Waiting for a proposal - how did you stay sane?!

jtr2803

Waves to Renowen, welcome aboard, may your stay be pleasant albeit short! :rotfl:I hope your OH gets his butt in gear for you soon, 8 years and three children are certainly enough to be taking those vows

rdchick, glad you have got some info our of your oh, it sounds like you have your head screwed on and I think it's sensible to be debt free with some security although I know it's still frustrating when you want to get married so badly.

Well, OH just came to give me a cuddle (he's got his tail between his legs a little bit as he said something to me earlier that upset me, I know he intended it to be a joke but it just wasn't funny) and I asked him if we were still going to get married next year and he said (word for word) 'yeah, if you really want to then we will' umm......ok, so I said 'well I do want to but it doesn't seem that you do?' and he says 'I do, I just don't want to think about it'............I know that's his anxiety talking and in part I am glad he recognises it but it confirms that it will end up me doing everything and I just don't think I have it in me to try and pull it all off. He added that he does want me as his wife and I just said yeah, but you don't want to actually get married.

What's the point?

Brighton_belle

jtr2803 wrote: »

Well, OH just came to give me a cuddle (he's got his tail between his legs a little bit as he said something to me earlier that upset me, I know he intended it to be a joke but it just wasn't funny) and I asked him if we were still going to get married next year and he said (word for word) 'yeah, if you really want to then we will' umm......ok, so I said 'well I do want to but it doesn't seem that you do?' and he says 'I do, I just don't want to think about it'............I know that's his anxiety talking and in part I am glad he recognises it but it confirms that it will end up me doing everything and I just don't think I have it in me to try and pull it all off. He added that he does want me as his wife and I just said yeah, but you don't want to actually get married.

What's the point?

Well, it appears that he definitely does what the end result, to be married.
He want you as his wife - that's really good news!
He's just anxious about the wedding bit which isn't uncommon. It's not difficult to pull off a simple wedding, though I always felt it would be overwelming before hand. I had to organise every single bit of our wedding so I kept it very simple and did it in 10 weeks and he was so so happy on the day it was totally worth it.
What sort of wedding day do you want and what feels difficult about pulling it off? I totally appreciate it feels overwhelming - I took the decision to not shop around - e.g. we took the first venue we saw as it was very suitable and I knew we didn't have the energy between us to slog round 3 more and then have to decide. We didn't bother wading through lots of readings to choose one, if there was nothing already special to us, we didn't have one.All that sort of thing kept stress out of it.

squ1rrel5

jtr2803 wrote: »

Squirrel, I place money on the fact that by the end of next weekend, you will be engaged . I hope you are getting really excited now, especially as you know he essentially has the ring, it REALLY is happening :j

That would be amazing! Am going to try and chill for next couple of weeks just in case it takes a bit longer, I know what these shops are like (my friend almost didn't have her wedding ring on her wedding day because the jeweller too forever resizing it! She only got it back because she went all bridezilla on him!) But hopefully it will be on my finger soon!

Jtr, I know this is a long shot but do you think your oh would prefer it if you got married this year? Less time to get stressed? Or is than not an option... I'm thinking you could plan a quickie wedding for May and then have the Maldives as your honeymoon THIS year!!:rotfl:

MrsDrink

Jtr I absolutely agree with BB and Squirrel. It sounds like he does want the marriage but is freaked out about the wedding. Personally I would take this to be a good thing. ((hugs))

AllyS

XxHey everyone

Squirrel n great news about your chat! Eeeek very exciting!! Fingers crossed the ring turna up soon!!

JTR - I think u and I have the same issue with our men, except you are ahead of me, I think u should take heart from the fact that he wants you to be his wife, is there anything specific he is worried about?

Hi renowen - wow you have waited a very long time! Fingers crossed you get your engagement soon

I bought a ring from new look yesterday and it wasn't till I looked at receipt and it said engagement ring :rotfl: told oh it was ok I got my ring and it only cost £3! Shame its too big for that finger :rotfl:

jtr2803

Hi girls,

I don't really know where to start what I want and need to just get off my chest, I feel it's going to be rather long and probably won't make a lot of sense

More was said after my post last night, the conversation I documented above really caught me by surprise and has made me question EVERYTHING and needless to say I didn't sleep much at all last night. For an hour after I posted all I could think of was how I might as well have put a gun to his head to get this far so how much more would I have to push him to actually get married? I was on the verge of tears when I sat down with him on the sofa to tell him that I no longer want to get married, I know deep down that he doesn't really want to, that he would only be doing it to make me happy and he didn't even try to deny it. I know some will say that the fact he is still willing to go ahead should be enough, and that if he was that against it then he just wouldn't do it.

All of that might be true, but that isn't really ever how I saw us getting married, I don't want him to marry me just to shut me up or try and keep me happy, I wanted him to realise I was the person he loved and wanted to commit to, the one he would take and forsake all others, to make me feel special. And at the moment, I am sitting here with tears streaming down my face feeling like it's all just one big fat lie. All I can hear is his comment about how his brother married his girlfriend so quickly because he realised he was never going to find anyone better...what does that say about me and our relationship? It's not really about the actual wedding anymore, it's about all the feelings of being 'not worth it' that I have harboured for almost two years now. If he had agreed on New Years Eve when I suggested getting married and we had started making plans then I guess I would have never felt like this but we didn't did we? And it wasn't long before I felt like he was doing all he could to avoid it............and now I feel like my instincts were right.

He claims he wants me to be his wife but he won't (or can't) think about getting married, I know some of you suggested that he is probably anxious about the day itself but I have tried my darned hardest to remove that for him, I have suggested going away or just literally going and getting married, have told him outright that I don't care for a flashy proposal or wedding - that's not what I am about. Any time he has actively spoken about 'our wedding' is to tell me about all the people from work he wants to invite or the music he wants to play so what on earth am I supposed to think or believe anymore? I try to talk but he clams up and I just get upset. I told him last night that I didn't think it would be fair for me to have to do all the work because of his anxiety and the way he is and he told me 'surely it's no more work than sorting out a holiday?'.....he really doesn't have a clue.

Getting married has suddenly lost it's shine completely. I guess I really wanted what every girl wants deep down, for the one they love to suddenly realise how wonderful they are and to want to make that declaration. I have never been proposed to and I wanted to know how that moment felt but I would have truly settled for some excitement over a committed future together or even for him to tell me that he really wanted me to be his wife but he was scared. He hasn't even been able to give me that. I don't really even know how I feel about our relationship any more, I hope someone understands why I say that? I feel like I have made a LOT of compromises in this relationship, the thought of a mortgage scares the life out of him so I have accepted the fact that we will probably never own our own home, despite the fact that we could afford a nice one. The thought of having the responsibility of children scares the life out of him so I have accepted that we will never have children. The one thing I did want, I can apparently have but only to keep me happy....not seemingly for any other reason. I don't want to start my marriage that way, I know I will constantly be reminding myself that I 'owe' him and that he only did it for me.

I can't make him want to marry me, I really feel like I have tried but failed miserably. At this point I don't even know if he will ever want to marry me and I don't know how long I can wait for him to try and work that out really...which is why I said I don't know how I feel about our relationship any more. If he could even try and explain why he doesn't want to get married maybe I could try and understand, but he can't even offer me that.

For those reasons I have decided to bow out of this thread for a while, you have all been so lovely to me over the past nine months and I had hoped I wouldn't still be here but I am. The feelings I have about getting married are now driving a wedge into my feelings about our relationship and I need to try and work out how to separate the two issues and see how I feel, I guess I need to try and get my head together and work out whether we are past the point of no return or not and what we can both do to save it. I should be looking forward to holiday but at the moment I am such a bag of nerves at the lowest end of my self esteem scale that I don't feel I can.

Sending you all lots of hugs, especially my long haulers.

xxx

Brighton_belle

Everything you say makes complete and utter sense jtr:(. And the desire to be acknowledged as totally special and precious to him is to me entirely natural. He clearly does have quite a lot of issues that are counter opposed to your fundamental needs in a relationship.I wish you well as you try and work out if you have enough together to carry on this relationship.
Really sad for you:(:(:(

MrsDrink

Oh jtr - I don't know if you will come back and read this but everything you've written makes perfect sense to me. The only thing I would suggest is for you to both sit down and discuss what you want from your future. If you want to own your house together, if you want children, and if you want a marriage but he refuses to do any of these then I would be having serious questions too (and I would be asking how long before he 'grows up'). Although MrD didn't want to get married he was more than happy to get a joint mortgage (and viewed that as a big commitment to me). Big hugs!! x

74jax

I agree with MrsD (again).

You need to work out if you both want to be in the 'same' relationship. You say you would like to own a home but you are ok with not so that you can be together. You say you would like children but again are ok with not so you can be together.

What if you could have your own home, children and marriage.....but with someone else? A horrid question I know, but maybe one you need to think about.

You may have all you want and more, and your OH might meet someone who never wants to own a home, have children or get married and you're both happy, but separately.

OR you could realise that it's HIM you want above everything else and learn, somehow, to adapt and channel you wedding thoughts elsewhere.

eleanor73

Jtr - I 100% understand how you feel. I think you may have gone:( but if not have you thought about cutting and pasting your last comment and saying you wrote it down just to get it out of your head and he may as well know. It's so articulate and heartfelt.

I have been away for a while as I felt this thread although really suportive it was making me think about the issue a lot more than I had been - like every minute!

This end things are looking slightly more positive. BF went on a stag do at the weekend and spent half of it on the phone to me (I'm sure his mates were not impressed!). He got back on Sunday and said he didn't realise how much he missed me and I jokingly said 'I missed you too. Don't go on any more stag dos!!' He said 'I'll have to go on at least one more-I'll go on mine.'

Also we went away for the weekend and he basically said that it won't be long (he has said this before so I don't really believe it.) I asked if we were going to do something nice for our 3 year anniversary (the whole reason for my April deadline) and he just said 'leave it with me'-last year I did all of the planning so I hope it is a good sign.

It hasn't all been happy-I found all the old cards and trinkets and mementos that I have kept from when we were first together and got scared that we won't be together for much longer and just cried for about 2 hours!!!! Oh dear...

Squirrel - looks like it's happening V soon. SO exciting:)