Should I be concerned about his reaction to marriage?

[togp]

I'm 33, partner is 34. We've been together 4 years and have previously discussed getting married and having children.

The last few weeks I've had a feeling of wanting to move along with these goals as we're both settled and not getting any younger.

I brought it up with him last week and he was really blase about it all. He answered with 'yeah we'll do all of that soon' and when I pressed for more details and more of a timeline he said 'in a couple of years' but didn't really give any specifics about what would be in a couple of years.

His lack of detail was niggling at me so I asked again yesterday and I got upset when he said I didn't trust him and that he doesn't know why I'm asking. I explained I wanted a bit of a plan as we haven't actually ever had a specific time frame and that we've been together a while so what are we waiting for. I tried to say this in a light hearted way, but he made me feel like I was being desperate. He then said 'well I don't have a ring, but I've always said we will get married' and left it at that.

My birthday was in December and I feel like I'm getting older so maybe that's why I feel so unsure about it all, but something about his answers has made me doubt we're on the same page, despite him always saying we are...

I wouldn’t be too fussed about marriage but having children needs to be discussed. I had my first in my very early 20s and my second in my mid 30s. I’ve found it so, so much harder the second time because of how old I am.
I also know someone who always said to his girlfriend ‘next year/in a couple years/what’s the rush/stop nagging/next year’ ten years of her life wasted on him.
let’s say he wants kids in a couple heats, you’ll be 35. You start trying and on average it’s about a year for most people to conceive and assuming there’s no difficulties in that area you end up having a baby around 37. You’d have a toddler at 40. There’s nothing wrong with that obviously but it is harder, more potential complications etc
You need to tell him that you’re not willing to wait around on the off chance he’ll want kids and you’ll miraculously fall pregnant first go.

Here's the thing @togp - this is YOUR life therefore YOU run it, not him, not anyone else - YOU

If he won't provide what you need for YOUR life, trust me, you'll find it elsewhere

I've learned a lot so far in life, and one of those things is to create your own life, dont wait around for someone to hand it to you

@Bonmot57 oh please! If she wants children she needs to bear her fertility in mind. You might consider it uncouth or unromantic but like a lot of things in life sometimes you need to be somewhat pragmatic.

Don't waste another minute on this man OP.

You have been together for 4 years and he is still dragging his feet.

More than the marriage bit it is the fact that you are 34 and want kids that is the more pressing thing.

I would simply tell him that you are no longer willing to wait and your plan is to get married this year and start trying for a baby and that if this does not match his plans then unfortunately you will end the relationship.

Frankly it doesn't sound like he is that keen to have a long term future with you and is just happy to cruise along...until he decides it is time to move on.

@Chichimcgee not being married before children is of course possible but the financial implications of not being married must be considered by women if going that route. Too many women stay at home to be mum only to late split with their partner and be financially fucked over on earning potential, pension, even mortgage etc if they're not careful.

Here the thing op. If your partner is in agreement that 'one day' you will have kids.
That 'one day' needs to be happening now! As a patient that has just been through all the fertility treatment your eggs are sat there waiting to be fertilised and at your current age every year that this gets prolonged the quality of those eggs decreases.
If it is something you will be doing in the future you need to be doing it now!
Totally agree with pp that if he isn't ready now mid 30's and 4 years into a relationship then sadly he will never be ready.

He isn't the one with his eggs on a timer.... have the chat op!

I’m afraid he’s stringing you along. Don’t waste any more time on this man. Don’t wait for a proposal. Tell him if you are going to be married then you need to set a date now and book it in. If he won’t do it now then he won’t ever do it.

In general, men don't fuss about when they really want to marry and have children with a woman

I suspect if you gave him an ultimatum today he would quite likely leave

I think for a lot of people they grow up with the societal idea that they will suddenly start wanting children, this leads to these relationships where it's "yeah we will someday".

Women seem more likely to actually get this urge for children or get it sooner which leads to this commonly seen type of MN thread.

OP's partner doesn't want kids yet, but society has told him he will one day so he is just repeating that back.

I don't buy this whole evil partner stringing OP along narrative, they have just grown apart in what they want at his particular time in their lives.

I didn’t suggest otherwise. If she wants children then she should end the relationship and find one of the rare men who really want kids ASAP, or go it alone, rather than trying to get an unwilling party to toe the line she has set.

My objection is to ultimatums/emotional blackmail. You might think it uncouth or unromantic; I think it manipulative and disrespectful. If faced with such tactics, I’d end things sharpish and if her DP reacts the same way, the OP may end up with nothing.

Is marriage before kids a dealbreaker? He may need a wake-up call to your expectations. Reminding him that pregnancy risk goes up the longer you wait after 35, and also that if it transpires that you cannot conceive easily and wait too long you may struggle to access NHS fertility services may be a wake-up call, particularly if want more than one child, and want some spacing between them. Men don't always see the bigger picture.

Absolutely this!

And, crucially, men are rarely as desperate to have children, or have them 'now' as women. Indeed, many feel lukewarm or would be quite happy foregoing having a family.

@togp - don't get yourself into a situation where he 'lets' you have a child, but delays marriage. You'd have to be open to the risk of ending up as a single mother.

@Bonmot57 the OP states they have already discussed marriage and children so this can come as no surprise and some men honestly don't know how many women just don't get pregnant at the drop of a hat. My friend had her baby at 35 and was considered a geriatric mother. OP is 33 and they have been together 4 years. It does not take a genius to work out fertility rates if she isn't even engaged at this point.

However, the OP needs to stop being passive about it all.

"What arrogance and a huge sense of self importance. No one has an entitlement to a proposal and x number of DC by a certain time. Maybe in certain quarters on MN, but not in real life" Actually this is the exact conversation Dh and I had in the two weeks of dating. We talked about whether we were looking for a serious relationship or not, we talked about whether we both saw marriage in our futures and children and the ideal number if we could choose them. We knew we were on the same page.

We talked timelines when we were looking to move in together for both engagement and marriage and then roughly when we would think about children. We said when I was 31 ish however life took a plot twist and I was told at 28 I had fertility issues (not trying) and that I would need IVF to conceive. Luckily I was already married at this point. Never assume fertility, I have had friends have their fertility tested so that they could plan better.

Lots of women in the OP's situation do leave relationships if the man says no, sorry I was stringing you along I do not want marriage or children (insert with you)

If he is a future faking fucker and you want kids, you need to know asap and dump.

I was 31 when my then bf (35)suggested buying jointly and moving in together after knowing each other for 3 years, dating for 2 of those and tending to be in my flat during the week and his shared house at the weekend for

I said that I didn’t want sell my beloved little flat to just move in to ‘see how it went’ - we had both lived with other people before and should be able to tell by now if it was likely to work long term . I would only make that sort of life change for marriage and that would also mean children. It didn’t mean that I wanted to finish with him - we could carry on in an exclusive relationship but we were still single and not in a nebulous half committed relationship.

I didn’t say this as some sort of strategy, hadn’t thought it through until I said it but it clarified a lot in my mind. He also said he hadn’t really thought it through, hadn’t really ever considered children in his future but yes, let’s talk.

Three years on, we were married and in our new house with our baby and him saying that he had had no idea what he would have missed by not opting for fatherhood.

Discussing marriage and children is only the very tip of the conversation. What if you can't get pregnant? What if you both have as yet unknown fertility struggles - would you still want to build a life with him? Would he be kind and supportive and sensitive as you negotiated all of that? Do you want a life with him, however that may pan out, or do you want a marriage and children, with someone who shares that life goal? I think we can sometimes get caught up in the path we should be taking, rather than really focusing on whether the companion we have chosen is actually the right one for the journey.

It is horrible not to feel wanted, to not think he shares your hopes and dreams. And that in itself might be a sign that he isn't the right person to support you through the other difficulties life will definitely throw in your way. It sounds like security and firm commitment is really important to you. And if it isn't important to him, then you need to consider whether he is the right life companion for you.

I feel like I am getting older

There is no "feel like it" about it. You are getting older and factoring in the time it takes to meet somebody else and get to know them enough for marriage and you are definitely using up your fertile years.

He is 34 and you have been together for 4 years, it would be a perfect time to take things to the next stage of marriage but the fact is, he doesn't appear to want to. I think it is probably worth a final conversation, but if it is not productive, I think you need to cut your losses.

A Uni friend wouldn’t move in with a man unless they were engaged with date set. Not religious just her personal rule. How we scoffed. With hindsight she was damn right.

I hate this whole ‘don’t want to look desperate’ thing women go through. Men look desperate all the time! It doesn’t matter. You’re a grown woman in your thirties in an established relationship. It’s ok to want to discuss and plan your future. A vague ‘couple of years’ is disrespectful to you and totally regarding your ability to have children. I wouldn’t let this go and decide what you absolutely want.

@MissSookieStackhouse, @togp

Or he maybe a complete time waster who has no real intention of ever marrying you, or having children with you, but is just keeping you on side till someone else comes along. You need to find out which it is, sooner rather than later.

This scenario of men behaving like this keeps popping up so regularly on MN. It's easy to see this from a distance but so hard when you've invested years in a relationship, love the person, you've perhaps had the conversation but the other party (usually the man) only hears what he wants to hear and gives vague or fake reassurances to the woman. He carelessly wastes her child bearing years looking over her shoulder in case a better option comes over the horizon. In the meantime he gets the benefits of being a relationship without any of the responsibility. That blunt phrase that's been around for decades about "why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free".

There was TED talk I listened to during Covid lockdown (I can't find the link now) where the male presenter on stage was talking about this issue and said, in great humour and very clearly something like "it's not that we don't want to get married - we just don't want to marry you!!) to great laughter and applause from the audience.

Give a thought, OP, whether there's any possibility that with, or without malice, your partner is thinking the same about you. 🌹

Well then he doesn’t love her does he! And should go.

Emotional blackmail. You might just as easily say she doesn’t love him if she tries to force his hand like that.

Anyone with an ounce of integrity and backbone would call that out for what it is and no one should remain in a relationship under that kind of coercion.

DP have always been on the same page since day one- having DCs is more important than our relationship.

I chose to have a relationship with him because he prioritised having DCs and having them in a 2 year time frame.

I've never wasted emotional energy on men who aren't focussed on building a family life.

Your teens/uni years are for fun, the decade after flies by and women do t have time for time wasters.

Women's fertility starts to drop at age 25 not 35.

@Bonmot57 if your solution is to end a relationship when the guy has clearly said that he does want marriage and children he is just reluctant on the time frame, I really don't think it's blackmail to give an ultimatum choice. It's make it break, and the solution might well be break, but an ultimatum is offering a free and clear choice: "This is what I want, and it's important enough to me that if you don't want the same, I'm willing for us to break up so I have the chance to find it with somebody else. If you do want it with me, let's get on with it." I don't see how that is blackmail into anything; he has a free and clear choice; if he doesn't in fact want what she wants with her, they break up. He just doesn't get to stay in the relationship promising someday to her forever more.

It's isnt coercion/manipulation/whatever other emotive words you've used @Bonmot57 to explain biological facts to someone! That's absurd. And is why absolutely no one has agreed with you on this thread.