’Ultimatum’ proposals / engagements - do they work out?

I just booked our wedding, gave now DH 9 months notice 😅
We were together eight years, own home and wanted to start a family but I wanted to be married first. We got married abroad. He didn't propose and neither did I. Happily married 16 years now with three great kids.
DH regrets not proposing but I wasn't waiting any longer. He wants us to renew our vows and to propose to me but I'm not interested.

A prerequisite for a happy long-term relationship is that you and your partner should be genuinely on the same page about it. This doesn't necessarily mean marriage - DP and I aren't married and won't be any time soon (maybe in the future for legal stuff). We were both very clear to each other early on how little the institution of marriage meant to either of us, and still feel that way. But we're on the same page about commitment, being in it for the long haul and the future generally.

If you have to give ultimatums to get your partner on the same page then it's not real, you've just forced them into it.

In my case, no - we split up 3 weeks before the wedding and I feel silly for getting so upset about the non-engagement all the time. I should have just cut my losses and left much sooner. I’m now engaged to a man who actually wants to marry me and whom I didn’t have to ‘coerce’ into it.

DH and I are together years and years. Neither of us that fussed on marriage - maybe I wanted it more than him and he was happy to go along with it for me. So he did.

A bigger commitment in his mind was having our DS and I see what he means. You can dissolve a marriage or sell a house but a child binds you for life. You'll still meet up at the christening of your grandkid or at your kids wedding.

For me it wasn't even commitment wise - it was just a quick way of formalising the legal stuff. So we had a nice day out with both sides of the family and job done.

There are many who would look at us and declare that "if he wanted to, he would" or that I'm just a placeholder but that's just not the case. Not everybody puts a lot of relationship stock in a proposal. For some it's just a legal thing you do on the way while you are spending your lives commited to each other.

I'm not sure a child is a bigger commitment tbh. It's a commitment to the child (if he's a decent man. Plenty of men opt out and the kids don't see them for dust), it's not a commitment to the woman!

There's also a big difference between couples where neither cares about marriage and couples where one wants it and the other won't get married. If you have to give an ultimatum to get a man to marry you, then you shouldn't want to marry him. You deserve better.

I don't view a sensible conversation where a woman says she wants to get wed before having kids or buying a house together etc and then coming to an agreement which suits both, as an ultimatum. That's two people bring clear on what they want. But Id seriously advise any woman against getting involved with a man who is unwilling to marry/sees no value in it, if marriage important to her. And definitely don't be getting in too deep with a man who promises to marry somewhere down the line but wants kids etc first.

I think we all know plenty of situations where a couple have been together years, shared businesses, homes, kids and he's sold her the idea that they don't need marriage, they're as good as married anyway (because of all their shared kids, house) and it's a crock of shit because he ends up marrying someone else 18 months after they break up.

Go on, humour him. He sounds a bit wistful.

We weren't so much an ultimatum as much as a realisation that we legally weren't able to make medical decisions about each other if needed. We got married very quickly after that!

Do not have a child with someone unless you are happy with the way your relationship is. Do not stay with someone unless you are happy with the way your relationship is. That's the bottom line.

I don't really get it tbh. If you have to issue an ultimatum, that by definition means the person doesn't want to marry you.

My dh didn't want to get married to anyone. We'd been together a long time and my mum got a terminal diagnosis and I told him if he couldn't marry me soon so my mum could come we'd split up as I didn't want to be with someone who wouldn't do that for me. He did reluctantly agree and we had a great wedding and have been happily married for 9 years (and gone through a lot of hard times - my mum, infertility and miscarriages, but still strong).

I was in a long distance relationship for years and I moved to be with him, but only after I'd secured a decent job. He proposed within two weeks of me moving and we married 6 months later. I was glad he chose to make the commitment, given that I already had.

I think the ultimatum issued is not the point.
Give Yourself an ultimatum. Am I weak enough to accept less than I want? Yes or no.

I don't think I'd bother giving ultimatums. Have a conversation, ask about potential plans - sure. But if I had to say "do it or I'll leave you" I'd just leave and get with someone who actually wanted the same things as I did...

I am a little bit biased though because I know few men who were "lukewarm" about marriage to their long term partners and the pretty much fell to their knee asking a different person to marry them. in the end it wasn't that they didn't care for getting married, they just didn't care for getting married to that person they didn't marry.

Not an ultimatum as such although you'll probably think so - I told him I loved him enough to marry him I didn't love him enough to stay with him and never be married. That I wasn't prepared to have children without being married and genuinely if he thought he could do better (I was rhe main earner, the do-er in our relationship, did everything) then go out and find her.
Yes he proposed and we were married, for over 10 years but he often threw it in my face how he "never wanted to get married" like I dragged him down the aisle. But it was just another example of his weak character to blame unhappiness on everyone but himself. He could have not proposed, or walked away before marriage he didn't

Not quite an ultimatum as such, but my brother had an american girlfriend over here on a student visa and when that ran out it was marry or break up, so they married and it turned into the relationship from hell and the divorce from even deeper hell.

So any forcing of the relationship along past where it should be is not good.

@isthistheendtakeabreath best approach imo
I love you but what you're offering isn't enough.

If a woman says that to a long term bf and he responds with any sort of shaming response, or fudges, hoping to "do better" then bail, cut your losses.

This isn't really an ultimatum imo, it's determining if you are on the same page.

@PaintedEgg yes, I think the translation of "I dont want to get married" means "I don't want to get married to you". 99 times out of a hundred.

@isthistheendtakeabreath I think that putting an ultimatum like you did will generally end in two scenarios: if that person is weak-willed they will get marry, then divorce and resent their former spouse for getting "forced" (in their opinion) to get married or...they just refuse and it ends there and then.

Either way, it's pointless to say force people if they don't want to

they will get married*

A friend of mine had been with her partner 10 years.she wanted to get married,he didn't.They got married and split a year later

So I think the answer is to get turned off by a boyfriend's reluctance to marry you. No ultimatum. Just.... a simple visceral "he's not what I want".