It didn’t last long and I wouldn’t call it a real marriage. I don’t know what I did differently to make him want to commit to me for life, other than perhaps the fact that he was also young and didn’t understand what commitment was so he didn’t mind making it.

I should also add that I was drawn to my current boyfriend because he had been married for over two decades and I though he might be able to move things forward since he clearly like being married. However, I cannot tell if he is just comfortable with me and taking his time, or if I am a placeholder. I do t want to be a psycho because it’s only been five months. But I also don’t want to waste a single second being a placeholder.)

Help?

PuertoVallarta - I say this with much kindness, but from your posts you sound hard work and fake. All this baloney about 'the one'. Seriously, if this is who you are looking for you will never, ever find him.

You have to just be content with who you are and where you're at, and content that that is enough because if that's all there is (and personally I believe that it's more than enough) you need to be content with it.

Another thing is that desperation is obvious and unattractive to normal people, but very attractive to lots of men who will happily fuck you over while declaring undying love and commitment.

Essentially, I think that you are on a wild goose chase, that you put potential partners off because they realise you're faking it at some level, and that you need to forget about marriage. Be happy with how life is now because that in itself is a very attractive quality.

I'm probably approaching your problem all wrong, but surely in practical terms the next move from girlfriend to marriage is moving in together.
You might not want to out and put say, do you want to get married one day. Easier to say - how do you feel about moving in or looking for a place together?
Their reaction would tell you a lot and could spark the conversation.

I want to be in a real partnership with someone and grow together and become better people together and cultivate a relationship together that we are both proud of

Commitment to building the best possible relationship together, and being truly grateful for having found someone worth building it with is what I want from someone.

These are beautiful sentiments but honestly like PPs have said its not what marriage is really like.
A PP said early on in the thread that people get married when they are ready to, not necessarily to the loves of their lives. I think that is really correct.
I don't think marriage is what you are making it in your head.

Hang on your ex lives in your old apartment with his new love that he slept with behind your back . So you gave up your tenancy ! Did you actually want to give up the tenancy? He is maybe not a monster but he is a massive arsehole. Where was your anger? You shouldn’t hold on to anger but some at the time is healthy , but you sound so passive. It seems like you know your too giving and as unbelievably harsh as it sounds that becomes boring.

I have always just been myself and anyone I dated had to fit in with me as much as I had to fit in with them. I literally never navel gazed about relationships. Sounds like your romantic ideals are actually getting in the way.

@PuertoVallarta

I don’t know. Doesn’t everyone have certain qualities and positions that they find more desirable than others? There are a lot of men I get along with and he’s not the only person who’s ever showed interest in me.

I feel like both people can grow a lot in a committed relationship and that that’s how humanity has evolved. For my whole life, I felt it was silly or selfish to expect to get married when I was in good enough relationships with men who loved me as best as they could.

But just recently, I realized that most of the people in the whole world throughout time have wanted a happy, committed, stable relationship. Marriage is a normal thing to want. I drank so much koolaid about being cool with not having a family I think I poisoned myself.

Sounds melodramatic, but i might as well start baring my soul.

OP I don’t want to pile it on, but it seems to me you are over engineering and trying to build this fake persona. Trying to come across as the perfect candidate, the perfect girlfriend, putting money and effort and then wondering why it didn’t work because you did all the right things. It doesn’t work that way

See those of us who don’t want to get married or have kids don’t want these because we don’t have any desire, not to come across cool

You are coming across as inauthentic even on this thread going on and on about true love and the one etc. I am sure you are a great person, but you need to be yourself with men not try to backward engineer what perfect wife they might want and moulding yourself into that.

Step back from dating a bit. Find your own sense of self. I think you have faked it for too long you have forgotten who you are

I think I knew my husband would be my husband. About 4 months after meeting him

We had a very intense first month. Then we broke up. For a week

Then we got back together. I’ve never ever wanted to marry. I never had the urge before him. It took him 15 years to persuade me however to finally bite the billet and actually get married. But I knew he was a keeper very early on.

He was a nice guy. He never played games. He never made me beg to see him. He treated me with respect. I trust him with my life. He winds me up a lot. But generally he’s soooo good to me

Those things were the key differences in any of my other relationships. Huge key differences.

Your posts can be read as believing that people change, substantially and for the better, after marriage. Did I get that right? Because if so, that's a pretty fatal mistake. Read so many of the posts here where, again and again, "when someone shows you who they are, believe them" is quoted. Sometimes men change after marriage but normally for the worse!

You don't say anything about loving these men, thinking that they are lovely blokes, that you feel "home" when you are with them, that you both feel like you naturally want to spend a lot of time together, that love songs on the radio suddenly speak straight to you, that you have each other's backs, that just holding hands on the sofa is special.

^^
Look for this.
Don't worry about marriage unless you're putting yourself at a financial disadvantage for them (given you say kids are not a prospect).

My Mum - out of a bitter divorce - met a lovely man when she was 50. They never married but had nearly 30 very happy years together, were there for each other through good times and bad.

Like PPs say - you are auditioning men for the post of your OH. Be yourself, and be picky.

I don't know why OP is getting flamed for wanting to find a life partner to get married to.

A few things stood out to me in your original post.
You said you insisted on paying for things and were overly generous with time, effort and money in the relationships. You mentioned trying to "model" the type of behaviour that you were hoping to have reciprocated.

I think it doesn't work that way. In order for a relationship to grow and for attachment and connection to develop the investment has to be from both sides.

The investment into the new relationship (time, effort, money) must be both gradual and mutual in a kind of "ping-pong" fashion.

If you are the one putting all your eggs in the (potentially wrong) basket from the beginning then not only are you making yourself extremely vulnerable to be taken advantage of and hurt, but you are not giving him a chance to put anything in. You are not waiting and observing to see if he is really reciprocating the effort. You are kind of charging along driving the relationship and he is probably going along with it because it is so convenient. In the end when he ends the relationship he hasn't really lost out- because he didn't put anything in!

I suspect you are probably missing the signs that he is just not that into you and hoping that if you show him how nice you are and wear your heart on your sleeve, he will naturally fall in love with you.

I've got more thoughts to add, but my phone battery is about to die! I will post this and more later.