Secret Engagement: !

[collegegrad13]

Hi! So my boyfriend..er..fiance and I have been dating for a year. About 3 months ago I slipped and proposed to him (I know...I know...I'm the chick). He asked for a few days to think on it, came back and said yes, we should get married.

 

Flash forward 3 months to today. I've told all my family and friends and he has told....not a single soul. I asked him why not and he said: 'I want to tell my parents in person. I'm going to, just not yet, I've been really stressed lately.'

Of course, I'm also ring less. And his not announcing the engagement is creating tension in our relationship because it genuinely hurts me.

 

Now, his conservative parents adore me, and he and I are college graduates in our 20's. He just moved 2 hours away, so the relationship is now long distance. I have even told him that we didn't have to be engaged yet, trying to give him an out, and he just cried when I said that.

My concern is: Is he stalling? Why is he not as excited/happy seeming as I am? Did I steal his thunder?

[newmoon]

just a story.... i work with a guy who was dating a woman for 4 months, and she casually said to him one day "let's get married". he said he needed the weekend to think it over and he came back to work monday (they worked together) and said sure, and they got married 2 months later. flash forward 8 years and this man pretty much hates his wife and had had some affairs on the side, calls his wife "not really pretty" "not too smart" etc. i asked him "why did you marry her then?" and he said "well, because she was nice enough and i thought i couldn't do better at the time." obviously, he regrets saying yes. amazing that you had the balls to ask a man, and good for you, but seriously? it's way out of whack and whatever happens from that point forward you have to deal with. did you steal his thunder? yep. you might have a marriage, but perhaps not a happily ever after.... just note

[beach]

Doesn't look like he's making effort to have it official.

 

If he were - you'd have a ring and a date!

 

There's no engagement. It's all your talk and no action on his part.

[d0nnivain]

Ask him to set a date when you can go to the store to pick out rings. Also pick a date a bit past that & say would the weekend of the ____ th be good for you for us to go tell your parents?

 

If he balks assume you are no longer engaged & decide if you want to stay with him.

[amaysngrace]

You should buy him a ring, shouldn't you?

[clia]

Hi! So my boyfriend..er..fiance and I have been dating for a year. About 3 months ago I slipped and proposed to him (I know...I know...I'm the chick). He asked for a few days to think on it, came back and said yes, we should get married.

 

What do you mean you "slipped" and proposed to him? How do you "slip" on such a serious, life altering topic? It's not a great sign to me that he had to go off and think about it for a few days...it obviously was not something he had thought about yet.

 

At any rate, I don't think he views the two of you as formally engaged. Otherwise he would have bought you a ring, told his friends and family, and the two of you would have started planning the wedding.

 

Did you steal his thunder? Yeah, probably. I think most men like to go through the process of getting the ring, planning the proposal, etc. He might feel emasculated that you took all of that away from him.

[CC12]

I have even told him that we didn't have to be engaged yet, trying to give him an out, and he just cried when I said that.

 

Would you mind elaborating on this conversation? I'm guessing he didn't just burst into tears when you said "We don't have to be engaged yet."

 

How did you initiate this conversation and what did he say?

[bathtub-row]

Bad, bad idea. And I agree, how does something like that just slip?

 

The real truth is, you don't trust his judgement and that's why you decided to ask him. You didn't trust him to do it when and how you wanted it to happen. And he knows it. Most men instinctively recoil from kind of thing because it takes away their masculinity. That usually doesn't create great results.

 

If I were you, I'd tell him that you're sorry you asked, retract it if you can and let the whole thing drop. Maybe over time, the damage can be undone.

[veggirl]

I would not consider myself engaged if I was you. He doesn't sound interested in being so. Who takes days to consider it? Bad sign. Not to mention the secretiveness of it. I mean is there a date set? Are you actively planning a wedding?

 

As for him crying when you said you guys didn't have to be engaged, was it an "I don't want to lose you" cry or a "I feel guilty bc I don't want to be engaged" cry?