37 and feeling the pressure - boyfriend is not

[wonderingwonderingwondering]

Hi mumsnet,

Newly regged to see what you folks think or can advise on this.

I'm 37 and with my partner a little over a year and a half. When we got together I had been single a few years and had accepted the fact that I might not meet someone, have babies, get married, all the rest of it. I've lived a pretty adventurous life with a strong focus on career and travel, this wasn't the be all and end all to me at the time.

About a year ago I relocated countries to move in with him and start a new chapter together, new job, new neighbourhood all the rest of it. In the last 12 months or so, for the first time in my life I've felt a real urge to settle down - buy a house, get married, have babies. I guess a combination of the timeline kicking in and being in the happiest, healthiest relationship I've ever been in. The "long term" stuff hadn't really featured as a huge topic of conversation between us before then, as we were both a bit apathetic - didn't know if it was for us, etc.

However, now I'm clear that I want to buy a house together, get married and settle down. It's manifesting as me slightly freaking out every few weeks, as I feel like I don't have enough time to achieve all of these things given I'm uncomfortably close to 40 - and I'm yet to feel any urgency from him. Every time we have the conversation I get: I want to be with you forever, I don't care about everything else. Married isn't massively important to him, he'd like to have kids but it's not a pressing matter, he'd like to buy a house but we're already living in his first home so it's less important to him and the market is crazy at the moment etc etc.

It's left me feeling a bit lonely and like I have no assurance that these things will happen. We'll have the conversation, then weeks will pass with no movement and I'll freak out again, he'll reassure me and back to square one. I don't know how to move beyond this reticence from him. I love him deeply, he's everything I need in a partner beyond this inability to get invested in our future together and to meet me where I am with these things. I have a fear that we'll stay in this holding pattern, I'll be 40, with a long-term "boyfriend" that hasn't fully committed, unable to conceive, still living in his house with my savings depreciating wildly in the bank and I'll be deeply unhappy about it all.

Does anyone have any advice as to how to approach this in a more pragmatic way? How do I get the assurance that I need?

Basically you've been with him 75 weeks thats not longtime to make commitments like you want .

i think the fella is getting a rough ride. You’ve been together 18 months and you stated that it was only the last 6 that you have felt this way. So you clicks your fingers and he falls into line or else? Posters suggesting that you find someone else are being massively unrealistic on te time scale. Get over your current partners, find a new one, get married and have kids in a couple of years? Not gonna happen. I’d just go with the flow.

Yes I agree with this. You’re not unreasonable to have changed your mind about what you want but it is unreasonable to expect him to suddenly feel the same and work on these new timescales. All you can do is tell him you want X by Y time and be prepared to walk (or accept the status quo) if it doesn’t happen.

@SpringBadger honestly, one minute you think you've got a decent answer to a query about dogs waking in the night and the next minute, you're deciding that advice fits reluctant men too

The thing is you told your husband at the start what you wanted, and your timescales. OP on the other hand has done a 180 on him. The life he believed they would have together isn’t what she now wants, but he’s been consistent throughout. He’s not a dickhead/flaky because his mind hasn’t changed with hers.

loving someone and wanting them to be happy doesn’t mean he should agree to have a child he doesn’t want. Unfortunately they now have different ideas as to what they want from their lives. He’s not in the wrong for wanting things to be what he thought they were, but it does mean that OP has the responsibility now to decide what matters more to her, and what she wants to do.

Blimey, thats strong advice. Wouldnt say trying for a baby would be my top priority in this situation. You need to figure out if thats what you BOTH want first otherwise you risk having a baby and nothing else....

I wouldn’t say anyone changed their mind so much as we just never really discussed this stuff. I know now that I should have, but getting married and having babies wasn’t on my radar 2 years ago. We’ve mostly talked about the future in vague terms - “when we’re married”, “our kids”, that kind of stuff.
Now i’m in a position where I’m in a much more family oriented environment, in a happy partnership, all of this stuff makes sense now. Whereas my partner is still in the world of vague plans, although he says he wants all the things I want, he doesn’t seem to be connecting the dots between wanting them and proactively getting them.
We agreed being married last night, we both want it. This happened last time too. So what next then? Propose maybe? This is what I mean by wanting vs getting. I need to see the proactiveness now. Show me you want to marry me. Not just nodding every time I bring these things up and saying because he sent an email to a mortgage advisor two weeks ago that he’s off the hook.
As I mentioned i’m abroad today. It’s become blatantly obvious that I need to get to a timeline in my head and go home and share that with him. We want these things and need a plan now. I want to be trying for a baby by Jan 2023. I want to have made real progress on closing on a house before then. I want to be engaged too. See how he responds I guess.
We are both incredibly busy with work and that tends to take over during the working week, we’re both guilty of not having time to move on these things. I just need to get us moving and I need to have the confidence to know it’s not just my plan. I guess that’s where I’m landing with it all.

@wonderingwonderingwondering
Why didn't he have children with his previous partner of 16 years?

We agreed being married last night, we both want it. This happened last time too. So what next then? Propose maybe? This is what I mean by wanting vs getting. I need to see the proactiveness now. Show me you want to marry me.

You've agreed to get married. That doesn't require a proposal. It's happening, no? Put a date in the diary and start planning it together. You've said how 'laidback' he is. To expect him to suddenly become this proactive guy is pointless. If you want to 'marry HIM' then starting out expecting him to be someone else is a classic mistake. Either change your methods to make it work with how he is, or don't marry him because it's going to be a constant letdown.

That’s a fair point. I feel like part of what I fell in love with was how laidback he is, it was an antidote to my manically stressful life at the time. But now it’s become a problem.
I don’t know much about the previous relationship, not really my business. It did make me wonder at the time but by all accounts it wasn’t a good relationship for him, there was cheating from her etc. It does concern me that be stayed with someone that long without it ever going in any progressive direction.

To be fair it seems like you're on the right side of the common pattern identified by many PPs - the man who dithers about with his girlfriend for 15 years, then breaks up and immediately marries and starts a family with his new girlfriend! So I wouldn't necessarily worry that he'll string you along.

Please don't fall into the "waiting for a proposal" trap. We see this so much on MN, each party increasingly resentful in a state of stalemate. You've agreed to get married so you are engaged. Unless you are desperate to have him go down on one knee, why not just move the conversation to the when and where? And enjoy it! Enjoy the adventure of making it happen together. Hopefully the attitude will be infectious.

Yes, why would anyone stay for such a long time if they were of cheating? I'd be curious about that too, and the lack of any meaningful progress in the 16 years ...

That one feels awkward and difficult. How do I move the “we want to marry each other eventually” conversation to “we are now engaged”? That’s not his understanding of things and I’m worried of running the risk of shoehorning things in a direction of my choosing with him standing in the sidelines watching it happen to him. I can’t be with someone who resents me for something like this but equally, I WANT him to propose. I don’t need a fairytale production, I don’t care about having a “big white wedding” in fact it sounds like a nightmare to me, but I want the gesture of his commitment to me.

Why are you doing all the work?? Is he that laid-back that he can't see all the engineering you're doing in the background??

If he wants kids, I think you need to spell out the biological reality to him.

You're 37. You haven't yet tried to get pregnant. You don't know how fertile you are or how long you've got left, but realistically most of your fertile years are behind you.

If he wants kids with you, you need to start trying ASAP.

If you want kids and he wants kids but he's not willing to start trying, what does that mean? If he takes his sweet time and it turns out to be too late, will he accept that he won't have kids himself, or will he - having wasted your last childbearing years - then go off and find someone else to have them with?

If he wants kids and he's serious about you being his long term life partner, it needs to be now-ish.

Why don't you just suggest stopping contraception?

Ordinarily I'd advise getting the house and the wedding out of the way before kids, but assuming you're reasonably financially secure, I'd probably prioritise the baby. If you're not fussed about having a big fancy white wedding you could do something lowkey, maybe whilst pregnant, or at least the legal bit whilst pregnant and a party afterwards, if you prefer.

If you have a child together then in all likelihood you'll decide you want to move anyway, at which point it would make sense to sell his place and pool your resources to get a bigger one.

I want to be trying for a baby by Jan 2023. I want to have made real progress on closing on a house before then. I want to be engaged too.

Why are you anxious in communicating that time line ? Are you scared it will chase him away? If it does then the sooner you know that the better.

You also need to be confident of communicating the consequences of no compromise or action.

Why not text the following and see how he responds?

1. Delighted that we will get married. Let’s buy a ring on Saturday and celebrate our engagement at X. How do you fancy a Christmas wedding - we could book the reg office this week for Y date.

1. I want to come off contraception now and get healthy to start trying properly for a baby by the end of the year - a “honeymoon baby”.

How does that feel for you? Are you excited and keen or hesitant or reluctant. Please be honest - as I need to see concrete actions otherwise I plan to move on.

Personally I would be focusing on the baby situation because if he stalls in that down the line you are looking at extracting yourself legally and financially from a messy divorce and house sale which would be a significant waste of time and money.

Get the baby commitment and ACTION under your belt first.

If he doesn't want to start trying for a baby very soon, he doesn't madly want a baby WITH YOU does he, he just thinks it would be nice? I mean, he knows the facts, he knows your age.

When I was your age and ambivalent about having kids, my DH (well partner at that point) was the one driving it. He was anxious about my age. He knew he wanted kids WITH ME and went on at me till we got them!

(And yes, I do sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if I had said no. But I wanted to keep DH, so I said yes to the adventure)

How old is he?

I assume he is at least late 30s if he has a 16 year relationship behind him - so many of his friends and family have taken these steps - so it’s not new territory for him.

I wonder why you are concerned about bringing any of this up and stating your needs, timescales and next steps? Also why you are anxious about discussing his 16 year relationship? That’s a huge part of who he is. Does he close down or do you avoid the conversation?

The more you describe your concerns, the less promising this all sounds. You don't even know how to have honest conversations with him about really fundamental matters. This is not a good basis for marriage and having a family. Awkward and difficult is not how it should be for a couple to discuss these things. If you truly want those things - with him - then you have to get past these fears around 'what if he thinks xyz of me' or feels trapped or railroaded etc etc. You have to be clear about what you want and if he doesn't want it, better to know and draw a line. But staying afraid and not communicating and putting things into action is just playing into his inertia and wasting more time that you don't really have.

but I want the gesture of his commitment to me.

^ this is totally meaningless. What you need is action. Let's set a date and get married. Let's stop using contraception and try for a baby. The time is now OP.

Don’t want to be doom-monger, but When I was in my 30’s I knew I didn’t want to get married or start a family any time soon, If I had met a woman who I thought was on the same page, then she turned the page after a year I would have been out of the door and over the hill before you could say “thanks, but no thanks”, reading your updates I suspect he might be the same

As PP's said, you could focus on the baby bit as that's time-limited and marriage etc isn't.

I think it's natural that women will be more aware of the timeframe of their fertility. Which men need to be aware of too and prepared to act on if a woman who feels like that is going to get what she wants from her relationship and life.

And that’s all fabulous - open honest and authentic communication - once everyone knows where they stand - they can reflect and decide what action to take.

If he’s laid back and doesn’t plan you may have to take the lead in everything. Is this what you want?