DP overthinking engagement/marriage

[BowlieSplat]

My DP of 4 years has been married before and I have not.

He doesn’t talk about it much, I suppose to save my feelings, but from bits I gather he did a whole romantic proposal and he planned a lot of the wedding, it wasn’t his choice to get divorced so he takes marriage seriously.

I have been briefly engaged once before to the father of my children, and I shared with DP once that it was the least romantic situation ever, my ex had no intention of marriage. In fact the entire awfulness of it was a major bone of contention between us and a big reason of why we split up in the end and I had given the ring back to him shortly after it was shoved at me begrudgingly following his bad behaviour towards me.

There was one very awkward situation between DP and I last year, where a really lovely photo was taken of us at a wedding while we were dancing in a fun pose. I sent it to DP and I got a weird vibe back from his reaction to it. It turned out that he did that EXACT same pose at his wedding with his ex wife and he got it blown up into a huge print and displayed it in their house. Now our photo feels weird lol.

Marriage is important to me, I was open with DP when we met, he agrees that it has meaning for him too. We don’t speak about this topic very often at all - I don’t bring it up - but on the rare occasions when DP has had a drink or 2, he likes to bring it up and gets soppy and asks me if I will consider marring him one day. I always say yes. He then spirals into panicking he has accidentally proposed to me, and that it needs to be some big huge perfect proposal and that I would need a big special wedding.

I always tell him that no, it’s the sentiment of the gesture not the performance that’s important. And that I don’t care about a proposal, we could just agree it together and do something low key. I do not care about anything apart from if he means it, and also wants to do it.

It’s annoying me that it keeps coming up in this context and he’s only brave enough to talk about it after a glass of wine a couple times a year (he’s a lightweight) but still… no timeline of marriage and he’s convinced himself that he needs to do something huge and nerve wracking. Why doesn’t he just listen to what I am saying? 😫 or is this him having second thoughts about it?

in my OP I said he seems to think I will need a costly ring, an extravagant engagement and a big wedding so he means we need to have money and go through this process

We had a massive chat last night. we were talking and I just came out with it - do you see yourself getting married again, us getting married. He said yes, but that he wasn’t sure we saw it the same way, from what I’ve said it sounded like it was for ‘protecting myself legally’ and it’s not very romantic to just do it for the legal reasons. I agree I probably have downplayed it far too much, especially by saying well I would be fine in jeans at a registry office he thought I just wanted a piece of legal paper and he doesn’t want to just get married in a registry office. I said that legal reasons are just one reason but it shouldn’t be the only reason. I do not want a big family affair to be honest and he said his ideal would be on a beach somewhere with our kids, in a beautiful place with no stress. He found his first wedding to have all the politics of who sits where. He thought I wanted a big family do. I agreed small beach type wedding would be perfect. He asked me the timeline and I said well before I am old and crusty would be nice. It was our most honest chat about it and he didn’t piss about being a knob. I also told him I would be happy with a pretty and unusual vintage type ring, nothing extravagant and he seemed relieved 😂

lesson: communicate 😂

So did it end with him going down on 1 knee & asking you to marry him.

If not then it's still just words.

Yet another man claiming he needs time to save up for a big wedding and expensive ring for a woman who told him she wants none of those things. It's a stalling tactic that will eventually end in a "shut the hell up" proposal that never materializes into a wedding. He's not scared, damaged or wounded in any way, he is just happy as he is getting all his needs met and keeping you walking on eggshells that he might one day, if the weather is right and the planets align, propose but only if you are a very good girl in the meantime. I hope I'm wrong OP, I really do but these boards are littered with women who waited and waited and then nothing.

“Before I’m old and crusty” could be anytime in the next 40 years though….

We said it would be in the next couple of years. I also said it was ok to be honest if he wasn’t up for a 2nd marriage I would understand I would just prefer him to be open about it rather than drop hints or mess about

He thinks his mum might be pissed off if we just left to go do it but he was keen, he had thought about it in some detail (Greece/Italy) and just having the children with us. Then have a party at home. He seems to want it to be more of a thing than I do, but not a wildly unrealistic one. He was like I’m not doing it half hearted I want it to be great.

He still wants to propose to me from the sound of things but now he knows I would love a pretty, coloured old ring not a giant ££££ rock.

We talked about how we might have to go do it in a registry office in the U.K. for the legal part but I said not all registry offices are concrete and ugly. he assumed we would have to get married in our local ugly one which put him off but we can get married in any one - he didn’t know that and I said it could be as fun as you make it for that part.

I think we next need to talk about the funds for doing this, if in the next couple of years on a family holiday. It won’t be next year as we already have a holiday planned.

I will leave it for now but if nothing is happening or being talked about I give up on this idea, I was clear to him that I am not going to beg someone to get married they need to want to do it off their own bat. He assured me he did want to. I have to just trust what he says

I think you're going to have to accept your boyfriend really, really doesn't want to marry you. If you think marriage is important and to have a husband not just a boyfriend I don't think this is the man for you.

You come across as very amenable to any type of ceremony that he would be willing to undertake just to get married and he still hasn't done anything concrete. Just ask him and set a date or accept he'll be a forever boyfriend.

So did you agree that you would be getting married in the summer of 2026?

@Azerothi I am pretty amenable I don’t have any grand ideas of a wedding, I want a marriage to him. I explained this to him and he said he agreed that marriage is important to him but he thought I was just keen for boring, legal reasons.

I also said to him I am not prepared to be messed about just be honest. It would be the dishonesty why I would leave him not the marriage issue. I can completely understand a divorced person being wary of a 2nd marriage. That’s fine. What would be unacceptable is stringing me along.

OP I think the conversation where he implied you set a low bar and are happy that he's just nice to you was very telling re the way he's viewing things. A lot of women wouldn't stay in an uncertain situation where they weren't sure if/when their needs would be met. He might actually like it if you got a bit more concrete and demanding about this and said I expect us to be married in 2 years or I'm off (or similar). And sharply shut down any further wishy washy anxiety or jokes about it from him in the meantime. That way he would know exactly where he stood and what he needs to do.

You see on here threads where lots of women say how bad their proposal was, how it wasn’t romantic, wasn’t special enough.

he could feel under pressure to live up to that big gesture. It’s constantly out there as “this is the right way to propose and anything less is rubbish/stingy”

He asked me the timeline and I said well before I am old and crusty would be nice.

This is not communicating. This is yet another jokey, unresolved conversation.

You need to sit down and state clearly, 'If you have not proposed to me in the next 6 months, with a definite date for when we are marrying then I will feel free to assume that this is never going to happen. After 4 years I am tired of being fobbed off with vague promises about the future or being deflected by being told I am not 'romantic' enough about marriage. There is nothing romantic about future fakers. In 6 months time I'll be considering my options which may not include you. This is the last conversation I'm prepared to have on the subject until you do actually propose. I don't believe it's going to happen any longer, but we'll see'.

I agree! I think actually he worries a lot about it not being good or special enough. It must be pressurising to have to do this?

@Hatty65 you are right and he asked me for a more specific timeline after I made a joke, and I said the next 2 years would be a good plan with time to save.

Sorry, but it sounds like he doesn't want to marry you. I'm not saying he's unhappy in your relationship but I really think he's scared of commitment. He's basically coming out with every excuse under the sun - large wedding, small wedding, elopement, Greece/Italy, his mum, not sure of your feelings. What next, aliens? You've laid your heart on the line, told him you'd be happy with more or less whatever he wants, told him it's not just about a bit of paper and he still isn't getting it. C'mon.

He doesn't actually have to though, does he? You said it's him who wants to propose. There'd be nothing to prevent you mutually agreeing to marry and then starting to make plans.

His reasoning is that he thinks it is romantic and he wants it to be special for me. he is more romantic than me generally speaking. He says just agreeing to do it is not very romantic.

Assuming for the sake of argument that he's being genuine, that's still very much a choice rather than something he has to do.

Even though you've had what you call 'a big chat', nothing is resolved. It's still the same old assumptions on both parts.

You say 'it seems that', etc, and similar language, which suggests that you haven't got the firm commitment that you want. Be more direct. I don't think either of you are being fully open with one another and that's why you're still stumbling around. You're talking, but is he really listening?

So at the end of this next two years and there is still no proposal will you be fine with that? Or will you be pissed off you trusted him and have wasted two more years?

I was engaged three times before the one I actually married plus had another proposal and at least two of them I am sure were shut up rings. I am very happy I didn't marry them, should have married the one I sad no to, but never again will I put a man first or devalue myself.

Own what you want. But don't let him string you along anymore.

And there's no reason you can't marry on the holiday you have booked. None at all..

You can do both—be pragmatic and romantic. For example, after many discussions, in early 2007, DH and I agreed that we would get married in the summer of 2008. That didn’t take away the romance of the proposal though—we had merely agreed a timeline to save/plan toward. Then, one Friday evening in spring 2007, I came home from work. Suitcases and passports were laid out on the bed. DH told me that we were leaving for the airport in an hour, and that I needed to pack for a weekend away at a surprise destination. I didn’t know where we were going until we arrived at the airport—he took me to my favourite European city, where he proposed. Putting a “summer 2008” target in the books took nothing away from the romance of the proposal. There is nothing wrong with putting summer 2026 in your timeline, OP.

Yeah summer 2026 was the discussion, it’s just that we haven’t said let’s save up X amount of money and book XYZ. We need to discuss that next. No way can it be 2025 we have too much on with a holiday already arranged. He has not long started a new job and we have house related things to sort out so 2 years from now is ok for me.

If we get to next summer and it’s still vague and nothing happening, no plans and I feel it is going to end up a shut up ring after nagging then god no, I’m not going to stick around as I will have been led up the garden path for even more years by then! It is dishonesty that would make me leave him, if he came to me and was straight up to say it just wasn’t for him as a general rule I likely would be ok with that, all I want is the honesty. At this point it’s not ok to backtrack and change his mind that point has gone!

I was clear that I would never agree to marry him or anyone else who did a shut up proposal and this is absolutely clear from me explaining that this happened to me with my ex and is one of the reasons I am checking he is on the same wavelength that he does want to do it. I think as I got a shut up ring might be why he wants to do a proposal for me, but no I don’t know that for certain.

I got a very positive vibe from the conversation, he wasn’t messing about and was taking it seriously.

I do not want to get married on the next holiday in 2025 at all, for various reasons. It’s not that kind of holiday. We have already committed to it with other people

Other people who you'd like at your wedding?

No. We are sharing accommodation and it would be just a crappy honeymoon with no peace and more stress on top of an already stressful situation going away in a large group. Maybe even twin beds 😂 Taking our kids away as a family is different to being in a confined space with a load of other peoples children. The holiday next year is not relaxing and more a trip for the kids than the adults so not really a wedding vibe.

Honestly OP, you’re in exactly the same position after your big chat as you were before it. Vague promises of commitment with nothing definite agreed.

if you’d said you’ve planned to get married in June 2026 and were saving £x/month, then that’s a plan and resolution. As it is you’re no further forward.

You’ll limp along for the next few months/year and post again asking the same question.

if he wanted to marry you, he would. He’d be making definite, specific plans. He hasn’t.

he doesn’t want to marry you.