Why won't he propose?

[Haloandhorns85]

A couple of things. Just because you're cooking and cleaning and paying the electric bill, etc, doesn't necessarily mean you're meeting his needs. And neither does the fact that "he never complains".

 

I bet your man is kind of quiet and passive compared to you. He probably isn't real vocal about getting his needs met, and he may not even know what his needs are, to be honest. Guys aren't trained to evaluate their relationships and whether we're getting our needs met. We're trained to try to keep our wives happy. You know..."As long as she's happy, I'm happy." Well, that's not true, becuase that's often at a huge expense to the husband/BF if the relationship is dysfunctional.

 

Keep in mind....his needs are also to be respected and to not be controlled, manipulated, and blackmailed. You seem like you usually get your way, and if you don't you don't go down without a fight, without solid answers, etc. If he feels like you put a lot of pressure on him and if he's feeling that you are coercing him or pressuring him (whether it's for marriage or whatever) it will put enough weight on his chest when he thinks about you to push off the marriage. He may not even be attuned enough to know this.

 

Honestly, you seem pretty high-strung, and if this is true then you may be tough to live with and not even know it....or be able to admit it. If you are, then there is a certain amount of tension and fear in the air that makes it tough for him to want to lock you in for the rest of his life. I feel a lot of tension and anxiousness coming from your posts...I can only imagine what it's like at home when you get on the subject of committment, marriage, etc.

 

I'm glad that you're happy about the timeframe agreement. I hope it works out for you guys.

 

 

Ok, first, he is not passive and he does let me know what he wants and needs from me. We do communicate about our needs very well. And my bf is really not like the typical man in the aspect of looking over the relationship and communicating what he feels he needs from me. Except in this case...which as I have already posted, we already discussed. I may be high-strung, but he loves me for that. (Some people really do like that in a partner.) He loves how I can take control of certain situations so he doesn't have to. I may be hard to live with, but let me tell ya..so is he. And I'm sure that everyone is hard to live with to some point...at least in my experience. There's not really any tension between us on this subject, he just avoids it. When we talk, its not arguing, its talking...discussing. I am not blackmailing him. If you choose to look at it that way, then I hope you are never in that situation. Protecting myself from a possible break-up (inwhich I would most likely lose my home) if he chooses not to marry me is not blackmail. It's called using my brain---being smart about the situation. I am not manipulating him. I am not controlling him. My problem was simply a timeframe...which I deserve. I wasn't trying to make him marry me today, tomorrow, or even next month. Like I have stated over and over again, I just wanted to know that is where we are headed and a timeframe to expect.

 

P.S. ---I'm not pissed, I'm not mouthing off, I'm not being contemptuous. I'm stating my opinion about my situation and what you have to say about it.

[DragonSlayer]

Please don't put his name on YOUR house until you get married.

 

I agree. Once you get married, he'll be 1/2 owner automatically. Til then DO NOT put his name on it unless he pays you 1/2 your equity and gets onto a loan with you for the remaining balance.

 

There is nothing wrong with two people buying a house before they're married...it's just like a partnership...as when two investors buy a house together. When the partnership ends, they sell the house or the one buys out the other's equity. But in this case he has not helped with the down payment or the mortgage payment (he's basically paying rent), so he should have no rights to the property. Hopefully he doesn't think he's a "part owner" because he's your roommate.

 

Also, I wouldn't hold it against him if he has crappy credit. You knew that going in...that was baggage you chose to accept. Help him get it straightened out, but bringing it up doesn't help things. Maybe you don't bring it up...I guess just unwarranted preemptive advice :-)

[Haloandhorns85]

I agree. I think you may need to work on your self-esteem and your sense of self. Being married should not define "you"...but I feel that you think that it does.

 

How about some of these destructive things...do you do any of these???

 

The Ten Demandments

 

1. Thou shalt make me happy

2. Thou shalt not have any other interests other than me

3. Thou shalt know what I want and what I feel without having me to say

4. Thou shalt return each one of my sacrifices with an equal or greater sacrifice

5. Thou shalt shield me from anxiety, worry, hurt, or any pain

6. Thou shalt give me my sense of self-worth and esteem

7. Thou shalt be grateful for everything I do

8. Thou shalt not be critical of me, show anger toward me, or otherwise disapprove of anything I do

9. Thou shalt so caring and loving that I need never take risks or be vulnerable in any way

10. Thou shalt love me with the whole heart, the whole soul, in the whole mind, even if I do not love myself

 

 

If so...I think you should be doing more of this...

 

My Happiness comes from within, and I share it with others.

Whenever I enter into a relationship with the idea that another person can make me happy and content, I have begun to fail in that relationship. When I view a relationship in this way, I become concerned over what I might or might not get back.

 

Today, I release my pattern of someone's having to live up to my ideal. I have no right to impose my performance requirements on anyone else.

Today I start relieving others of the responsibility for making me happy. In this way I can begin intimate relationships based upon mutual caring, not on need. This day I acknowledge that I am a full, rich and complete person.

 

I deserve a relationship, not to make me happy, but to share the richness of who I am in totality with another.

I read these things this morning in a book called Addictive Relationships by Joy Miller. They hit home for me...or for my wife, actually.

 

 

Lol, that's exactly what the couselor we saw a year ago said. Except that you DO have certains needs that are to be fulfilled by the other in a relationship. Everyone has needs. And I've read a bunch of books on this subject, as last year I would have agreed with the 10 Demandments. But not now. I have worked on my self-esteem and my happiness. Actually, I looked to God for that problem. Between my faith in God and my faith in myself, I do have my own life. I have my own group of friends separate from him. I have my own hobbies separate from him. I know he alone cannot make me happy. I have to make myself happy. And I don't expect him to "fix" all my problems and to "make everything better" when something sours in my life. When something is wrong, he is there for me like he is suppose to be. He is my shoulder to cry on and my rock to lean on when the going gets tough. I don't expect him to be perfect and he doesn't expect me to be perfect. I am there for him when he has a bad day. When he gets in his moods where he becomes distant, I give him the space he needs. When he gets off a bad work day and needs to talk, I am there to listen. When he needs affection, I am always glad to give it. When he does something I know he is proud of, I always let him know how proud I am of him. I tell him often when he does something nice how much I appreciate him. When he does something around the house, I try to remember to compliment the good job he did. I tell him every single day I love him. And he tells me every single day he loves me. Our relationship is great. We get along great. We have our bad days, but I'm sure your relationship does too. Our relationship was not what I was asking for advice on. But thank you for your concern. We really do have a healthy relationship. And as far as compatability, in most areas that matter, we are on the same wavelength. Its just the actual "when to get married" part that we differ.

[Haloandhorns85]

Please don't put his name on YOUR house until you get married.

 

Yeah, I am not going to do that. I wouldn't even care if all the posters on here criticized me for not doing it, I wouldn't do it. That's just one thing that will not change no matter anyone's opinion. My house is my house til my last name changes and there's a ring on my finger.

[Haloandhorns85]

Also, I wouldn't hold it against him if he has crappy credit. You knew that going in...that was baggage you chose to accept. Help him get it straightened out, but bringing it up doesn't help things. Maybe you don't bring it up...I guess just unwarranted preemptive advice :-)

 

 

Oh i don't. I know not everyone had the privilege of learning about credit from a young age. My parents took the time to teach me about credit and how it will affect my future. His didn't. I have helped him tremendously with his credit. It's a lot better than it was when we got together, lol. I mean, we were able to buy a new truck recently with both of our credit on the loan and still secure a desirable interest rate. He just has a little more work to do to be able to use his credit alone. But I will say, if it weren't for me, it wouldn't be where it is now. I know it and he knows it, as he's told me that, lol.

[carhill]

Confident, self-assured, intelligent and successful woman = good catch.

 

Hope BF gets the memo

 

Now, from the psychological standpoint, I must ask aloud why some women (not the OP, IMO) thusly gifted pursue the approval of and love of men who refuse to see or value and often will even patronize such attributes. I've been run over by a lot of those women in my long life. Still a mystery to me

[Star Gazer]

I've been with this man for over three years. How is it selfish to want an actual commitment from him?

 

You DO have a commitment, in this form:

 

Especially seeing as we have been living together for two years and have bought a house and two vehicles together.

 

Its selfish of him to want all the benifits of a wife and not put forth the commitment.

 

Hey, you agreed to give him those benefits. You agreed to give him the milk for free. You can't blame him now and call him selfish because he accepted what you offered. It's equally selfish of you to expect MARRIAGE simply because YOU are ready.

 

If he was ready for LIFELONG commitment, he'd propose. You're both young, there's no rush for that level of commitment.

[porter218]

Halo, everything else aside I would just be REALLY turned off if I had to ask someone to marry me for this long with no proposal. If I were you I wouldn't even want to marry him any more after all this time. I think even after you do marry him it will always bother you that it took so much coercion to get to that point.

[lexi29]

He won't propose because he has no incentive to. He already has you acting as a live in wife. He has a place to live (that you bought) and he has all the benefits of being married to you including you helping him out with his credit. You sound like quite a catch and he should (and probably feels he is) feel very lucky to have you. The thing is after awhile of being in the same situation instead of appreciating eachother, people start taking eachother for granted. I think your boyfriend is taking your good qualities for granted. I know a lot of people have criticized you saying you are nagging him and no wonder he doesnt' propose because it should be special and you shouldn't pressure him. But if you truly follow that logic and just sit back and NEVER apply any pressure to him do you really think he is just going to wake up one day and decide he's ready? Its a possibility sure, but I am more concerned (again) with the fact that he actually had you pick out a ring and then without warning, got rid of it and his plans to propose to you.

 

Maybe he needs to go to counseling or something to explore the reasons he feels he is not ready. He's already living with you, sharing responsibilities and expenses as if you ARE married so an engagement shouldn't be a big step. I could see if you were in a rush to walk down the aisle tomorrow or something, I could understand his hesitation but you have said you are not and I believe you because I've been exactly where you are now. I just wanted to get engaged (to my ex) because as I've said before we were living together as if we were married but without the legality of it and I just wanted a promise that he wanted MORE in the future. that he wasnt' just taking advantage of the benefits of living with me and sharing the bills and having someone to cook and clean and have sex with. Even his friends said he was crazy not to marry me. But he just didnt have the desire to get married and he lied to keep stringing me along because he didnt' want to lose what we did have.

[Haloandhorns85]

Well, I'm giving him a year. Beyond that, I don't see anything else to do but move on. I've taken what everyone has said into consideration. I'm not gonna drop it, but I'm not gonna "nag" him about it. I've even been told by a friend of mine to go ahead and buy the ring and give it to him and tell him its for if and when he's ready, so that he has no excuse anymore. Lol. Don't worry, I'm not going to do that. Just gonna wait it out. It's just a year right? Time flies when your having fun. And we have fun together. I love our relationship and I love him. But I love myself too. I love this forum so I'm sure I'll still be on here posting a year from now and I'll let ya know how it goes!

[torranceshipman]

Good luck Halo but I think you deserve better than a guy that put your ring on layaway then cancelled the order without telling you-I think he'll bail next year and again, I am sure you deserve better...he just sounds kinda young and immature and nowhere near ready to commit to anyone.

 

And Lexi, sayin he needs counselling just because he doesnt feel ready to get married yet....woah, now thats crazy talk!

 

Good lck tho, hope it works out!

[porter218]

Have you ever thought that your insistence on a proposal from him is taking the romance out of it. A lot of men like it to be a surprise to their gf and not simply fulfilling a request. You should give him 1 year before you bring it up again, and maybe he will have done it by then if you drop the subject. Really though, 25 is a much better age to get married given your bf age...because then he will be 30 and feeling more mature himself. I find that men don't seem ready for that step until that magical age of 30.

 

Well, in that year you agreed to wait he will be old enough to make that decision. If he isn't ready at 30, then he never will and leaving is the right thing to do. I am glad you made that choice to wait and leave it alone till the year is up.

Good luck.

[AnLandy]

Many many many guys push off marriage until they feel that they have to or she'll leave. I think most of us just expect to be harassed at some level until we finally propose...sad but true. I'm not sure why it is, but most of us resist it for one reason or another. How many times have we all heard "He FINALLY proposed to me" or "HOW LONG do I have to wait for him to propose". But I can count the number of guys I've heard who've said "I can't wait to get married" on one hand. Of course, guys may be too macho to admit this even if they feel it.

 

 

Ironly Alert!!!! My ex proposed to me last Christmas. We had discussed marriage and assumed that we were heading in that direction. I sensed that he had purchased a ring and was planning to give it to me for X-mas. Three days before X-mas, we had a conversation where I brought up the issue of a ring, and told him that I wished he would put of the actual proposal until the relationship was a little more settled. He pulled out the ring on Christmas eve and proposed anyway. When the man you love is in front of you with a ring in a box and all these incredible words coming out of his mouth, your impulse is to say "yes", which I did.

 

Three months after the proposal, I started to get the message that marriage was not really an immediate priority for him. Whenever I discussed the issue of a wedding (do we even want one?), he would tell me that the wedding was "a long way off in the future" and we "didn't need to discuss anything yet."

 

Six months later, it crashed and burned. We had agreed to put the issue of marriage on the back burner. (I even stopped wearing the ring.) We were focusing on moving in together, which he said he was comfortable with, and then he started to find all kinds of reasons to reject every prospective residence that we considered. I started to notice that his words and actions really weren't lining up.

 

We ended it by mutual agreement. The night we broke the engagement, he told me that he "meant it when he proposed" but started to freak out at the thought of getting married after he did it. Also, in his mind, the engagement was not the beginning of a journey towards an actual marriage. He assumed that in 9 months to a year we would move in together, and would actually start discussing a wedding a year or two after that. He assumed that the actual wedding wouldn't happen for another 4-5 years. Out time lines were way off on that one!

[carhill]

I gave my wife her E-ring dressed up in a Santa suit as she sat on my knee as the last "child" in a parade of children who sat on Santa's knee and told him what they wanted for Christmas. More than one child was reported to have asked "why is that lady kissing Santa?"

 

Like I've said elsewhere on LS, I'm not a normal man