I know this board is filled with threads like this.
I know ultimately if he wanted to marry me, he would and the rest is just excuses. However here I am and I'm wondering how to approach the situation.
Been with my partner 5 years this summer. Lived together 3 years, have a nearly 3 year old DC and we each have an older child each from previous marriage. I'm 34 he is 51.
I know everyone will say marry before a child but obviously it's too late for that now. Our son was unplanned and at the time I fell pregnant we had only been together 14 months. Marriage hadn't been discussed at this point, however we were in love and decided to continue the pregnancy and move in together (we had discussed moving in).
Anyway here we are and almost been together 5 years.
We have both been divorced. My partner has many issues from his divorce. He is from a wealthy background and lost all his inheritance in his divorce (around 400k). His ex wife made things very difficult when divorcing, she stalked him, stopped him seeing his child for a year then later (at this point he was seeing child).claimed thousands extra in maintanance by saying he didn't see his child. She tried to get him struck off and threatened his elderly father and has MH issues. This has been told to me also by his friends and family and I've seen court reports. I want to make it clear I am NOT making assumptions about his ex, I'm explaining what I have heard from his side and how his divorce impacted him. I was not in the relationship and I have no opinioms of his ex wife, it usually takes 2 to end a marriage and I'm not saying he did no wrong, I wasn't there.
Anyway basically bad divorce.
When we have discussed marriage he has always said he has no issue with marrying me but can't go through another divorce and he would need to be 100% that we won't split (obviously this is not possible). We have had a hard time adjusting initially as we moved in together 2 weeks before I gave birth. My partner had been mostly single for 10 years post divorce and got used to being alone and he can be selfish. However it has caused issues.
We love one another, well I have no reason to think he doesn't love me. When things are good we are great but we can have issues at times.
I've made it clear in the past that I want to get married. He's said several times that he will one day propose, refers to me as his wife, made remarks about type of wedding etc. However, the last time I tried to discuss marriage he basically got angry with me and it ended up with him saying 'dont you realise how bad my divorce was'. He has also said in the past that when you have a child together he believes you don't do anything to break that family unit and that as I in the past had walked away from a marriage with a child, I was capable of doing it again.
I want to get married. Several reasons
- I love him
- want to feel he's committed to me
- I want the same surname as one of my children
- I want to officially be part of his family
- I don't want to be a partner forever
- I envisaged being married to the father of my child
- and the boring one...for practical and legal reasons. If he left or anything happened to him, I'd struggle whereas he has a lot of money behind him.
The issue is this. It's suddenly hit me that we have been together nearly 5 years and I've started to think that if he's not asked by now, he never will and for me, it's important. I'm starting to feel resentful and upset about it.
The issue- I don't know how to broach the conversation because when I last tried he got annoyed and basically said I'm giving him an ultimatum. I'm not even sure how to put it across without making it sound like an ultimatum. I basically said if he didn't love me enough to get married then I wasn't sure it was the right relationship for me. He was upset/angry I'd consider leaving when we have a child. Especially seen as we've both been divorced, so evidently marriage doesn't mean much! And has always said loving me has nothing to do with it. The conversation usually ends with him saying that he isn't against marrying me and one day, how8how long do I wait?
Does he have a point? Or do I accept he doesn't love me enough?