Engagements and my horrid jealousy.

[haze46]

Here is my massive tale of woo...

I am 41 my partner is 43, we have been together for 7 years and have a two year old son together. I also have a son from a previous relationship. We were friends before we became a couple and have mutual friends.

Last April we attended a lot a weddings and it started playing on me that he hadn't asked, I mentioned this to him quite a bit he knows exactly how I was feeling and said he didn't want a long engagement and we needed a house first. Also that the constantly mentioning it wasn't nice and seemed desperate. I left it, and for a year no mention of it but living it hope, nothing!

Recently my sister in law just got engaged to her partner of 3 years and I really love both of them but I could not hide my jealousy. I really wanted to be happy for them and had to have a word with myself. I didn't want to discuss her engagement with my partner but I did send them a lovely personalised card and champagne. To be honest I was shocked at just how bitter I felt about it, which is a horrible realisation.

It just made me feel like I'm not enough, what is wrong with me, I've never been asked before and I'm the only female I know my age that hasn't been asked. I have all the reasonability of a wife with none of the recognition. I'm still attractive, try my best to be a good Mum and partner, keep a nice home, work a full time job.

Just as I've managed to pull myself together and push all this back down by Sister has just called me this morning so say that her and her partner have got engaged whilst on holiday. I'm delighted for her, she deserves all the happiness in the world but again I'm tinged with jealousy and self-pity. I had to come home an shed a wee tear and gather myself. I'm sitting her writing this and my partner comes home from work quickly and I told him they'd got engaged, he said "Have they actually and are you crying?" I replied yes they had and could hardly look at him. He the said " Well you know, good things come to those to wait" and it my bitterness my retort was " Clearly not". He just walked out.

I know I'm sounding like a horrible bitter and selfish person and I'm partly disgusted with myself but the other half full of self pity and resentment. I'm 41, I've invested 7 years in my relationship, given him a child, used the majority of my money to buy the house. When is my time, when's it our turn? Why does this make me feel so bad.

I'm starting to feel like if he doesn't ask in the next year or two I don't want to, like it's too late, the moment is gone which is so spiteful.

I want to be busting with excitement for my Sister and Sister in Law, I'm not a young girl I should be able to better than this but I feel a bit lost and sadly jealous.

I stand corrected, but respectfully disagree that divorce and separation are pretty much the same thing, esp if there are significant assets and a shit ton of arseholery in the mix. <Bitter>

OP, only marry someone who really really wants to marry you, and who you really really want to marry!

Flatlining birth rates would be a godsend for the planet, and a sight better than all these chaotic broken homes that dysfunctional kids are being raised in.

I am no prize 😁Im just being bitterly glib about all the woman who's partners love them.

Why would fewer men want kids if it was marriage first?

It's not preachy it's practical advice. Srioulsy these threads are constant. Having babies then hoping for marriage is not working for many many women.

Men respoond to the expectations set by women (collectively).
Have higher expectations, you'll get a better man, we'll get better men.

If you don't expect much, so accept very little, (I'll have a baby becuase he might never want to marry me) you can't then complain whne you don't have very much (he doesn't want to marry you).

It should be an empowering message to women instaed of: men are shit take what little they offer (babies but not marriage) and be grateful.

No one is forced to wait; one can always move on and find a more suited, enthusiastic partner. Producing out-of-wedlock offspring with some half-hearted time waster who doesn't love one, in hopes "he'll change when the kids come along,"is hardly a superior plan.

I agree that if there is asshollery involved then anything that can be used to make life harder will be used...

nonetheless, if I was with someone for so long and their argument for not wanting marriage was "because you'd be a bitch during divorce proceedings" then I think I'd reconsider entire relationship - starting with why they think that

Now that is bloody offensive. My step children are great kids, they are not bloody dysfunctional because of their "chaotic broken home" (!!!!!). No child asks to be born into a divorced family situation, how dare you tar them as damaged goods!!

@StrawberryWasp What an incredibly repressive and judgemental comment. I had a small window in which to have our son and that was important to us. I was looking for some support to try and gain a more rationale outlook not judged on my life choices.

No it's not that, the opposite in fact. Women should stand up for themselves and not be sold a load of future faking lies about marriage. Don't hang on to blokes who are flaky about committing and marriage and children because you think you can change their mind. Find out early on if you're on the same page and if not, turn the bloody page and move on!

Reporting Zelda, utterly vile rhetoric.

Birth rates are flatlining and that's going to bring a new set of issues.

Although I agree with you that broken dysfunctional homes are terrible for children. And we know married parents are likely to be much more stable for children.

The whole marraige doesn't matter illusion has been disastrous for women and children but great for men.

So you are ignoring that people have commented that they did exactly this, only to have their partners renege or drag their feet down the line? We're suddenly accountable for that now?

Can we leave children out of it? The reasons as to if, why and when people decide to have children is besides the point entirely

@TheAverageJoanne well said!

Completely agree, Im not often bloody offended but my god how vile/tone deaf can two people be!!

I 100% get this! I used to get so upset when my friends got engaged, not in front of them obviously. My husband proposed just before our 4 year anniversary and had had my ring for quite a while, just wanted to find the perfect place/time.

Exactly women should take back their power.

The OP and the many women in these daily threads feel powerless.

@ZeldaWillTellYourFortune Have you quoted the wrong post as it makes no sense.
I'm saying no-one should wait for a man

Not arsed to get legal and financial protection?

What are you saying here? If a woman to whom marriage is important then chooses to have a child unmarried in the hope they'll get married later, then they're entirely responsible for that choice. There's always the possibility the chap will backtrack. This is the second thread on this topic today. Marriage doesn't have to be like the celebrity magazines. You can nip to the register office.

@haze46 I think all you can do is decide if it is a dealbreaker, I would weigh up how happy I am with him and day to day life. He almost sounds a bit flippant about your feelings, is he like that in other ways?

It's really not.

The OP has his child already.
Every time you opne these threads, the women has had babies wit5h the promise of marraige eventually whihc then never comes.

If you really cared about women and these repeated scenarios you'd been wanting to talk about: how women who want marrauge should think about children and marriage.

some people never want to get married, and there are some who specifically don't want to get married because they are protecting their finances

This 💯