I feel so stupid :(

[teeandbiscuit]

I'll try and keep this short, but basically I thought my bf of 9 years was going to propose to me this month and now have realised he isn't.

We're going on a trip to somewhere it would have been lovely to propose at the end of the month, and hes been saying for a long time that he's planning on proposing "soon", and has made loads of romantic suggestions for things we should do on the trip, so I really was thinking this would finally be it! But last night we were talking and he said "I'm definitely not going to propose to you when we're in X, by the way. I really need you to know that, I don't want you thinking that's going to happen." The way he said it I knew it was true. I was really upset but didn't want him to see it, so I just said "ok" and tried to move the conversation on. He wasn't even saying it in a way where he thought he was being mean, I could tell he was just freaked out that I had got my hopes up (which of course I had).

So as not to drip feed - we're late 20's, been together since school, own a house, he always talks about marriage in the future with concrete plans. Until recently I've had no reason to think he's not serious. I've been saying it's really something I want to do soon for about 18 months/2 years, and he always uses money as a reason not now. Just before christmas I got really upset about it and he told me he was planning on proposing "really soon", so to stop asking about it, and he had a ring and a plan for how to do it. I was really happy. A couple of months later by accident I found out he hadn't got a ring, and apparently had wanted to propose at new year but with covid and the new lockdown it had delayed it.

I felt so stupid then for believing him, and I made up my mind I would set a deadline in my head for him to propose by or I was leaving. Only problem is I keep getting drunk and upset and asking when he's going to propose, and he says it's stressing him out more and more and I need to shut up about it or I'll ruin the experience for him.

I've suggested multiple times we just set a date and get married at a registry office - I actually don't even want a big romantic propsal - but he says he wants to do that.

We're not quite at my deadline yet but getting close. I just feel so stupid that yet again I've gotten my hopes up and it won't happen. Starting to think it never will. My cousin (who's my best friend) is getting married soon and my sister is pregnant (although I don't want kids so that\s not making me jealous - just feel that life is moving on for everyone and not for me.)

Should I trust that he's planning something and that me constantly asking is ruining the experience or should I just cut and run? Don't know how much more explaining my feelings I can do - he knows how I feel but seems to just be prioritising how he feels about it all.

@HomicidalPsychoJungleCat

Is it worth considering why you feel the need to be married? You have a house together, and thats a huge commitment. Is walking down the aisle, the pressure of the need for that worth driving away someone you genuinely love just because, for him, it might not be the same sort of priority? I have a friend who waited and waited for a proposal, drove her bf mad until he did it. Their marriage lasted about 2 years, because he just hadnt been ready, despite wholeheartedly loving her.

But that is putting her needs last. They need a proper honest conversation and if marriage is important, then she needs to walk.

@HomicidalPsychoJungleCat

Is it worth considering why you feel the need to be married? You have a house together, and thats a huge commitment. Is walking down the aisle, the pressure of the need for that worth driving away someone you genuinely love just because, for him, it might not be the same sort of priority? I have a friend who waited and waited for a proposal, drove her bf mad until he did it. Their marriage lasted about 2 years, because he just hadnt been ready, despite wholeheartedly loving her.

I agree with a PP that this makes no sense.

If he wholeheartedly loved her, what was wrong with being married to her?

I mean, seriously, I would like an answer to this.

I've posted about this before....I had much the same experience when I turned 30. I'd been with my then boyfriend for 5 years - he was 29, still living at home with his parents, which was increasingly annoying me. He had a good job, and at that start of that year gained a massive promotion that involved a move to a big city...which his father tried to persuade him to turn down! I wanted us to get married and live together. I'd never hidden that from my boyfriend, and I felt after 5 years we'd been together long enough for it to happen.

It was a leap year, so I stupidly proposed to him. He agreed to it, 'joking' to his friends that he was marrying me to 'shut me up about it'. We got married 6 months later and I knew on the wedding day it was a massive mistake. He behaved badly at the wedding reception - in fact, he left me outside the registry office and walked off to the reception venue (about 200 meters down the road) with his friends. I waited for 15 minutes, he didn't come back to me. All the other guests had gone, so I ended up walking to my wedding reception on my own. He then sulked with a face like thunder for an hour because he didn't like the way the tables had been arranged. The looks were were getting from other guests...

Long story short, we got married when we should have split up. ExH didn't actually want to marry me, his heart was never in it and he was a crap husband. Our marriage ended up lasting 10 years and I was the one who finally pulled the plug. I was 41 when we split. 13 years later I can't help but feel that I wasted some of my best years in the wrong relationship.

The first time you got drunk and upset about this - that's when it was over. In a good relationship, that would have never happened. Do you honestly feel that you'd be 100% happy about it if he proposed now, or would you always feel that he'd been forced into it?

He's "upset" because he has no intention of proposing.
If he wanted to marry you nothing would stand in his way.
I'd appreciate some honesty instead of constant bullshit.

The time has passed you by in this relationship. Stay mates but find someone who wants the same thing as you, someone who wants to commit to you the way you want to commit to them and who doesn’t need to be persuaded to propose. You deserve an exciting, heady romance - not a ‘companion’ who doesn’t want the same as you do

Don’t be a passenger in your own life.

I agree with @Elieza he doesn’t want to marry you.

Time for you to graduate from this starter boyfriend to a man who actually wants a serious relationship.

Absolutely this. After nearly a decade together, if he wanted to marry you he would have proposed already. I’m sorry, but he hasn’t because he doesn’t want to.

I know it can be daunting to get back into dating when you’ve been in a settled relationship for most of your adult life. But there are lots of men out there. And once you find the right one for you (and you’re very young - you will!), wild horses won’t stop him proposing.

In time, you’ll look back and wonder what you saw in your current BF. Be brave enough to end it. Your future self will thank you.

@Mydarlingmyhamburger

You’re not getting married because he doesn’t want to.

I'm really sorry but this is the crux of it.

It might change. But he's recently told you it's not happening any time soon. So you have to decide if what you have with him now is enough for you.

For me though. Lying about getting a ring would seriously dent my trust

I was with an ex for a similar length of time who kept talking about proposing but never did it. I thought it was going to be very romantic but I was in my twenties and still naive. We also bought a house together and had good jobs.

In the end we separated and he's now living with a new partner with kids too, but still not married. I feel sorry for her because he really hasn't changed.

I met my DH 2 years afterwards and we're now married with children. DH is nothing like my previous DP but is so much better for me.

I think you're wasting your life away staying with your current partner and whilst it's impossible to imagine being with someone else at the moment, the odds are that you will meet someone else who is a much better fit for you.

He likes his life just as it is. I'm not sure he'd marry you even if you backed him into a corner (I mean, you did, and he lied his way out of it).
Sadly I think Elieza is on the button and he's keeping you hooked while hoping something better turns up.
Get out now, you are worth more than this arse.

He will never marry you. Decide what you want and if its marriage end the relationship and move on

@Elieza

He doesn’t want to marry you. Sorry.

If he did he would have come up with a plan to make his proposal how he wants it to be for you and a savings plan to save for a ring, or whatever.

He’s quite content just now and doesn’t want to change.

But thinks he doesn’t want to tie himself to you in case there is someone better round the corner….

Sorry.

Also

This is bang on

I would walk away from him. You want different things.

You have been very clear that you want marriage. You have been patient, and you have offered solutions to his objections. The bottom line is he has absolutely no intention of proposing to you or getting married. And he's enjoying the power trip of lying to you and pretending it's your fault that he's not proposing.

Go on the holiday and enjoy it as a "last fling" with him. And then end the relationship when you get back. You'll find someone else.

I'm going against the grain here and thinking your boyfriend isn't trying to be mean, hurt you, stall you or put you last. It sounds to me like that first relationship where you can love the person loads, feel like they are family, that you'd want to do anything but hurt them, but that you kind of know on the back of your mind you're not IN love in that 'lets get married' passionate way or you're just too young to settle down. Maybe that's what's happening, or simply that you met too early & he's not ready to settle down. But he loves you like family and breaking up would be kind of gut wrenching & he's totally mixed up.

Everyone I knew at uni who got together then stayed together but quite a few knew they shouldn't have done it as it just felt like too much to split up in the end.

I think if you could avoid the alcohol and have a really calm, honest chat, really try to encourage total honesty, lay it out on the table, it'd be good to really find out whether that's what's happening. I've been in the situation before and when you're young and don't have the maturity to deal with it, it can lead to things getting messy.

It could also be that he wants to propose and genuinely hates your pushing him and making him feel put off the whole thing (I would feel like that too & actually I would leave if someone gave me an ultimatum as I just couldn't cope with the feeling of someone trying to force me into something I wasn't ready for - I guess we're all made differently).

Whatever the cause I'm sorry you're having such a hard time and I hope you can get some clarity from him. You're too good to keep chasing this.

OP this is heartbreaking to read. The same thing happened to me. I was with a man for 12 years. All through my 20’s. He kept stringing me along for years “of course I want to marry you. Let’s just be chill about it for now” or “Yes I want to have a future with you but there’s no rush is there?”. I was so stupidly determined to come across as the “cool girl” as in I didn’t want to be seen as the girl who was nagging my boyfriend into marriage so I never brought it up that much or kept quiet whenever he shot it down. More fool me.

Then I got to my early 30’s and realised the biological clock was ticking but he still kept giving me vague commitments of marriage and a family in the future. Then one day he came home after 12 years and said he had met someone else. Within 10 months they were engaged. Their wedding is this December.

Heartbreaking to think I wasted 12 years of my life on someone who never wanted to marry me after all. I feel so used and feel I have wasted the best years of my life on a dead end. Looking at my relationship from an outsider perspective it seems so obvious that if he didn’t propose after 6, 7, 10, 12 years, he never would. I am so angry at myself for sidelining my feelings and letting a man decide my future on nothing but empty promises. I wish I could turn back time and give me a good shaking and a reality check. I think this actually happens to loads of women who become single in their 30’s. They realise the man they thought they would spend the rest of their life with actually has no desire to commit to them and by then it’s got too late or getting very late to have children.

I know exactly how you feel. It’s the Sunk Cost Fallacy. You’ve invested a decade into this man so it’s much harder to walk away but please think of your own future and your own happiness.

@noirchatsdeux he left me outside the registry office and walked off to the reception venue (about 200 meters down the road) with his friends. I waited for 15 minutes, he didn't come back to me. All the other guests had gone, so I ended up walking to my wedding reception on my own.

That's so sad. You should really have gone straight back home, packed your bags and gone. What a bastard he was.

@Morgoth I’m sorry to hear this , I hope you’ll get your happy ending

I never get why people suggest proposing to someone who clearly does not want to get married. Why set yourself up for rejection, humiliation or, most likely, more prevarication.

Also, how on earth did covid/lockdown stop him proposing?

Sorry OP, you are wasting your time here if you are waiting on a proposal.

Thank you @WobblyMelon. I’m still hopeful! ❤️

@teeandbiscuit

Please stop being hopeful, get realistic and kick this waste of space into touch.

I have a friend whose boyfriend wouldn't commit to a mortgage or anything permanent after ten years of being together. It took them properly separating for about a year to realise actually they did love each other and then they got back together and everything happened pretty quickly.
I really think if she hadn't made that call for them to separate, they would still just be housemates really now rather than actually settled.

He’s stringing you along. If he wanted to propose, he would. It’s easier to string you along than to deal with separating.

Off the point, but I never understand this idea of telling someone the you're going to propose. If you've decided that you want to get married and are going to propose, why not just get on with it? It doesn't have to be a big romantic production.

When DH and I got engaged, I sort of guessed a few days before from his insistence that we should get together the following Friday, plus previous artless inquiries about what sort of stones I liked in rings, but there was no suggestion of getting engaged to get engaged. He proposed quite casually in his flat, we went out to our favourite restaurant to celebrate, and it was lovely. I recommend it.

@HollowTalk Thank you. I can still see myself walking down the road - it was a bloody awful weather too, heavily overcast with dark clouds, it had been raining all day. I even said out loud 'This was a mistake'... of course, being still young and still pretty stupid, I convinced myself it was just him over excited to see his friends...

I remember moaning to dh about how weekends were hard as all I could think about was wanting to marry him or words to that effect. Before I'd finished he proposed. He'd planned to do so that weekend but not when. Thinking about it now he put me out of my misery immediately he could.

Yours sounds like he's enjoying the power he thinks he has over you.