KaterinaVon Posted June 1, 2013 Posted June 1, 2013 I have a friend of mine who has been dating the same guy for 3 years now and he isn't showing any signs he would want marriage with her. I told her he is using her until someone better comes along ( I've had guys pull the same thing on me until I broke it off with them). I felt I was "opening" her eyes to the truth, she however got upset with me and hasn't spoken to me for three weeks. She says friends are there to support each other, which I DO, but it just upsets me how I feel he is using her. So, my question is, for those of you who are married or for those of you who met someone you felt you would like to get married to... how long did it take for you to breach that subject with your partner or how long did it take for you to propose or let her know you wanted marriage with her ?
Keenly Posted June 1, 2013 Posted June 1, 2013 First of all I want to say I think the amount of pressure that women put on men to get married simply because X amount of time passes is dumb. Secondly. This is not your relationship . You are injecting yourself into your friends relationship. You think he is using her because of your experience, when he could love her very much. Stop trying to pole holes in a relationship that's not yours.
Author KaterinaVon Posted June 1, 2013 Author Posted June 1, 2013 First of all I want to say I think the amount of pressure that women put on men to get married simply because X amount of time passes is dumb. Secondly. This is not your relationship . You are injecting yourself into your friends relationship. You think he is using her because of your experience, when he could love her very much. Stop trying to pole holes in a relationship that's not yours. Well, she's always asking me for advice or talking to me about her problems and I just give her my opinion, only she must have gotten upset because I didn't give her hope in what I said ? The reason I told her that was because he told her he wanted to get married, just that he wasn't sure he wanted to get married to her. That's when I told her she may as well break it off, it's been 3 years already and he has always said he wants to get married, but doesn't ever want to get married to HER in particular. Anyways, it's been three weeks now and she won't answer my texts, I apologized to her. Should I just wait until she replies back ? I'm worried because we've never had major arguments before, but she's stressed over this guy that in my opinion, doesn't appreciate her.
Keenly Posted June 1, 2013 Posted June 1, 2013 Marriage is the single most risky action a man can do in his lifetime. Its not a decision to be taken lightly, and he should take time to decide if she is the one he wants to marry. Only he can make that choice. I thought about this for a long time with my ex. Thank god I didn't , because she turned out to be a crazy psycho bitch. 3
KungFuJoe Posted June 1, 2013 Posted June 1, 2013 My gf actually proposed to me after a year and a half...on my birthday.
shexy Posted June 1, 2013 Posted June 1, 2013 Marriage is the single most risky action a man can do in his lifetime. Its not a decision to be taken lightly, and he should take time to decide if she is the one he wants to marry. Only he can make that choice. I thought about this for a long time with my ex. Thank god I didn't , because she turned out to be a crazy psycho bitch. I totally just got a nasty gram from a board moderator about using the word bitch. I guess it's a no no.
carhill Posted June 1, 2013 Posted June 1, 2013 So, my question is, for those of you who are married or for those of you who met someone you felt you would like to get married to... how long did it take for you to broach that subject with your partner or how long did it take for you to propose or let her know you wanted marriage with her ? Talk started about 8 months in and I proposed around 10 months in. We were older so perhaps that explains the timeline. Younger people might take longer. Another factor is that I won't live with someone I'm not married to, so no living together was involved.
ThomasD Posted June 1, 2013 Posted June 1, 2013 I agree that after alerting your friend to your concerns, there isn't much more to say if she doesn't want to discuss the matter. For one thing - does she actually have marriage as a goal for this relationship? Has she seriously discussed this with her boyfriend? Are you certain he hasn't shown any signs of wanting marriage? To answer your specific question - our time durations (measured in months) may not fit others' patterns because we had a somewhat non-standard dating and courtship experience. (At least for that time; it has become much more common now.) We were both 22 and just finished college. We wrote to each other, sight unseen, (no skype, no text message, no phone calls, etc) for over 3 months before we met in person. During that exchange our very general personal views of marriage came out. After meeting in person there was still some distance complications so dating was done as weekend houseguests of each other's families. We started discussing more specific personal expectations of marriage and life partners - sometimes after observing something about how our respective families worked. About 3-1/2 months after our first face-to-face meeting (about 7 months after we first started writing) I proposed and she accepted. Our engagement lasted for 9 months and we are still married (to each other!) almost 39 years later. Looking back, that DOES seem like a short time for making such a fundamental, life-defining decision. On the other hand, writing for those months almost certainly made us more personally acquainted with each other than two somewhat quiet-and-shy people would be after a similar time of developing from acquaintances to friends and dating partners. Spending so much time with each other's families probably accelerated the process, also. For comparison, our daughter dated her husband for more than a year before he proposed. Their engagement was about 9 months and they seem to have a strong marriage after 8 years. One son dated his wife for over 2 years before proposing; the engagement was 5 months and they will soon have their first anniversary. (He had dated other girls for 1 to 3 years without proposing.) Another son broke up with a serious girlfriend after almost 2 years, never proposed, and has been unattached for about 4 months. Based on those data points, 3 years starts to sound like the far edge of a "typical" duration for friendship-to-engagement but not entirely unreasonable. Some things take time.
ThomasD Posted June 1, 2013 Posted June 1, 2013 The reason I told her that was because he told her he wanted to get married, just that he wasn't sure he wanted to get married to her. I missed this on my first pass through. I agree, if 3 years isn't enough to convince him then the chances seem pretty slim. Even so, their relationship may be filling other needs and desires. You have spoken your thoughts; unless there is something new and significant to add, let her play the ball as she sees fit.
Author KaterinaVon Posted June 2, 2013 Author Posted June 2, 2013 I missed this on my first pass through. I agree, if 3 years isn't enough to convince him then the chances seem pretty slim. Even so, their relationship may be filling other needs and desires. You have spoken your thoughts; unless there is something new and significant to add, let her play the ball as she sees fit. Thanks for the advice. She did call me today and we talked, so things are better. I will just stay out of it the next time she comes to me with her problems about him, I'm not going to offer my advice, I will simply listen to her, maybe that's what she needs anyways, someone to vent to, but isn't really looking for advice.
Aicha Posted June 2, 2013 Posted June 2, 2013 depends on the guy, i had a guy in his 30s propose within a month on knowing me, he basically wanted to marry me and have my babies! not very good to propose so early on, made me run miles! but mosly i think it takes 2/3 years from what my friends have experienced
ltjg45 Posted June 2, 2013 Posted June 2, 2013 It's going to be a while before I propose. There is a lot of concerns I have when it comes to marriage and, while I would love to get married at some point in my life, I do take the process seriously. I'm not cutting any corners. Once I feel that the woman in question is my life partner is when I will pop the question. I will say 2 years at its bare minimal.
Kelemvor Posted June 2, 2013 Posted June 2, 2013 Without knowing the details... who cares? I'd be much more concerned whether they were happy together and in love than whether they have jumped through hoops to satisfy societal norms and her best friends' expectations. If she's happy with him, then support her and stop projecting yourself into her relationship. What if you pressured her to give him an ultimatum, he panicked before he was ready, they got married...then got divorced? How would you feel then? I personally think marriage is completely overrated unless you are both ready to start a family together.
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