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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Boyfriend felt pressured by ring shopping discussion

259 replies

Autumntimes · 18/01/2025 19:47

Both in our early to mid 30s so I thought a year and a half is plenty of time to be engaged for our age. We are also living together now. We have discussed marriage and kids and I mentioned that I would not like to be together for more than 2 years and still don’t have a solution plan if we would get married. He seemed to be ok with the timeline but he never actively brought up the timeline convo again. I recently started to look at rings and I never try one on before. My friend who just got married recently has been encouraging me to at least start looking and it would take time to find something I like anyways so I should start looking for fun. I expressed to my bf that we should maybe go ring shopping together. He seemed ok to it at first. Today he finally mentioned that I am pressuring him and that I had been talking about it too much. Maybe I had been but I was just excited for the future and the fact that a few of my friends just got married recently made me feel the highs of being engaged. I freaked out and asked what he meant and he said he didn’t mean it in a negative way.
Now my head is all over the place. We had been talking about marriage for a while and he even wrote down the different shapes and cuts of rings that I came across on the Internet. I thought we were on the right direction. I had told him that I just wanted to do ring shopping for fun and did not expect this reaction.
Now I don’t want to even think about marrying him anymore. The relationship has been very good otherwise and he has genuinely been a good partner to me and his family is amazing to me.
Am I being dramatic? I feel dramatic because as the words came out of his mouth, my tears just wouldn’t stop dropping I had to take a cold shower to calm myself down. I can’t quite fantom whether it was the shame of me even asking to go for ring shopping or the fact that someone who I thought loved me would even feel pressured by ring shopping talk.

OP posts:
AlexandrinaH · 19/01/2025 00:14

Corinthiana · 18/01/2025 19:49

Just plan the wedding. You don't need an engagement ring.
However..if the wedding planning gets the same response, you have your answer.

You can’t plan a wedding if you’re not engaged. Unless you’re completely fucking bonkers of course, and don’t actually want the other party to stick around 😂

BettyBardMacDonald · 19/01/2025 00:30

@AlexandrinaH

It's quite possible to agree to be married (eg "get engaged") without a ring or a contrived, stagey "proposal."

Rachmorr57 · 19/01/2025 00:39

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

StinkyWizzleteets · 19/01/2025 00:50

This is batshit.

Has either one of you proposed to the other? Or have you even had a conversation agreeing that you are now engaged?

Have the conversations about marriage moved beyond the hypothetical future and become a firm reality for BOTH of you or just
you?

Having a hypothetical timeline isn’t the same as being forced to keep to a timetable. Maybe in the early days he was happy to agree because it was new and exciting and hypothetical but now it’s settled down to real life for him he doesn’t feel like an imperative in the next 6 months.

I’d find it really off putting having to go by someone else’s timetable. Love and relationships don’t work that way.

If this is how you are before you’re even engaged I dread to think of the kind of bridezilla you’ll end up.

rrrrrreatt · 19/01/2025 00:53

I don’t think 18 months too early but only if you’re on the same page. A marriage is a partnership, he needs to be ready too and he’s telling you he isn’t yet. Trying to force someone to propose to meet your timeline is just storing up trouble. The ring and proposal don’t matter, it’s a moment in hopefully decades together.

I say that as someone who has been in your shoes, after nearly 4 years together (with a shared mortgage, pets, etc), crying because my partner didn’t feel ready. I was worried about running out of time to have kids but tried to make my peace with that possibility as I’d rather we were happy and childless than push him into something he didn’t want. We get married in 5 weeks time and plan to try for a baby afterwards, when he was ready he chose a ring and surprised me.

I’ve got friends who pushed their husbands into marriage early on, before their relationship was tested by bad times or they’d discussed the minor details of a lifetime together - most of them are divorced now.

BeaAndBen · 19/01/2025 01:39

Bloody hell, that's some heavy pressuring, OP - I'm not surprised the poor sod is panicking! Full on drama queen response crying in the cold shower too.

You have decided "we must be engaged by 24 months OR ELSE so we are choosing engagement rings 'for fun' 6 months in advance even though no one has asked anyone to marry them, and there's no guarantee that's in our future."

That's mental.

Ask him to marry you, or let him ask you at his pace. Buy a ring together when that's been decided. Dump him if you want marriage and he doesn't.

But you can't decide for him that you are getting married. It's a joint decision. He clearly doesn't want to (yet, maybe ever) because if he did you would already be engaged.

It's all about You choosing Your ring that You will be picky about to Your timetable because You're missing out on what Your friends have. That doesn't sounds like love to me. It sounds like FOMO.

2JFDIYOLO · 19/01/2025 01:48

Going into ring frenzy because your friends are getting married (FOMO isn't a good reason for pushing) then sobbing and needing a cold shower? - the poor bloke. He's feeling bulldozed and backed into a corner. Calm down, step back.

Do not 'accidentally' get pregnant.

But do be aware that future faking can be a thing by men - until it's too late for children.

BettyBardMacDonald · 19/01/2025 03:03

A ring should be given voluntarily, not demanded and schemed for.

How shallow and needy can one ve?

m00rfarm · 19/01/2025 06:59

You had to take a cold shower to calm down? If I were him, I would be off! I really would not want that level of drama in a long term relationship.

Chillysweet · 19/01/2025 07:06

It's okay to say your feelings if we can't talk about our feelings to someone we think are our lives ones then whom can we talk to anyways if they really love you they will not hurt you and if there is something bothering you don't just keep it to yourself you will be bothered more open up and say your feelings and atleast try to convey them if the person really love you he/she will never take you easily and instead thought about your words seriously

Whyherewego · 19/01/2025 07:16

You seem like you're very clear in how you want things to work

  • ring shopping
  • proposal in xx months
  • wedding in yy months

He on the other hand isn't. Neither of you are unreasonable in a way. You're just different. Many people do not shop for rings in advance. His dream may have been to have a romantic surprise proposal where he swept you off your feet and presents you with ring he choose. Or he is just scared of committment and not sure he wants to get married. Who knows.

The main thing is you need to sit down and establish what you both want. You seem so clear on your plan that it may be he hasn't found space for his voice, especially if he's uncertain it will be hard for him to say this to you. Create safe space for discussion, call it out. "Hey mark it seems like we are not in the same space regarding future and timelines. Can we talk that through? ... I have doubt and worries too"

But be aware that having qute a fixed plan can be offputting for some people who maybe like to go with the flow and be more casual. Again you are perfectly entitled to your views, but best to flush out now if he's different

Okgolightly · 19/01/2025 07:30

It sounds like you’re more into the idea of being engaged and getting married than considering how your partner actually feels about it. It sounds like far too much to be going ring shopping when he hasn’t given you a concrete timeline of when he will propose- I can imagine it would feel a bit over the top and suffocating to him. I also second what masters have said- 18 months really isn’t that long. Just because your friends are getting engaged doesn’t mean you should be too- it plays into the being engaged for the status rather than being engaged because you want to marry your boyfriend specifically.

rwalker · 19/01/2025 07:33

18 months screams desperation to me I’d be running for the hills
your completely not listening

Sandylittleknees · 19/01/2025 07:38

Being engaged means that you have both agreed that you will get married - in whatever form that conversation took.

So A conversation where you both agree that you will get engaged in x months doesn’t really make sense because if you’ve already agreed that the outcome will happen (marriage) then you are engaged. It suggests that either one party is less keen and trying to delay things or one party wants a big instagram performance of a pre- planned staged ‘engagement’. Or that you just don’t want to tell people yet.

2025willbemytime · 19/01/2025 07:43

XiCi · 18/01/2025 23:34

Noone goes ring shopping before a proposal. How would that work? The proposal might never come. I'm surprised your boyfriend hasn't run for the hills!
Have you already changed your surname to his as well?

We did. It wasn't planned. Saw a jewellers, looked in window, liked one, went in, tried it on, boyfriend went back the following week to order it, picked it up two weeks later. Proposed a few weeks after that.

Sandylittleknees · 19/01/2025 07:49

2025 - but once you’d bought that ring, really, you were engaged.

2025willbemytime · 19/01/2025 07:52

Sandylittleknees · 19/01/2025 07:49

2025 - but once you’d bought that ring, really, you were engaged.

No, we weren't. All he'd done was buy a ring. No guarantee I'd get it. He knew I wanted to marry him. I didn't know he wants to marry me until he asked me.

LegoBingo · 19/01/2025 07:58

2025willbemytime · 19/01/2025 07:52

No, we weren't. All he'd done was buy a ring. No guarantee I'd get it. He knew I wanted to marry him. I didn't know he wants to marry me until he asked me.

He'd be stupid to buy a ring not knowing that meant he'd have to propose to you soon after

ohmymyyiaz · 19/01/2025 07:59

What you need is an honest conversation; he might be afraid to say no. And you need to be prepared to walk away if he doesn’t want to marry you.

You also don’t want to him to marry you for the sake of getting married. All very tricky - IME people know when they want to marry each other, and definitely don’t wait till it’s too late if you want children.

Sandylittleknees · 19/01/2025 08:03

2025 - you weren’t sure you’d get it? You mean he might have been tricking you? Surely you weren’t surprised when he asked you, unless you didn’t really trust him?

2025willbemytime · 19/01/2025 08:21

LegoBingo · 19/01/2025 07:58

He'd be stupid to buy a ring not knowing that meant he'd have to propose to you soon after

He might have known he was going to propose but I just was hoping.

2025willbemytime · 19/01/2025 08:23

Sandylittleknees · 19/01/2025 08:03

2025 - you weren’t sure you’d get it? You mean he might have been tricking you? Surely you weren’t surprised when he asked you, unless you didn’t really trust him?

I didn't know he had bought the ring. I just knew I'd tried it on, we both liked it, he was given a card. Later I found an envelope hidden under furniture I moved to vacuum and I wondered but I didn't know. I was very shocked when he asked me given what I had just said beforehand.

Now, I wish he'd never asked me tbh.

Sandylittleknees · 19/01/2025 08:27

2025 - that makes more sense, I thought you knew he bought it.

RedRock41 · 19/01/2025 09:15

Tcsha · 18/01/2025 20:16

Everyone I know, including me, went ring shopping together. It’s something you’ll wear for the rest of your life, why wouldn’t you want to choose it together, same with wedding rings. It’s usually from joint money anyway. I’ve never heard of people shopping for an engagement ring without agreeing to get married, that’s bonkers!!

Must be parts of UK do it differently. Where I’m
from first it’s the engagement ring… then the wedding ring then the suffering 😉…

AgentJohnson · 19/01/2025 09:39

If I was advising him, I’d say run, this woman is pressuring you into something you are not ready for.

You are more focused on the pomp and ceremony rather than the long term.

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