Proposal - he has a ring but I’m sick of waiting

[CurlyOldGirly]

I know that proposals aren’t the be all and end all. But I am desperate to marry my partner and so is he (so he says pretty much every day).
Ring exists because I’ve come across it when I saw the box in his suitcase when we went on holiday last year. But we had issues on holiday (not with each other) with our villa so i can see why he didn’t do it there. We had a few days of just being super disappointed with certain problems we had with our holiday let and then I had an allergic reaction to something so literally there wasn’t a window that I know he could have used.

he has said when it happens he wants to do it properly. He knows I don’t care for a massive show and I don’t want money being spent to make it happen. I really hate stuff like that. All I want is some thought.

I’m just at a point now where I’m getting more and more pissed that he hasn’t managed to just work out a romantic way to do it. I’m not asking for instagram worthy, just take me on a trip to a bloody lake or a pretty looking forest that’s free to visit and get down on a knee or something.

i don’t want this bogus thing of me asking him or him just asking me at home. This is the only thing I’ve actually ever wanted in our relationship to be just a little bit special. I’ve been married before and it was all pretty shit and I was never made to feel loved the way I wished to be. DP is so loving and affectionate, I can’t understand why he hasn’t just bitten the bullet or even found a way to make it happen

what do I say to him? Should I have a chat with him? because it’s been 9 months since he knew I saw the ring and I’m just getting fed up. I’m getting to a point where I just question if he even wants this any more.

Gosh I’m sorry this is long, I guess I needed to vent more than I thought I did.

This is good advice. I don’t think you’re being unreasonable. This matters to you, and we are all allowed to have things that matter to us. I think leaving you hanging isn’t nice and you need to sort this rather than hanging around waiting. As a minimum put a deadline on how much longer you wait before you either give up on getting married or give up on the relationship. Otherwise your resentment will blow up one day. Also if he’s this slow about proposing will getting married be equally torturously slow. I’m not sure he’s as lovely as you think

A timeline isn’t necessarily a bad thing. My (now) DH and I agreed that in advance that we would like to get married.
We talked about proposals etc and he told me that he would really like to propose to me (he had actually already started looking for rings but I obviously didn’t know about that), that the “classic proposal” was really meaningful to him.

So we agreed that he’d have until the end of the year (so until the 31rst of December, which amounted to nearly 9 months IIRC) and if he didn’t take his chance within that timeframe I would be the one to propose to him!😁
it worked really well for us tbh because it gave both of us the certainty that we were on the same page.

we had a fairly long proposal, had a super small civil wedding this winter and we’ll have the religious wedding / big party this summer.

I think if you have a great relationship you can be honest with each other. Tell him - if you aren’t going to propose I may just start wearing the ring but I’ll be disappointed I’ve missed out on a proposal of some kind! I had a at home proposal and it was a bit shit because he’d dropped so many hints I realised he was going to propose in a place we were going to and I hated the idea so told him no beforehand he just did it at home! Moral of that story was he should have done it before I guessed he had also had the ring ages! Now looking back id rather we’d just agreed to marry and picked a ring together as it feels more equal.

You mention your dd - im assume she isn’t his and from your first marriage ?

as you say my dd - not our dd

how old is she ?

how long have you been together as a couple ?

do you have a holiday booked for summer ?

maybe he will do it then , like was going to last year ?

Are you sure he wants to marry you? How did the initial conversation come about? Why does he tell you every day he wants to? That just sounds weird. Is it off his own initiative or in response to you asking about it or mentioning it. You seem very absorbed in your own fantasy so much so that it's not at all clear you have a clue how your partner thinks or feels. How long have you been together and what is the relationship like in general?

But surely from the time you agreed you would get married you were engaged? That discussion was the proposal, surely. I really don’t understand these theatrical staged proposals where both the question and answer are already known - what’s the point? - it makes me feel very old!!

It’s actually one we picked together a few months before. He didn’t know that I saw the ring but I mentioned it when we got back.

You say you talk about marriage all the time - why don’t you pick a venue and date and then say, in a lighthearted way ‘I might as well wear the ring now, let’s forget about an elaborate proposal’ his response will tell you if he still wants to marry.

So you’ve chosen a ring together.
Agreed that you’d like to get married.

i think you need to go back and talk.
We dont know if he’s gone off the idea or is just worrying that any proposal won’t meet expectations.
I think it’s the latter but who can tell?

I understood it as statement of intent. We agreed that we intended to get engaged. Essentially a preliminary agreement 🤷‍♀️

And shouldn’t couples talk about these kinds of questions? I would have been rather unhappy if he had proposed without us talking about our intentions, goals etc. beforehand.

edit: the ritual and emotions behind it mattered to us (and specifically him). So that’s why this worked for us. Why does it make you feel old?

Can ask why you told him you’d seen the ring?

If I spotted he’d bought a ring and not told me I’d have assumed he wanted to do a surprise and left him to it. Now you want a surprise but only on certain terms.

It’s ridiculous because it does sound like we can’t communicate even though that’s one thing we are massive on - communication!

I think because I’m waiting for it, that’s what’s made me not want to mention it because ‘just in case’ he has it planned for that same week/weekend.

As an update we spoke about it last night. He was incredibly apologetic and said he feels like he has become selfish and complacent and what started as him just wanting to make it special without me clocking on had led to him just not knowing how to do it without him being worried I’ll turn around and say well it wasn’t really special enough, or thoughtful enough or that it may have been OTT.

But that none of those things are excuses and he just wants to make sure he makes more effort now, work has been a little stressful but that it’s no excuse for not switching off and concentrating on our life together when he’s at home and making sure that he does get down on one knee.

Because of all the incredible responses last night, my eyes were opened into some self reflection and how I have exacerbated my own situation and I was able to admit that I’ve made a huge mistake in putting pressure on it and even though I felt like I made it easy because I don’t want a massive fuss, I actually made it a lot harder because I’m actually able to see it from his perspective. I think if we switched places I’d have been mulling for months too - he has a huge bday this year and it’s absolutely stressed me the F out what to get or do and I ended up needing his help somewhat in just getting a good present.

Once again I am so incredibly grateful to all of the ladies who have taken the time to read and reply,. If I hadn’t have posted this I wouldn’t have been encouraged to talk to him honestly about it. And I can happily say this morning I’ve woken up and there’s no resentment at all. He is as loving as ever and I almost blinded myself to that because of the resentment that started to build.

You are putting a lot of pressure on him to make this proposal great. I’d rather be focusing on being married!

He tells you most days he wants to marry you and he has bought a ring-just talk to him. Say-do you still want to get married? I’m worried that I’ve piled too much pressure on your about how you propose, is that true?

I’d say-it’s a lovely weekend, let’s go out to the lake tomorrow and come back engaged, I’ll leave the moment down to you?

If he doesn’t want to, then I suggest you have a big conversation about why!

Well that’s an excellent update. I hope you have a long and happy life together.

Great update, but you are more patient than me. By now I’d have rifled through the drawers and got the bloody ring myself and stuck it on my finger 😂

I strongly disagree with PP here.

You’ve put a pressure on him to get this right, and so he’s probably over thinking it. You can’t say you want a romantic proposal where he makes a lot of effort, and then be upset it hasn’t happened today.

But this is coming from someone who made a decision to get married with her DH in a very pragmatic way with no proposal or engagement ring. I thought we should practically get married after buying a house, so we did.

If you’d said to him you just want to marry him ASAP and didn’t care about the proposal, then you’d have more grounds to think he was just not that into you - but he clearly had plans to do it on holiday and then had good reason to back out as it wouldn’t have met your requirements and expectations.

Does he know something as “simple” as a proposal in a local nature area would be enough or is it built up in his head that it needs to be more, and a surprise, and he’s trying to figure out how to make that happen?

ETA: somehow missed the update but I’m
glad you’ve resolved it (and I wasn’t far from the truth!) - and I hope you’ve both learned the important of communication for a successful marriage when you get there!!

Nice update! 💐

Very happy to hear all this! May you have the happiest of marriages together.

Unless this is accompanied with other things that worry you, I think the engagement ‘proposal’ is being blown way up out of proportion. It sounds like there’s a huge amount of pressure for it to be ‘a thing’ that he needs to perform and that it perhaps signifies to you more than it should. I really don’t think a proposal is the last romantic gesture in a long term relationship and romance is not just through planning dates etc. It’s through micro things, holding hands, a little joke only you both know, a coffee in bed, buying you a chocolate he knows you like, telling you you look pretty when you’re wearing nothing special and a million other little things that manifest differently in each relationship. You also need to be able to properly talk and feel safe to say what you are feeling and work together to find solutions. It sounds like your previous relationship was really unhealthy and here you are maybe looking for the things that outwardly reflect romance. I appreciate sure you’ve just given a snapshot of things in your post and this needs to considered in light of all the other ways your partner behaves towards you.

Aw nice that you talked to him about it and got such a great response

TBH, I was getting second hand anxiety reading your expectations
😄
If it was me I'd be on a loop of should I do it now? There? This time? Is this special enough? Is it too special? Oh my god I should have done it on that trip last week!

Sound like your DP was going down the same panicky path

The difference in your case is that there was answer to the “then what?” question which resulted in you getting engaged anyway!

Edited: edited to delete my post as I hadn’t seen the update.

I know other people are being positive about the update, but what actually is the outcome here? Are you now engaged to be married, or does the status quo still exist i.e., you waiting around for a proposal?

If he hasn't had a change of heart and returned the ring, he has been hanging onto it for almost a year (you can gestate and birth a human in that time), you're both adults, surely now is the time to stop fannying about and get on with it? I don't want to sound too negative as you seem so happy and relieved but you sound very passive in a major life transition because you want the wrongs of the past righted by someone else.

So now you have had the chat , I hope he pops the question very soon over something simple

I know other people are being positive about the update, but what actually is the outcome here?

Yes, you seem to be in exactly the same situation, still waiting to see if he'll ask in his own good time.

What's your housing situation? Did he move in to your house?