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.

OP it actually sounds like you are now viewing your realstionship more positively than in your original OP.
You sounded like a heart broken women in a negative realstionship in that.

You may not have had the resposnes you thought you wanted but it actually may have helped?
Maybe you are in a process of accpeting you won't get marriage but you can be content with the good rastionship you have?
That's better than the heart break of feeling you haven't got all you want.

Maybe you've got enough?

Who said coerce?

I said set your expectations if they don't share them move on.

@Onlinetherapist When we discussed it last we said we need to get a bigger house first, which was correct, we did. But we have since bought a new house together, we moved in Jan after some extensive renovations. And yes I owe the majority of the home and it has been registered legally as such. With a legal minute of agreement which had has seen and signed.

i guess the nuances of life and other aspects of the relationship are not important then?

Just asking out of interest to previous relationship and a few I see around me.
Do you think that is the case in all situations. As in if they don't marry you they are not that bothered. Or are you saying it more as in a man who gets engaged but then doesn't follow through with marriage is not that bothered.

I can think of a few like that. Some who have been engaged for years and women that take is as an alternative to marriage it seems.

I don't feel sorry for your son. He is a grown man. He strung along a girl he was not that into. He gave in because it suited him to have someone at home, in bed , enjoying life with. Girl should have seen the red flags, but your son is not the poor victim that got forced into marriage.

You've been together 7 years and he's still putting you off. If he wanted to marry you he would have proposed by now.

I am fully independent, I do not need him and can support myself and my children. My assets are all legally protected.

I'd add to this one - i don't think anyone can know for sure until it actually happens.

I know few men who were "never that bothered" with getting married until they met someone they wanted to marry

while others just genuinely never did het married even after their long term relationships have ended and they got into new ones

We're talking generalities right?

Yeh life is messy, but you need some guiding principles.

It sort of sounds like he won’t ever want to. He knows it’s important to you, and has said you were ‘desperate’ for mentioning it and being upset by others’ engagements. That’s cruel. That’s not what someone who loves you should do.

As he sees it, he’s got the kid, he’s got the house (largely due to you), he can probably get away with running your time down into you’re too old and too settled to do anything about it and then he won’t have to marry you.

I’m really sorry. You’ll get a hard time from people on here though, some seem to take great delight in belittling anyone who has a child first, or who doesn’t enter into it purely from a legal and business-like perspective. And they’ll positive skin you if you want anything more than a contractual agreement in a municipal building, followed by a swift half in the local.

@StrawberryWasp Having a baby because you thnk he might not marry you, but hoping he may ask one day and crying because he doesn't while being trapped because you don't want to break up a family because of the kids, sounds like regressive misery for women to me.

Well said! It's hardly a step forward for womankind.

You need to be grown ups and just talk about whether you both want to get married. I agree with him, you need to focus on the marriage part, not the engagement part.

If you both want to be married simply book it in and get married. It doesn’t need to be expensive or overblown.

I was a lot younger and had the romantic proposal, big white wedding thing etc but at the end of the day, none of that mattered. It’s the past 20 years of marriage that has mattered.

And at the end of the day, 7 years in with a child together, the ship has sailed for you being swept of your feet with a surprise! Time to just be practical if marriage is that important to you.

Do you need to be engaged, can you just start planning a wedding together?

DH and I never got engaged. We bought a house together and had three children - much bigger commitments. One day we were planning a holiday and DH suggested getting married while there. It suited us both!

Going to add my 2p here.

My opinion is that you've invested 7 years, given a child and been a wife in all but name. As a result you have every right to feel upset and shitty about him not proposing.

This kind of situation frankly makes me really angry, because the attitude of some men is why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free. My response is why buy the pig when all you need is a little sausage.

My attitude would be "no, we are not investing in a new home because my priorities have changed". You are the one who is paying the majority for the houses you live in and own the majority of them, what exactly is he adding here? You're seriously telling me a sperm donation and a fraction of what you've put in financially is good enough and he couldn't in all that time have afforded a ring?

Fk off.

I'd start living on your own terms quite frankly, his attitude of "you're being desperate and I don't like it" really gets my tits in a twist and i'd be saying "excuse me?? i've been here 7 years and invested significantly so I don't think you're in a position to be dictating actually".

If you want to get engaged and this guy isn't man enough to do the right thing then a serious talk is needed.

I had the same talk with my now ex, I said I wasn't going to move in with him unless we got engaged, he proposed but no date was set for a wedding EVER, and he never talked about it or seemed bothered about it. For multiple reasons (this being one of them) I packed my shit and left because it was obvious to me that he was happy with having a shared home and not in a rush to go any further. I can't be doing with men like that.

I was very independent before we met and I don't think it bothered me that much before. He has said to me previously, he's very aware that I don't need him. I think since we had our son, it now means more to me now that I thought it would.

I'm not married but we have a nice house (mortgage), two children and a dog. I consider myself very but I'm shocked at my feelings/reactions, its taken be back. But as I said I think these are my issues to work through. I cant help how I feel.

Out of wedlock? What century are you living in? My DC were born out of wedlock (neither DP nor I want to get married — although we do refer to each other as H&W, because that’s how it feels) and we’re all very happy and well-adjusted, thank you.

You certainly can’t help how you feel, and it might be worth exploring why it matters so much to you. Is it because you always dreamed of a big white wedding, for example, or because you’d feel more secure, either financially or emotionally? If you can work out why, perhaps you can then sit down and talk to your DP about why it matters so much. That might help. (It might not! But it might help you to decide on where you go from here…) Good luck, OP. X

Also that the constantly mentioning it wasn't nice and seemed desperate.

I’m not sure if anyone has addressed this, but what the actual fuck?! Do you not see the issue with him saying this to you? Layers of problematic.

Threads like this are a bit frustrating. It’s like otherwise intelligent and capable women suddenly lose all agency and just sit around hoping that the man they’re in (what should be) an equal and loving partnership decides on
their future. Why? Why do people do this?

Have a conversation, lay out what you want, your expectations, a timeline. See if you agree. Come up with something that works for both of you. Do that thing. Ideally this would happen before buying a house and having kids, but that ship has sailed.

I was with my DP for years and got fed up that he hadn’t asked. He said ‘but we’re happy as we are’ and ‘one day I’ll ask’. I said I wasn’t happy not being married, it made me feel unloved and while he might ask me to marry him one day he had no guarantee I would wait around for him. Marriage was important to me and I am not on his indefinite timetable.

and I meant it.

I started looking at flats and jobs in another city. He didn’t know this and did propose within a few months and we are happy. I don’t feel I forced him to marry me and he loves calling me his wife. I asked him why the hell didn’t he ask me to marry him before when he clearly likes being married and he just said he didn’t see how it would make us happier as he really was happy and thought I was the same. It seemed more laziness and being content with the status quo than not loving me.

However I think because we didn’t have children together he took my potentially leaving a lot more seriously as it would have been very easy for me to do so.

Also I think when he saw I was unhappy he wanted and was willing to fix it. It concerns me your DP knows this upsets you but lets it drag on.

And it's usually men who have finances to protect, partly because having a child is more likely to have an adverse impact on the mother's earnings than the father's

Dont get married. Getting divorced is painful

This! And I write with the voice of bitter experience 🙄

So you have looked at the situation and decided that marriage isn’t necessary.
So it’s not a case of not being arsed?
My concern is for women sleepwalking their way into a dire situation (which you see most days on here) rather than people like you know know and understand how things work

@haze46 to me the most shocking part is that you seem to feel unreasonable or guilty because of your bitterness - one that is wholly justifiable .

since when did it become the "norm" to never expect romance, grand gestures and outward display of love or commitment?

and i get it - because that's how i used to rationalise my previous loveless relationship...but we are supposed to love our partners, they are supposed to love us, and want to be committed to us. there is nothing wrong with feeling bitter and sad if someone you love does not appear to return these feelings or not to the same extent