Refusing to marry as he’s taking too long?

[Justahoneybee]

So, partner and I discussed marriage after a year together so we knew our general time line and plans. We both knew it wasn’t an engagement to be married at that point, just deciding our future. I then assumed a proposal would follow shortly as he was excited about the prospect. I patiently waited and didn’t let it hang on my mind as I wasn’t in a rush to be married.

A year later without a ring I asked when he thinks we’ll get married and his response was the following year. He wanted to propose traditionally and then get married very quickly after. He didn’t ask what I wanted and I admit it got to me slightly. I wasn’t too fussed by his time line but Our original time line was to be married within 2 years, it’s now 2.5 years in and he ‘ruined my surprise’ by telling me he is proposing on Valentine’s Day and booked a surprise wedding date for June.

I admit I was childish in telling him that because he didn’t stick to our original time line I feel it’s too late as he made me wait longer for no reason at all then took away the excitement. I’m not sure why I’m hurt by it, I’m not the sort of person to want a big fuss or brag about a ring, nothing like that at all, I just wanted us to stick within our timeline and be married now.

He’s apologised and said he wants to bring the wedding forward and skip the proposal if it makes me feel more secure. I don’t know what to say or do now. I ruined the moment by kicking off, but also I feel justified in the fact I shouldn’t have had to wait on his terms.

If you were in my shoes WWYD? Skip the proposal and get married or stick to my childish outburst that I won’t marry him out of principal? I know 2.5 years isn’t a huge wait, for some it’s too soon, but for us we didn’t want to wait more than 2 years before he took control.

Sad thing is I’d love to experience a down on one knee proposal even though it isn’t the be all and end all. Did anyone else go through similar? I know marriages aren’t like in the movies but the build up has lost the magic for me since he gave away the plans and left me unsure. Our relationship is otherwise great.

Has he booked the venue?

@Justahoneybee jow old are you both?

do you want to spend a long time with him and have children together?

if so marry him.

but maybe live and love in the real world more. All this stress over perfect scripted film like moments is really not the important stuff.

i was with my partner for 10 years and we had two kids before we go married. He was the reluctant one - he’s shy and felt the social pressure. Eventually we agreed to when he started seriously saying we should christen the kids because it’s ’tradition’.

i said if tradition was now important we were getting married first!

We sort of slid into planning a wedding because a venue we both liked happened to be available on a good date.

so with that booked I thought we were well past a down on one knee moment. But he did it anyway and I was totally surprised and it was and is a lovely moment that I treasure.

RELAX op. You are trying to control your ‘surprise romantic moment ’ which is ridiculous

Skip the proposal and get married or stick to my childish outburst that I won’t marry him out of principal?

If you do want to marry him, sticking to your outburst would just be cutting off your nose to spite your face. Proposal aside, do you want to marry him or not? Why not focus on that, and then decide what you want to do accordingly. If you want the proposal to be a surprise, tell him. If you wanted to get married sooner, why didn’t you discuss it with him? It sounds like he’s made the effort to plan something special, just several months later than you’d have liked (and which you apparently didn’t communicate). You sound like you’ve been quite passive throughout the process (“patiently waiting”) so he might not have realised that you’d set a hard deadline in your mind.

So what do you want most, the one-knee proposal, the ring, the status of "engaged", the wedding, or to spend the rest of your life with this man, forsaking all others? He's booked a date!

If you're not careful, you'll end up with the relationship finishing over this issue. I'd take that perspective and work back from there

What "principle" caused your outburst?

You didn't propose to him, so your timeline can't be that important!

Do you want the legal and financial contract of marriage - or not? Decide and crack on accordingly.

All of this

This is all very childish.
Surely a proposal in February and wedding in June will be really stressful and not enough time to plan? Are you leaving all the wedding arrangements to him as well as the timeline of getting engaged?
For goodness sake, if you want to get married just TALK and agree when you'll get married. You're being childish by moaning about not having a proposal and throwing your toys out by saying since you're not married yet you don't want to do it. If you were properly suited to each other neither of you would be thinking about calling it off for trivial reasons.

So he booked a date and venue without discussing it???

Committed! But also weird...also the stress of a June wedding is everyone available? It's short notice by most peoples standards

Its unfortunate you had a knee jerk reaction but good you recognise it as childish although he also sounds childish announcing you "ruined his surprise"..
He could have just said "but darling there are plans in motion of which you are not yet aware! Be patient i love you so much" <Secretive eyebrows> or some such similar fobbing you of line. It's 2 weeks from now....

This sounds quite like two friends of mine.
They are both lovely but very driven / stubborn/alpha and it took them 8 years! To get married as they kept getting trapped in standoffs like this.

Perspective. I don’t think what you’re upset is really about the wedding/ proposal. It seems that your problem is how you approach decision making in your relationship. You agreed a timeline. He unilaterally extended it and booked a date all without consulting you. That is not the way to make decisions and would rightly upset most of us.

I think you should discuss it, taking the wedding out of it and come up with a general “system” that works for you both around decision making. You can then apply it to this wedding which will require making a bunch of decisions often with conflicting opinions.

All of this. You sound very high maintenance. A husband is for life, not just for fake “surprise but not surprise” Instagram stories.
I suspect you’re going to be sorely disappointed by the reality of marriage and maybe shouldn’t do it at all. He sounds way more committed than you do, he even bought a ring and booked a bloody venue all off his own back and you are having a strop because it’s not within your childish timelines.
God help you (and this poor man) if you don’t fall pregnant your first month TTC, you’ll probably just send him for a vasectomy because you didn’t get the March-born honeymoon baby you planned. Get in the real world or let him go and find someone less superficial.

Gordon Bennet - Do you want to spend the rest of your life with this man or not. I honestly think arguing about the way of proposing etc - too late now - you've slightly buggered that up . Juts decide if you both want to get married and do it in a way which you both would like.

IMO you are engaged. You agreed you both want to marry and have a timeline for it. That’s engagement. Congrats! He can do the traditional down on one knee thing, but it doesn’t change your plans unless you say no.

I’m being a bit facetious. But I also do not understand people’s obsessiveness over weddings. I assume you want this to be ‘the happiest day of your life’ as well, which I find a bit ghoulish. Sort of puts an end to life there and then, if there can be no days happier afterward.

It's not the timeline it's the lack of respect for your feelings. Although no that doesn't really cover it. It's a failure to consider you had any feelings. Red flag for IDK selfishness or thoughtlessness maybe. It's good he's trying to put it right but I understand your reluctance and perhaps the feeling of - is it too little too late? In terms of what he's done to make amends. I'm not sure he can win whatever he does next, maybe the damage has been done and the relationship can't survive. I don't believe you'll go forward staying together unmarried, you're clearly resentful and that'll only grow.

Relationship counseling might help him see the harm he's caused in ignoring your feelings. If he thinks relationship counseling is unnecessary, that tells you all you need to know because if one partner feels strongly enough about a situation to feel that professional help is needed to resolve the situation, then it's definitely necessary. If you're unsure about relationship counseling with him, solo counseling might help you decide how to move forward with your life and whether your life involves him any more or not.

Heavens! The drama!

Just get married. All this extra hoo-ha over the proposal yada yada is exhausting.
^
It's not the wedding anyway, it's the marriage afterwards you really need to focus on.^

*formatting fail sorry

I have never understood the idea that people discuss marriage, discuss timeframes, decide a that... and then have a 'surprise' proposal. You know it's a 'proposal of marriage' right? If you've already decided, you're already engaged.

I swear the same people who got elves and boxes and pyjamas and Christmas eve stuff and advent calendars and piles of presents are the ones wanting 'magic' at weddings. Promise rings and pre-engagement and engagements for Insta and engagement presents and parties and abroad for hens and destination weddings and honeymoons paid by the guests.

The only important thing is that you want, in an adult and thoughtful way, to spend the rest of your lives together. Do you?

I don’t get this generation of women who are with men, living with men, sometimes have kids with men then wait around for Prince Charming to “propose”! Is it all for instagram?

Adults make decisions together like adults not instagram.

If you think this is a hurdle, you might need to think about how you would cope together if you faced infertility, job losses, illness, or parenting special needs kids. Marriage timelines are minor issues

Time doesn't matter. Me and hubby arranged our wedding in 28 days and couldn't have asked for a better one and both our families and friends were all there, more than enough time for one days effort lol

Having a tantrum after not communicating with each other doesn't bode well for a future marriage tbh.

Christ what a load of nonsense. Not one mention of love in your whole post.

Methinks you just want your Instamoment and for him to follow your arbitrary timeline you’ve decided upon.

Have you been and got the marriage license? You usually can't book a place without it.
To be honest.....I don't think you are ready to be married.
Marriage is not about rings, proposals and a fancy wedding.
If you can't see that - you're not ready.

Ffs! Do you want to marry him or not? If not, then end the relationship and move on. If you do, stop being so bloody childish.

If I were him I’d be questioning do I want to marry you after this!

Your complete inability to communicate on this doesn’t make me think you’re ready to marry.