Male board members, time to give your two cents [Archive]

lezlers

05-16-2006, 10:02 PM

rbroome

05-16-2006, 10:27 PM

A little background:

The man and I have been together a little over a year and a half and have been living together about 9 months. Everything is hunky dory. We'll both be graduating law school next year, get along famously and love each other to pieces.

I know it's soon, but the topic of marriage has come up in conversation rather frequently as of late. Basically, the man never misses an opportunity to comment on how he sees no benefit to marriage and that it's just a piece of paper and yadda yadda yadda.

I told him a little while ago that I wasn't expecting it to happen anytime soon but if he honestly had no intentions of ever getting married I deserved to know. I'm 28 years old and while I'm not running towards the isle quite yet, I'm also not getting any younger. I love this man with all my heart and would be absolutely heartbroken without him, but if we truly want different things in life, then it's never going to work out. To this, he replied I had nothing (he stressed the word, not me) to worry about.

A few things to keep in mind: he likes to tease me often and I'm sure a lot of the recent "anti-marriage" comments were made in jest. He's33 years old, has a nine year old daughter, all of his friends are getting married (he and one other friend are the last ones) and he's got people asking him regularly when the two of us are going to tie the knot. Given that he's got a bit of a rebellious streak, I think some of the comments are also made in defiance.

But then again, he was with his ex for a very long time and never married her, no matter how much she pressured him. To this, he replied that he knew it would never work between them, he was together with her for those years because they had a child and that our relationship is different.

My main concern is this: if he does propose to me eventually, will it be because he feels pressured to do so, or will it be because he actually wants to be married to me? The worst thing in the world I can imagine is someone being married to me who didn't want to be. Honestly, I'd rather be alone than receive an obligatory proposal.

So my actual question (thanks for bearing with me) is this: how many men on this board proposed to their spouses because they felt they had to, or that it was the right thing to do? Did that feeling ever go away? Is it normal for men to avoid marriage like the plauge? Am I freaking out over nothing?

I am probably not a good source for this advice-53 and happily married for decades-but to me it sounds like your SO is scared sh*tless of the thought of marriage. He says you have nothing to worry about and that means he isn't leaving tomorrow, not that he is planning to propose tomorrow. Personally I would be concerned with this relationship. The problem is that the guy isn't a good candidate for marriage in his present state of mind and you are pretty determined that is your future. Now if you were comfortable with not getting married, you both might be very happy for a very long time. But as it is, I would worry. OTOH, his state of mind could change in a flash. If you want to hang around and wait, it might pay off. But don't try to force him to make a choice. You might win and a marriage in that situation would be (IMHO) a bad move for both. Oh, and tell him up front this isn't a joking matter. Marriage IS important to you and is more than a piece of paper. If he can't respect your feelings that is the cheapest lesson you will get in this relationship.

Hope this helps.

BTW, my (then future) wife told me early on that marriage and kids were in her future. That settled the matter in a flash for me. She was right as usual.

AHunter3

05-16-2006, 10:41 PM

I don't do marriage. I have never been married and I shall never be married. I am very much capable of being deeply in love with someone, and of wanting very much for it to continue; and although I am not instinctively or offically monogamous, I'm also not very promiscuous, and when I give of myself and share intimacy, it means something special.

In case your guy has views similar to my own: don't assume he's kidding. Ask him point-blank to discuss his views on the institution, the structure and expectations and traditions and everything else that goes with "marriage" (and "wedding" for that matter). And be prepared to reciprocate.

If it is important to you to eventually be a married person, know it, and know why, and if he is antipathetic towards marriage, decide whether or not to move on or to move beyond thinking in terms of marriage, for that may be the choice you face. (Not that he would not have to make a reciprocal choice if he's opposed to marriage).

Would he perhaps marry you not because he wants to be married (to you or otherwise) but because he doesn't want to lose you? Certainly possible. Would you live as the two of you are living now, never marrying, not because that's how you wish to live, but because you don't want to lose him? That one's for you to answer.

Muffin

05-16-2006, 10:56 PM

Gary T

05-16-2006, 11:18 PM

[He] never misses an opportunity to comment on how he sees no benefit to marriage and that it's just a piece of paper and yadda yadda yadda. There are benefits to marriage (legal, social, emotional), for those that appreciate it.

Those who say it's only a piece of paper are missing the point, by a wide mark. Apparently they limit their thinking to having a (romantic) relationship. Marriage is about having a life-partnership that includes, but goes significantly beyond, having a relationship.

A couple I knew lived together for years, and seemed to get along quite well. He did not believe in marriage, and she accepted that. His job took him 2,000 miles away (temporarily, supposedly). About a year later they broke up. Within another year he married someone he met in his new locale. Apparently his belief in marriage changed.

I consciously decided not to marry young after seeing many couples grow apart and get divorced while in their 20's or early 30's. I felt ready to marry at age 28, and kept eye out for the right woman. Found her and married at 34. Along the way I had some deep love for some women, and gave some serious thought to marriage. But it was different when I met my (now) wife. There was a connection on another level, and it just seemed natural that we would be (lifelong) life-partners.

Whether or not this fellow is the type who won't ever marry anybody, to me it looks doubtful that he'll marry you. He would have to have an epiphany wherein he embraces the notion of committing to you and to your relationship. This will include getting over the tunnel-visioned "just a piece of paper" nonsense and rising above childish rejection of doing something if other people want you to do it. Not impossible, but rather unlikely.
_____

About me: Male, mid-50's, married 20 years.

AHunter3

05-16-2006, 11:30 PM

Well, commitment ≠ marriage.

Marriage is a specific commitment, one of the few binding contracts you can be held to without signing a piece of paper listing the tenets thereof. Read up on it; if the terms suit you, marriage is for you; if not, substitute your own structure and don't get married.

Enright3

05-16-2006, 11:46 PM

I was 20 when I married my then pregnant girlfriend (who was 17). We knew each other for less than a year before we were married. I assume we would still be married but she died 3 years ago this July. We were married for 22 years.

I'm engaged to be married on August 19th (and my fiancee's birthday is my old wedding anniversary :o). I met her last June. I assume this one will last longer than the first :)

I believe in the sanctity of marriage.

E3

John Carter of Mars

05-17-2006, 12:15 AM

Ah, lezlers, me bonnie lass. Seeking advice on affairs of the heart once again, I see!

Lemme see here: pressured into marriage....Where have I come across that term?.....

Oh, now I remember! Yes, I've been pressured into marriage twice. Married twice, and pressured into it both times.

The first time, letting myself be pressured into marrying was a dreadful mistake. It cost me much more than a ring. It cost me time; precious years that can't be bought back.

Letting myself be pressured into marriage the second time was the single best thing I've ever done. She knew better than I that I needed her in my life. 20+ years later we're still together.

So pressure away if you wish because there are no guarantees anyway, pressure or not. You rolls your bones (heh) and you takes your chances.

Good luck!

Frank

05-17-2006, 12:19 AM

I always said I would never marry. Then I found the woman I wanted to marry.

I endorse the entirety of Muffin's response, and the penultimate sentence of John Carter of Mars'.

Walloon

05-17-2006, 04:46 AM

Marriage rights and benefits. (http://www.nolo.com/article.cfm/ObjectID/E0366844-7992-4018-B581C6AE9BF8B045/catID/F896EE61-B80C-4FE1-B1687AC0F07903BA/118/304/ART/)

Stainz

05-17-2006, 05:35 AM

Not a male, but I couldn't resist posting - feel free to ignore.

When I was 20, my new b/f was 26. He told me he never wanted to get married or have children. I wanted both of those things very badly someday. I thought he would grow out of it. We broke up 10 years later, because he knew that he could never give me what I truly wanted.

So my entire 20's were wasted in terms of getting closer to my two biggest goals.

If you want to be married, this guy you're with is not the guy for you. He is not playing games, or being coy, or just trying to get a rise out of you. He does not want to marry you, or anyone. If what you want is a non-marital-commitment, then yes, you will have rights after a certain period of cohabitation.

Good luck.

Manda JO

05-17-2006, 05:59 AM

My husband wasn't exactly pressured into marriage, but he certainly didn't see the point--there's never really been a successful marriage in his family, and marriage didn't carry much meaning for him. He knew he wanted to be with me for the rest of his life--that was a given--but he just didn't see much point in the actual filing of the paperwork. However, he did get that it mattered to me, and so was willing to go along with it, not because I henpecked him into it, but because it was an easy way to make me happy, and because he didn't really have anything against marriage. Five years later, we are doing fine.

The other thing is to find out if he really objects to getting married or to throwing a wedding. There are lots of people who really are filled with dread at the thought of throwing a wedding, and once you seperate "being married" from "having a wedding", they are ok with the idea--but this only matters if you could stand to elope.

Fir na tine

05-17-2006, 08:00 AM

Basically, the man never misses an opportunity to comment on how he sees no benefit to marriage and that it's just a piece of paper and yadda yadda yadda...........

I told him a little while ago that I wasn't expecting it to happen anytime soon but if he honestly had no intentions of ever getting married I deserved to know..............

Am I freaking out over nothing?

He's made his feelings fairly clear. Like most men he beats around the bush instead of speaking directly to the issue but if I could paraphase his remarks into plain English it would probably read "Marriage?? That will be a cold day in hell!!"

If marriage is important to you, it's time to move on. For a male he's really made his intentions pretty clear.

Jim
married 36 years

corkboard

05-17-2006, 08:10 AM

If a guy is firmly against marriage but uses the excuse "[I see] no benefit to marriage and that it's just a piece of paper and yadda yadda yadda", then he's full of crap. If you see no benefit to marriage, then you're ambivalent, and if you're ambivalent, then you're neither for it or against it. On the other hand, this guy sounds like he just doesn't want to marry you but doesn't have a good reason. If that's the excuse he's giving you- that there's no benefit to it- but absolutely refuses to marry you, then he's keeping his options open. Is that really what you want?

I know plenty of guys who are married, and in my experience and theirs, when they realized they were with the person they loved and wanted to spend the rest of their lives with, marriage was a given. They weren't forced into it and didn't need to be convinced. It's not "just a piece of paper"- it's a statement to the world that you're off the market, you're part of a lifelong bond, and you're not afraid to let everyone know it. If my partner isn't willing to make that kind of commitment to me and to the world, then I'd question how committed she is to me.

Athena

05-17-2006, 08:14 AM

Mr. Athena and I are going to be married sometime this summer. Notice I already call him Mr. Athena; we've been together for going on ten years, we've moved across the country together, we've had pooled finances and bought houses together. We're as commited as can be, and neither of us are particularly adament about being married. Neither of us feel that legal marriage has anything to do with commitment or love. We have no children, so that is not a consideration.

So why are we doing it? Because we looked at things realistically. If anything happened to one of us, as it stands now, our parents would be the legal representative and make any health related decisions. If I'm in a coma, I want Mr. Athena calling the shots, not my mother. If one of us were to die, our property would go to our parents. Doing our taxes every year is a pain in the butt.

Yes, we could probably come up with a series of legal contracts that would fix all of the above, but none of them is as simple, easy, or non-contestable as marriage is. So we're getting hitched :-)

CalMeacham

05-17-2006, 08:40 AM

There wasn't really any question about marriage, in my mind. I was brought up on the premise that marriage is something you do, and that it's forever (or untril death). Pepper Mill, although from a different background, was the same way. If you're going to have a house and family, you need a long-term commitment. Simple as that. Some people are afraid of that, for some reason or other. But if you're going to have kids, you want someone who resolves to be in for the long haul. The piece of paper and the big ceremony just prove you're willing to say so in public. (People can still run out of a marriage).

If someone won't agree to long-term commitment that you want, find out why, or you'll probably want to move on.

Dunderman

05-17-2006, 08:54 AM

Am I freaking out over nothing?
Depends. Is marriage itself, as in the piece of paper and the legal stuff that comes along with it, not the stuff that's perceived as coming along with it but you can have anyway - commitment, fidelity, children - important to you? If so, is he more important?

What I'm hearing is that he finds marriage pointless, much like me. If he's going to stay with you, he'll stay whether or not you're married. If he's going to have kids with you, he'll have them whether or not you're married. Can you live with that, or is the formality of marriage more important to you?

romansperson

05-17-2006, 08:55 AM

Is it normal for men to avoid marriage like the plauge?

No, it's not (though it would certainly be smart to avoid marriage with someone you don't want to be married to).

The vast majority of straight men get married at least once in their lives. They certainly aren't all buffaloed into doing it.

Dunderman

05-17-2006, 08:56 AM

So why are we doing it? Because we looked at things realistically. If anything happened to one of us, as it stands now, our parents would be the legal representative and make any health related decisions. If I'm in a coma, I want Mr. Athena calling the shots, not my mother. If one of us were to die, our property would go to our parents. Doing our taxes every year is a pain in the butt.
Are there no cohabitation laws in the US? Here in Sweden, if you're cohabitating romantically with someone, you have pretty much the same rights (some exceptions) as if you're married.

Acsenray

05-17-2006, 08:58 AM

In my experience, when a man starts talking bad about marriage in general, most often, he's commenting on his current relationship. I think it's pretty clear that this guy has told you that he does not want to marry you. Given that, if he does propose, then I would think that, yes, it's because he feels pressured or coerced to.

Acsenray

05-17-2006, 09:00 AM

Are there no cohabitation laws in the US? Here in Sweden, if you're cohabitating romantically with someone, you have pretty much the same rights (some exceptions) as if you're married.

In most states, the law still marks a strict difference between a legal spouse and an unmarried partner. Generally speaking if you are cohabitating without marriage, you do not get the rights and benefits of marriage.

And this makes sense to me. If you want the rights and benefits of marriage, then get married. If you don't, then don't. There's no need for a grey area.

Athena

05-17-2006, 09:05 AM

Are there no cohabitation laws in the US? Here in Sweden, if you're cohabitating romantically with someone, you have pretty much the same rights (some exceptions) as if you're married.

A few states recognize common-law marriage (see here (http://www.unmarried.org/common-law-marriage.html)) but it's not nearly as uncontestable as a real marriage contract.

Aside from that, no, I am not aware of any cohabitating laws in the US that give the same legal benefits as marriage. You've heard of the gay marriage debates currently going on in the US? A lot of it is because gay people want these same rights, and there's no way to ensure them sans marriage.

panache45

05-17-2006, 09:12 AM

. . . while I'm not running towards the isle quite yet . . .
You might be better off swimming.

Mangetout

05-17-2006, 09:31 AM

It's possible that all his negative comments about marriage are made because he thinks you're terrified of marriage and doesn't want to scare you away. If you do get to the frank talk stage, make sure the emphasis is on the 'frank' - it's important that you both tell each other what you think and feel, not what each of you thinks the other would most like to hear.

lezlers

05-17-2006, 09:37 AM

Thank you everybody, for your informative and thoughtful replies. Although it's not what I wanted to hear, it looks like the honest to god truth and I'm going to have to deal with that.

John Carter of Mars, you are outstanding. Whenever I start a thread, I know I can always count on you to post something that will make me grin from ear to ear. You're the best.

Pretty much everyone has asked why I want to be married. For me, it's not the legal formalities. Rather, it's what marriage stands for, to me. It's loving someone so much that you're willing to be legally bound to that person, publicly. To me, (and this is just for me, I'm not applying it to anyone else) being with someone for a very long time and never getting married (if you're legally able to do so) just feels like you love the person, but not quite enough to take that final step. I've spent my entire life expecting to get married and have children someday and I don't quite think I'm ready to give up on that dream, even if it means eventually walking away from the love of my life.

This:

When I was 20, my new b/f was 26. He told me he never wanted to get married or have children. I wanted both of those things very badly someday. I thought he would grow out of it. We broke up 10 years later, because he knew that he could never give me what I truly wanted.

So my entire 20's were wasted in terms of getting closer to my two biggest goals..

Is exactly what I'm afraid of. I don't want to sit here and hold my breath for the next ten years, only to realize that it's never going to happen. That's why I want to know now if he truly intends to marry me someday (which he has said) or if he's just stringing me along so I don't walk away (which all the little comments lead me to believe.)

Also, I want to have children and call me old fashioned, but I'd like to be married before I do so and I'd rather not be having children at 40.

We've discussed all of this before and he has reassured me that it'll happen, reluctantly. He also gets very defensive, reminding me that we "haven't been together that long." I don't want to walk away prematurely, but I don't want to wake up in ten years, unmarried and childless, and kick myself for being so gullible.

I've got to get to work but thank you again everyone, and please, keep the comments coming.

Nava

05-17-2006, 10:09 AM

Not male, but I'm giving you the takes of two males on marriage and why to marry.

My brother's take on why he and the SIL got married: "after I'd known her for half an hour, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her."

A friend of ours never intended to marry. He's got a law degree and is an atheist. The way he figured it, marriage just meant that splitting up would mean complicated paperwork that you can save by not marrying in the first place.

Then he met a woman who didn't want to marry for the same reasons. They moved together after a year. They've been married for 3 years, have a terribly smart 1-year old girl. Heck, they'd found someone they wanted to spend the rest of their lives with, so the splitting-up paperwork kind of became a non-issue. (And yes, I know divorce exists).

If he doesn't want to spend the rest of his life with you, then my guess is he isn't what you're looking for - even if he looks a lot like it.

bup

05-17-2006, 10:25 AM

I'm going to, in irritating fashion, answer a different question than you asked.

Don't make any decisions or judgments about marriage while you're in law school. Law school's so stressful that you can't think about anything clearly, and neither can he.

My now wife starting insisting on talking about marriage while she was in grad school, and we ended up breaking up for a few years. While I was somewhat frightened of marriage, she was hardly rational during her years obtaining her Ph.D. (she and I now both acknowledge both of these things).

The whole world will seem a little calmer next May.

Now. Making a guess on what very little we know of your SO, it sounds like he has the spine to only propose if he wants to.

dangermom

05-17-2006, 11:23 AM

So my actual question (thanks for bearing with me) is this: how many men on this board proposed to their spouses because they felt they had to, or that it was the right thing to do? Did that feeling ever go away? Is it normal for men to avoid marriage like the plauge? Am I freaking out over nothing?I have known a lot of guys who wanted to get married before their girlfriends were ready to think about it. IME, when they know what they want and make up their minds, they are raring to go. Obviously that can't apply to all men, but it has certainly been my experience with many guys I've known. My own husband made up his mind after three weeks (!) and was smart enough not to tell me that, knowing that I would run for the hills.

While I'm not going to say you should leave this guy from the information on a message board, I think you're right to be concerned. If he's not prepared to talk about it seriously right now what with law school and all, maybe you should set yourself a goal to have a serious discussion in a few months. I don't think this is something you can just let go and hope things turn out well at all, but it might be as well to wait a little while until things are calmer. And then tell him what you told us; that you would rather be single than pressure him into marriage, but if he's not prepared to get hitched of his own free will, you will have to go. It sound to me like he's got everything he wants, and doesn't want more, and he will be happy to stall and prevaricate to keep you from making a final decision.

Eureka

05-17-2006, 11:25 AM

We've discussed all of this before and he has reassured me that it'll happen, reluctantly. He also gets very defensive, reminding me that we "haven't been together that long." I don't want to walk away prematurely, but I don't want to wake up in ten years, unmarried and childless, and kick myself for being so gullible.

Not male, not married, never been involved in any long term relationship that looked like marriage only without the little piece of paper

But the quote from him is sounding a warning bell to me. I think you need to ask him pointblank "How long do we need to be together before you decide whether you will marry me someday and I can start getting antsy about setting a date/planning the wedding?"

My guess is that he will want to set a timeframe which will encourage you to stick around for a while. But I really suspect that you need to choose between marriage and children (without him) and him (no marriage, questionable children).

If he doesn't want to get married, and I'm guessing he doesn't, he's going to hold out the carrot of "one of these days we'll get married" as long as he can, as long as you keep feeling like "as long as I've invested this much time, I might as well invest a little more".

Plenty of men exist who didn't have to be badgered into getting married--my dad startled my mother when he proposed--she totally wasn't expecting it. 6 months later, they were married. My dad may have been atypical, and might be even more so now, but there are advantages to not setting up housekeeping with someone before the wedding.

Acsenray

05-17-2006, 11:32 AM

My own husband made up his mind after three weeks (!) and was smart enough not to tell me that, knowing that I would run for the hills.

My theory is that most men know almost immediately whether they want to marry a particular person.

Lord Ashtar

05-17-2006, 11:35 AM

My parents divorced when I was 9, then they each got married again, and divorced again, and are now married yet again, my mom for the 4th time, my dad for the 3rd. I'm sure that a therapist would tell me that I don't want to ever get married because I've never really seen what a sucessful marriage is and how great it can be.

The real reason I don't want to get married is because I just plain don't see the point. If I love someone, we can be together. If things go south, then let's just call it over and be done with it without the lawyers and trial separation and all that crap. Call my cynical, but that's just how I see it.

Voyager

05-17-2006, 11:58 AM

I was never anti-marriage. And marriage is a lot more than a piece of paper. It's an indicator that you're serious about staying together. It's an indicator to others that you are really a couple, not just buddies. It gives you the right to make decisions for each other when needed.

We never lived closer than 600 miles from each other when we got married. Over four years we found that we couldn't not care about each other, no matter how hard we tried. When I was moving from Illinois to Louisiana, and she agreed to come and help, I decided both that I wanted us to live together and that not asking her to marry me would be really stupid. No pressure. It will be 28 years this Saturday, and neither of us has ever regretted it.

As for bup's comment, I was in grad school when we got married, and the summer when I was finishing my PhD was not the smoothest few months we've ever spent, but the fact of being married helped us get over the rough spots.. Sometimes life just sucks, and sometimes the barrier to breaking up helps you get over them and into the happy times again. It night have helped that both our parents stayed married as long as they lived, so we don't even know how to do divorce.

Muffin

05-17-2006, 12:00 PM

. . . you will have rights after a certain period of cohabitation.Might want to qualify that.

dmatsch

05-17-2006, 12:03 PM

This topic of this thread is a very touchy subject and it seems like I'm in the minority. I'm sure I'm going to get flamed for the following comments.

Male. Married once before and was very hesitant about doing it again. Then #2 came along:

1998: I met the woman of my dreams. From our first date together we spent pretty much every waking minute together. We Were In Love.

1999: She moved in with me after six months. I knew that I wanted to marry her and spend the rest of my life with her. She felt the same.

2001: We had a wonderful marriage and I was the proverbial Good Husband to her. I was proud to be her husband and wear her ring.

2005: We divorced last year after seven years together. She cheated on me online. It cost me $34,000 not including lawyer expenses and definitely not including the pain and suffering of being betrayed like that.

So, who benefits from marriage? Certainly not me(n). So if your SO is a little skittish about marriage, then maybe you owe him the benefit of the doubt and just be happy to be in love with someone who loves you back. That is a rare gift and should not be casually thrown away. If you are so willing to walk out on him because he won't marry you, what's to prevent you from walking out on him for some other reason when you're married? Only then, it's going to be a world 'o hurt for both parties, with the lawyers slapping themselves on the back on the way to the bank.

I can't believe that you would simply walk away from someone you love and care about just because they don't want to get married. What does love and commitment have to do with marriage? Can't the two exist indepentently?

Also, in today's society having children out of wedlock is no big deal. If he were committed to raising that child as a father should, is being married that big of a deal?

I personally know more than 4 committed couples (two with children) who, in my eyes, are every much husband and wife (they even have rings) -- but aren't married and refuse to do so. One couple has been together since 1986. Before last year, I thought they were oddballs. I thought to myself, "why don't they just get married?"

Now I understand.

Flame on, but this is MHO due to experience.

bup

05-17-2006, 12:07 PM

I think you need to ask him pointblank "How long do we need to be together before you decide whether you will marry me someday and I can start getting antsy about setting a date/planning the wedding?"Almost precisely the words that sent me screaming, even though I was crazy about her.

Green Cymbeline

05-17-2006, 12:09 PM

Is exactly what I'm afraid of. I don't want to sit here and hold my breath for the next ten years, only to realize that it's never going to happen. That's why I want to know now if he truly intends to marry me someday (which he has said) or if he's just stringing me along so I don't walk away (which all the little comments lead me to believe.)

Also, I want to have children and call me old fashioned, but I'd like to be married before I do so and I'd rather not be having children at 40.

We've discussed all of this before and he has reassured me that it'll happen, reluctantly. He also gets very defensive, reminding me that we "haven't been together that long." I don't want to walk away prematurely, but I don't want to wake up in ten years, unmarried and childless, and kick myself for being so gullible.
(Female here.) Maybe a year and a half is not "that long," but once you get over the 2-year mark, it's been plenty of time. If you're above the age of 25, 2 years is plenty of time for you to know if your partner is "the one."

You only live once, and each year of your life, especially in your 20s, is very valuable time. Don't waste it. I would say, finish law school, get jobs and work for a while then see what happens. But make a "deadline" for yourself. No need to tell him. Just set a time limit for yourself, say, one year, and if things haven't changed, LEAVE, and move on. Please don't waste the rest of your precious 20s on someone who will never be willing to commit.

I wasted 9 years on a guy, and I will never make that mistake again.

bup

05-17-2006, 12:13 PM

I would say, finish law school, get jobs and work for a while then see what happens. But make a "deadline" for yourself. No need to tell him. Just set a time limit for yourself, say, one year, and if things haven't changed, LEAVE, and move on.I could go with this. In fact, I second the motion. Are we ready to vote on lezler's action?

Huerta88

05-17-2006, 12:47 PM

(Female here.)
Not jerking your chain, but I suspect the OP has gotten lots of advice from GFs (hence the title of the OP).

I wasted 9 years on a guy, and I will never make that mistake again.
This has always surprised me -- women in particular, despite their claims to be the "relationship" and "love" experts, are shockingly ready to discount everything about a relationship that previously had them over the moon when it becomes clear it isn't going to work out, permanently. The word "wasted," in particular, comes up a lot in female conversations about exes, less so in male descriptions, IME.

Neil Strauss's "The Game" recounts the "player gurus" who claim that women act on pure emotion -- when they feel "Attraction," then "the relationship" and the guy are perfect and time well spent (so the theory goes). When the "Attraction" wears off or blows out, or the guy isn't serving their needs -- nothing. The guy, retrospectively, becomes a "waste." Is it because women feel embarrassed that their supposedly-good emotional instincts weren't infallible? I don't know.

Now, in your case -- I don't know, maybe this guy was bad news, mean, abusive, not caring, such that the nine years really was a "waste." But assuming (again, I have no way of knowing) that part of the reason you stuck around for nine years was not just because you wanted his DNA and legally-binding support, but because he was being kind, funny, thoughtful, and you had great fun together. Isn't it a bit cold to summarize that (if it was true for you, as it has been for some women I've heard make a similar complaint) as a "waste?" And while some guys may out and out lie (e.g., saying they will definitely marry you while having no intention of doing so, ever), I suspect the much greater majority are thinking "I'm not ready now, but I think I could be, someday . . . ."

Again, nyctea, I don't mean this as a bash, it just struck a chord because I've heard other women say similar things.

And by the way, on thinking about it, your actual bottom-line suggestion for what the OP should do is probably a pretty good compromise solution.

Eureka

05-17-2006, 12:50 PM

Almost precisely the words that sent me screaming, even though I was crazy about her.
(with all due respect to you and your wife, and meaning no ill-will whatsoever to the future of your relationship)

And this is a bad thing, why?

I'll admit, I'm not sure how one can answer the question without either setting an arbitrary date or feeling like one is playing games or trying to postpone the inevitable. But the other side of it is that if he does run screaming, lezlers gets valuable information about his willingness to talk about marriage someday.

OTOH, the motion proposed (by nyctea scandia) makes sense to me as a practical suggestion.

The Great Sun Jester

05-17-2006, 01:28 PM

Take this with a grain of salt, but in my opinion marriage is an out-dated institution. Whom does it serve, really? In your case, it would serve you--because you want to test your guy's devotion: "It's loving someone so much that you're willing to be legally bound to that person, publicly...to take that final step." You want him to document his commitment to you in a legally binding fashion. To allow you to slip a collar and leash fashioned from social mores, traditions, guilt and obedience around his neck--for what? When he may already have made clear his intent to stay with you anyway? Don't you trust him to keep his word? Then why the collar? Why bind him legally to his word if you trust him? I don't think marriage is, at it's core, the highest expression of love as much as it is the highest expression of doubt. Doubt about someone's--maybe evenone's own--ability to remain faithful and loyal and trustwothy after the fires of passion cool, as they will, and the beauty of youth fades and is tarnished with familiarity.

Marriage is simply a legal, business agreement. It has NOTHING to do with love, and even less to do with trust. Otherwise a private handshake would seal the deal. Any lifelong bond that is destined to exist between the two of you will predate any wedding ceremony anyway. Celebrate the day you two officially dedicated yourselves to each other, because that was the true beginning. These days as many marriages turn out to be bogus as not. A 50% failure rate is not indicative of success in anything...apart from one's application of a baseball bat.

Acsenray

05-17-2006, 01:35 PM

Marriage being a legal, business arrangement has a lot of practical implications that do, in my opinion, reflect a partner's seriousness, love, and commitment.

Huerta88

05-17-2006, 01:53 PM

Marriage is simply a legal, business agreement. It has NOTHING to do with love, and even less to do with trust. Otherwise a private handshake would seal the deal. Any lifelong bond that is destined to exist between the two of you will predate any wedding ceremony anyway. Celebrate the day you two officially dedicated yourselves to each other, because that was the true beginning. These days as many marriages turn out to be bogus as not. A 50% failure rate is not indicative of success in anything...apart from one's application of a baseball bat.
Because we can't read each others' minds or predict the future, society initiates rituals (of which the handshake is simply another example, just like matrimony) to signify the level of commitment we hope to bind ourselves to.

I do not blame the OP for wanting a signifier of the heightened commitment that is (aspirationally, in our society) denoted by marriage. And I say this as a man who has encountered female "pressure" on this dicey subject.

When I was squirming under such "pressure," I was doing so precisely because I believed that marriage wasn't just a piece of paper, and did represent a higher, more absolute (to us), level of commitment than what we had had to date. I suspect there are some men who take the "why bother, it's just a piece of paper?" position out of true indifference or out of true principle or iconoclasm. I suspect most guys who say this, though, don't really believe there is "no difference" between an LTR and a marriage, as we can quickly determine by posing the thought experiment, "Well, if it's irrelevant, then you should be largely indifferent to whether we do it, so let's do it, just to humor me." I suspect most guys taking the "it doesn't make a difference" line would not go along with this.

Sal Ammoniac

05-17-2006, 01:56 PM

I do see a disconnect between men and women here on this question. In my experience, and I realize I'm generalizing, men are happy to keep shacking up, while the women have some expectation that the men will eventually pop the question. And I know instances where the men have waited too long, and suddenly found themselves out on their ear, to their enduring regret.

It's usually men who are saying that marriage is "pointless," to crib a word from Priceguy, or "a legal, business agreement," to crib from Inigo. Women find this wounding, even when they know the objection is not meant personally.

I think you're getting good advice here, lezlers. And speaking personally, in response to the OP, I had to be pushed. Good thing I'm wishy-washy.

mrklutz

05-17-2006, 02:06 PM

I won't pretend the OP's concerns aren't valid, by any stretch of the imagination. But I would like to take a moment to present a brief example as a counterweight.

I am part of a circle of friends that have stayed close in the nearly 20 years since college. Of the entire group, the most well-adjusted, longest-lasting, domestically stable couple is the couple who are not actually married. They have owned many homes together, have moved from city to city together, and would be what I would hold up as a wonderful example of a married couple -- except that they're not legally married.

I bring this up to illustrate that although in many cases reservations like your guy have expressed are alarming, they do not necessarily preclude a happy life together.

Lemur866

05-17-2006, 02:07 PM

Here's the thing.

Having a child with someone is 10 times the commitment of marrying them.

If you don't want kids, you can put off the marriage question forever, no big deal. If you want to have kids, then the question of whether he also wants to have kids with you must be answered.

If he doesn't want to have children with you, then you need to get out. Don't give him an ultimatum, don't play games. Just a simple statement of fact, "I want to have kids. If you don't want to be the father of my kids then I'll have to find someone else. I'll give you time to think about it, but I need your answer within X months. If you won't commit to having kids with me before then, I'll have to leave."

And either mean it, or give up on having kids.

Huerta88

05-17-2006, 02:12 PM

Speaking first-hand, if the OP needs to bring this up with BF at some point (and I think it might not be out of order to have one more discussion), the way that is likely to be well-received is one that includes the following elements:

(1) I'm not going to bug you or pester you about this, but just wanted to make sure you know where I stand; and
(2) I love you and always want to be with you, and, not to freak you out, one day I want to have your kids; and
(3) Not to put you under the gun, but if that's what you want too, one day, we need to be realistic about fertility issues, career planning, and so forth; and
(4) You're great, I'm not complaining, you're not doing anything wrong, what we've had so far has been good but I'm convinced that going to the next step would only make it better; and
(5) Nothing would really change if we were married, 'cause we're already together all the time; and
(6) I'm not talking about a Bridezilla wedding, I'd be happy to go to City Hall (or have it with just immediate family, or whatever the minimal level of fuss you can justify is); and
(7) You're great, and I don't want to be with anyone else, and that's all I'm saying; but
(8) Please, if you don't think that's something you can probably do, before I get much older, I hope you love me enough that you'd be able to let me know that.

There's no ideal way of making this speech, but the above (elements of which are drawn from things I and friends have heard from reasonable women) avoids most of the common pitfalls that will set the guy into fight-or-flight mode. The best part of this message is the part about "this is a huge compliment to you, dumbass, not a complaint that you've gypped me or 'wasted' my time, or that I 'deserve' to be married." No one "deserves" a ring, but they do deserve an honest answer, and someone who can't honestly answer based on the above approach isn't playing fair (even if the honest answer is, as I suspect is often true, "I don't want to get married right now but I can imagine that I probably will at some point, and I can't currently think of anyone I'd want more than you, so let's stay together for now and that will likely happen."). The honest answer may not accord with every girl's romantic Cinderella fantasy, but then take into account that the average guy grew up dreaming of hacking his way through the Amazon or being an international man of mytery surrounded by dozens of hot babes who want to pork him, so most men are having to compromise a bit on their fantasy too.

Triskadecamus

05-17-2006, 02:14 PM

lightingtool

05-17-2006, 02:24 PM

I've been going back and forth about responding to the OP. I'm not much of a writer, and I'm worried my post may come off sounding uncaring - that is not my intent. With that out of the way...

lezlers, you sound like you're describing me. Marriage is not important to me. I love my wife with everything I have, but I never saw the point of getting married. Our relationship is just that - our relationship. The idea of getting a piece of paper to make it 'official' seems bizarre; why should we have to register our love for each other? And with the amount of divorces that happen, I don't see how the act of getting married would help us through any tough times when it's almost as easy to just break up or get a divorce. The whole thing just seemed like a whole bunch of trouble for nothing, and it wouldn't change anything between us (nor would I want it to).

As someone pointed out earlier, saying you don't understand (or have any use for) marriage is basically stating that you are ambivalent - I completely agree. My wife and I had many discussions about this, and I came to realize that while I didn't much care about marriage (and thought the whole idea was kind of strange), it was very important to her. Please note that this did not happen quickly - we're talking a couple years here. And many of our conversations didn't go well, and at times I did feel that I was getting pressured into marriage, but in the long term that doesn't really matter. What matters most is that we both found the person that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives with, and I was (and am) content with that. My wife wanted to announce it to all her friends and family, and then have a party afterwards.

So, that's what we did. We had a very small ceremony with only about 23 people there. We all flew down to Key West for a week, hung out with friends and family, then got married in about five minutes by some nice lady we found online.

I guess the point to my ramblings is that being together does call for compromise. I got married because it is important to my wife. I will spend my life with her because I love her and she loves me - to me the marriage doesn't come into play, for her it does. You need to talk to each other more, and be very clear with not just what you want, by why you want it.

Good luck.

(On preview, in response to Triskadecamus: DON'T leave. You say you love this man - why the hell would you throw that away because of one disagreement? Don't waste what could be the rest of your life with a man who cares for you. Talk it over - many times - and think about it from his perspective and yours.

lezlers

05-17-2006, 02:34 PM

I'm not here to debate the merits of marriage. I get that some people don't see the point, and that's fine. However, I do see the point and badly want to get married. My position on that isn't going to change. If he truly does not want marriage, that's okay too, that means we want different things in life and should part ways. It'll break my heart because I am deeply in love with him, but I just can't give up my dream. Not yet.

For all of the "anti-marriage" posters asking me why I want to be married anyway and whether I want marriage more than him, it cuts both ways. Why wouldn't he want me more than he doesn't want marriage? Why am I being expected to throw out my dreams for the sake of staying with him? Why isn't he being expected to go against his beliefs for the sake of being with me?

I also like nycandia's advice, and it's what I've pretty much resolved myself to doing. It's the whole "not telling him" part that kills me though. I'm a big communicator and I don't think I could keep something this big to myself for the next year. It also doesn't seem fair to have a timeline in my head that he's unaware of. I've told him before that I want to at least be engaged by 30, but I don't want to spend the next two years wondering if I'm "waiting" to marry him or to leave him.

Sal Ammoniac

05-17-2006, 02:35 PM

Voyager

05-17-2006, 02:36 PM

Here's the thing.

Having a child with someone is 10 times the commitment of marrying them.

More than that. Unless you're a rat, having a kid with someone is a lifetime committment. If you get married, then divorce, and never see the person again, no big deal. If you leave a kid, you're a :wally .

In addition, and I'll probably get flack for this, having kids without being married is stupid. Not immoral, just stupid and immature. (I'm not talking about man as sperm donor here, I'm assuming a relationship.) If a guy is not committed to someone enough to be married, he's not committed enough to be a father.

You might ask him why he hates marriage so much? No benefit? There's benefit to you, clearly, and if he cares about you that should count for something.

As a guy, I can say that the stuff he is saying about marriage is automatic guy bullshit. Piece of paper? It's not the paper, or the ring, and certainly not the ceremony that's important. It's the willingness to take the next step. Nothing to worry about? That sounds more like a conman than a boyfriend. He might be scared, in which case you need to find out why, or he might not be all that interested in a truly long term relationship, in which case you should stop wasting your time. But you shouldn't accept pat Man Show answers from him any more.

Fish

05-17-2006, 02:45 PM

Male here. What I see is that you're presenting him with a compelling emotional argument, and he's giving you only intellect — you're not connecting. You probably aren't even having the same conversation.

Since he states there is no benefit to marriage, tell him there is one: it would make you happy. Ask him if he's okay with not making you happy.

astro

05-17-2006, 02:45 PM

As a 28 YO woman I think you'd better get the kid question answered before you worry too much about the marriage question. As a 33 YO man with one kid already he may be in no hurry to have more kids.

Beyond this take him seriously when he tells you is negative on the concept of marriage. Many women spend good chunk of time waiting or negotiating for a proposal that never comes, the relationship eventually ends and the ex (shockingly) get married almost immediately to the next girl he meets. One womans take on this was -

"It turns out when he said he didn't want to get married, what he really meant was that he didn't want to get married to me."

El Perro Fumando

05-17-2006, 02:46 PM

I know I'm not male, but let me offer something our minister said to us at our first premarital session (I'm marrying Only Mostly Dead next month):

When referring to a part of the ceremony he said (rough quote) "Basically the two of you are already married. Something has happened in your relationship at some point and neither of you would feel the same without the other person. You are already married. This part just announces it to the world for them to acknowledge what has already happened."

When you are seriously thinking about marriage, maybe present it as my minister said. And if your SO doesn't agree with the statement, then you need to discuss it further.

Bottom line: even now, talk to him. He's the only one that can tell you what he means.

Walloon

05-17-2006, 02:46 PM

A 50% failure rate is not indicative of success in anything.Cecil Adams: Is it true that half of all marriages end in divorce? (http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030124.html)

Acsenray

05-17-2006, 02:50 PM

One womans take on this was -

"It turns out when he said he didn't want to get married, what he really meant was that he didn't want to get married to me."

Wasn't that Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally ...?

Jodi

05-17-2006, 02:51 PM

Wow, I always feel apprehensive when I disagree with Tris, but I have to say I think his post is a little premature.

Lez, a lot of people are trying to tell you that marriage shouldn't in fact mean to you what it does mean to you -- that your reasons for wanting it and valuing it are antiquated or no longer valid. But that's not what you asked. The question was what to do with a guy who doesn't want to be married when you do.

It seems to me that you have to decide for yourself how important it is to you to be married, and to have children in a marriage. If you have decided in your heart that marriage is what you want and need, and that you are not willing to sustain a relationship that doesn't include that, or isn't moving towards that, then you owe it to your guy to let him know that. But where I disagree wiht Tris is that I don't think you leave right this minute. Instead, it seems to me to be reasonable to put some sort of timeframe on the decision making progress: "I want to be married. I hope you would want to marry me, or at least be willing to marry me, because I hope you want to be with me forever. You say that we haven't been together long enough for you to make that sort of decision -- okay. Let's give it six months [or a year or whatever] and then see how you feel." Then have the conversation is six months and, if he still says "I don't want to" or "it's too soon" or "I can't decide," then you have a decision to make for yourself: stay, or go. Setting a time for discussion will prevent the situation where you wake up 3 or 5 or 9 years later, still unmarried and unhappy about it. But key, IMO, is that between when you have the conversation setting the future discussion, and when you have the future discussion, you quit bringing it up or nagging him about it.

It's obvious why he would consider imposition of a deadline to be you putting pressure on him, because in a way you are. But it may help to think about it as you working towards your own goals in your own life, and you being entitled to know for sure if he's signing up for the program or not.

The only thing I think is not realistic about your concerns is your hope that he will be delighted to get married. He's clearly feeling ambivalent about the topic. At the end of the day, he may decide he would rather marry you than lose you, but that may be in spite of his feelings about marriage, not because of them. If he's willing to compromise to the extent of getting married, you may have to compromise to the extent of overlooking or ignoring the fact that he actually would prefer not to.

And while I agree with bup that law school is plenty stressful and therefore not the ideal time to be making life-changing decisions, where you are at in your relationship might well have a significant impact on what you do after law school -- what jobs you're willing to apply for, and where you're willing to move. First jobs post-lawschool are generally decided sometime during third year, so if you think your plans will be different if you are flying solo after graduation, that seems to me a pretty good reason to have this discussion now, not later.

Good luck! :)

Fat Chance

05-17-2006, 02:53 PM

Green Cymbeline

05-17-2006, 02:57 PM

I also like nycandia's advice, and it's what I've pretty much resolved myself to doing. It's the whole "not telling him" part that kills me though. I'm a big communicator and I don't think I could keep something this big to myself for the next year. It also doesn't seem fair to have a timeline in my head that he's unaware of. I've told him before that I want to at least be engaged by 30, but I don't want to spend the next two years wondering if I'm "waiting" to marry him or to leave him.

See, the not-telling-him part is crucial to avoid you having a suspicion that he was pressured in to it. If you tell him you have an internal "deadline," then he might feel pressured, and might resent that, and you will always wonder in the back of your mind whether he married you on his own volition, or because he perceived some sort of ultimatum. Telling him you have set a deadline looks too much like an ultimatium. It's imperative that you keep this to yourself for it to have any true value.

In my last relationship (the 9-year-one) I NEVER mentioned marriage, because I never wanted to be one of those girls (like so many of my friends and acquaintences) who pressured/pestered their guy into marrying them. I wanted it to be 100% my boyfriend's choice, or else it wouldn't feel right. By the end though I had set a private internal deadline, and in the end, we broke up before the deadline was up, so it turned out for the best.

What I have learned is that the "clock should start ticking" as soon as you are done with school and have started your career. I would say give it a year from the time you guys are done school and have gotten jobs. If he still hasn't acted within a year, then he's not worth one more mili-second of your time.

Acsenray

05-17-2006, 03:00 PM

I see at least a few of benefits to marriage:

- A declaration to family, friends, acquaintances, strangers, governments, the world that from henceforth, the two of us intent to operate as a social, financial, and legal unit and we want to be treated as such on all three levels. A declaration that any attempted interference with our status as a unit -- whether it is by someone who doesn't like one of us, or lusts after one of us -- will be condemned as a social crime.

- A declaration for our future children that our intention is to provide them with a secure home, support, and childhood.

- Signing up for a multitude of legal benefits that will help us help each other and will help us stay together as a unit, including inheritance rights, visitation rights, and travel rights. What if we want to go overseas? It is much easier to travel as a couple if you are married than if you are not.

- A commitment of confidence to each other that we cede to each other the right to make personal, legal, medical, social, financial, and other decision on each others' behalf.

- A commitment that we will not let temporary setbacks or brief emotional turns result in breaking up our household and relationship on a whim. It seems to me that the key comfort of someone holding on to not being married is "At any moment, I can decide to pick up and leave and I won't be faced with a big legal and financial problem."

And these are just the first few off the top of my head.

It's definitely not "just a piece of paper" or something that could just as easily be settled by a handshake.

And of course it could all go south, but that's a risk we take with most decisions in our lives. The key is the nature of our intent and good will.

Huerta88

05-17-2006, 03:11 PM

There are many things that bother me in this thread:

1) The idea of marriage as a goal or dream in life. I know many people like this. From the first date with someone they are weighing whether they are marriage material. As they get older they start to worry about when they will get married, and push significant others to commit. They don’t see the point in seeing anyone if they don’t feel they will marry them. I don’t get it. My goal is to be happy and enjoy life, both of which may or may not have anything to do with marriage. I also think that many of these people with this as a goal end up lost and depressed once they are married and have nothing else to strive for.
No guy wants to feel he is filling the "Okay, I want to get married, and it's about time, and here you are, so let's go" role. That's why my advice to her was to emphasize not her goal of "getting married" (which can make him feel like some kind of sperm donor or something), not her visions of the wedding, etc., but their reciprocal relationship and moving it to the next level because she really uniquely values his qualities and company and never wants to lose them.

2) Idea of marriage as proof of commitment. Its possible to be 100% commitment and caring without having to declare it to the world. What’s more important, having a partner you can trust, or forcing them to declare their love for you in front of family and friends? If you want to have a big party the honor yourselves, than just have one.
Cuts both ways. As others have noted, if the commitment is there anyway, how much does it hurt him to humor her desire for the "meaningless paper and party?"

3) The concept that marriage automatically equals a lifetime of enjoyment. I have always felt that marriage is also an artificial respirator for failed relationships. If my girlfriend stops loving me she moves out. We are all sad and there is some issue with what’s her’s and what’s mine, but there are no lawyers and fighting. Futher, if we were married and she stops loving me, how long would she stick around being unhappy, trying to make a marriage work? Would we just end up fighting and cheating for a long time? We both love each other and can see myself spending my life with her. But I am also realistic. People change, goals change. She may want something different, or I may want something different in 10 years, 20 years. It much easier to recognize that and move on if one doesn’t have the expectation and hardship of marriage overhead.
I was once in the Catch-22 situation that the GF kept picking fights with me, all the time, which (she claimed) were motivated by her desire to "know where the relationship was going." I answered her quite honestly that I couldn't see it going anywhere if she couldn't go two months without pitching a tremendous fit. She said it would be "totally different" if we were engaged or married, because "then there would be a Lifelong Commitment" because "Marriage Is A Beautiful Thing." She had a lot of maturity problems and was always searching for the Theory Of Everything (which when it wasn't "Marriage Is A Beautiful Thing And Will Solve Everything Because Of Commitment" was apt to be "Huerta Is The Cause Of All Life's Problems," but that's another story). I told her, unavailingly, that everything I had seen indicated to me that engaged or newlywed couples fought as much, and in the same way, as they did the day before they got engaged. Many women do hold out "Marriage" as a panacea to all life's and a relationship's discontents. This is not mature or realistic.

4) The idea that any relationship you have that doesn’t last forever is a waste. I dated a girl for 6 years. We were madly in love, and I had imagined marrying her. Eventually we grew apart, and decided to go our separate ways. It was sad. But, just because it didn’t last doesn’t mean I don’t value the fun, companionship, love, and learning that I got out of it. I can’t think of a better way to spend those 6 years. To me, it’s a much bigger waste of time trapping yourself in a relationship that you don’t want to be in anymore.
I decried this upthread and women who use the "waste" terminology are creating a false dichotomy based on the theory that their relationship with you cheated them out of the (hypothetical) relationship they could have been having with, say, Prince William, never contemplating that they might also have spent those 2 or 4 or however many years alone with their cats instead of being cosseted by you. It's not a very attractive or grateful way to summarize a meaningful if not lifelong relationship.

Muffin

05-17-2006, 03:12 PM

Being married will not cause a relationship to succeed. If a relationship fails, the parties will separate, whether they are married or not (unless they insist on living in a failed relationship simply because they were married). The terms of the separation will differ, depending on whether the couple were married or not. In that sense, a marriage is simply a package of contractual terms between the parties that also permits a couple to avail themselves to certain societal benefits.

Beyond the contractual aspect, I question whether getting formally married in in fact any more of a committment to a relationship than simply informally confirming with each other, on an ongoing basis by word and deed, that each is committed to the relationship.

Fat Chance

05-17-2006, 03:17 PM

I see at least a few of benefits to marriage:

- A declaration to family, friends, acquaintances, strangers, governments, the world that from henceforth, the two of us intent to operate as a social, financial, and legal unit and we want to be treated as such on all three levels. A declaration that any attempted interference with our status as a unit -- whether it is by someone who doesn't like one of us, or lusts after one of us -- will be condemned as a social crime.

I just don't feel the need to announce or prove my feeling toward someone to all these people.

- A declaration for our future children that our intention is to provide them with a secure home, support, and childhood..

I admit my feelings could perhaps shift if I decided I wanted kids

- Signing up for a multitude of legal benefits that will help us help each other and will help us stay together as a unit, including inheritance rights, visitation rights, and travel rights. What if we want to go overseas? It is much easier to travel as a couple if you are married than if you are not...

Some advantages, I guess. Bt some are reaching - traveling overseas?

- A commitment that we will not let temporary setbacks or brief emotional turns result in breaking up our household and relationship on a whim.

I don't need to be married to have the maturity to not let brief fights or setbacks ruin an otherwise good relationship.

It seems to me that the key comfort of someone holding on to not being married is "At any moment, I can decide to pick up and leave and I won't be faced with a big legal and financial problem."

For me its maybe a very little bit of that, but more so a "If anything changes between us I know that the facts of being married - the legal, emotional, social, aspects of being married - won't stop us from doing what makes us happy even if its a tough decision."

Its not the number of marriages that end in divorce. Its the ones that should but don't, or don't soon enough.

Green Cymbeline

05-17-2006, 03:21 PM

This has always surprised me -- women in particular, despite their claims to be the "relationship" and "love" experts, are shockingly ready to discount everything about a relationship that previously had them over the moon when it becomes clear it isn't going to work out, permanently. The word "wasted," in particular, comes up a lot in female conversations about exes, less so in male descriptions, IME.

Now, in your case -- I don't know, maybe this guy was bad news, mean, abusive, not caring, such that the nine years really was a "waste." But assuming (again, I have no way of knowing) that part of the reason you stuck around for nine years was not just because you wanted his DNA and legally-binding support, but because he was being kind, funny, thoughtful, and you had great fun together. Isn't it a bit cold to summarize that (if it was true for you, as it has been for some women I've heard make a similar complaint) as a "waste?" And while some guys may out and out lie (e.g., saying they will definitely marry you while having no intention of doing so, ever), I suspect the much greater majority are thinking "I'm not ready now, but I think I could be, someday . . . ."

Again, nyctea, I don't mean this as a bash, it just struck a chord because I've heard other women say similar things.
I know this is off-topic but I will try to answer Huerta88's question.

As to why I consider it a "waste:" Well yes we had many many good times and I loved him very much. He is a very good person, but in the end he had kind of an identity crisis and needed to be on his own to figure out what to do with himself.

The first 5 years of our relationship we were in college. After that we were in the finding-jobs, establishing-careers-mode. Then we moved in together and lived together for a year and a half. I always knew I loved him, and I was sure after living together that I wanted him to be my life-partner. But when time kept ticking by, and we didn't move forward, and no true committment was made, I decided he needed to "shit or get off the pot," so to say. I never told him this, because if he knew that I had an internal deadline whatever his reaction would have been would be a tainted one.

In the end, when it didn't work out, I looked back on all those years and felt they had been wasted. Why? Well many reasons. I spent the entirety of college with him; who knows how many other people I could have known or experiences I could have had in that time? These were my early- and mid-20s, I was in the prime of my social life and was looking my best and meeting a lot of people, none of whom I ever had a chance to date because I was already taken. Who knows if one of those potential relationships could have worked out, and I could be happy, committed and stable now? But no, I gave up on many other opportunities to invest in our relationship, in the hopes that it would be a lasting one, and all that investment went to waste.

All those years went by and what do I have to show for it? Memories, some good, some bad, but also a lot of sadness, regret and bitterness. **

When it really comes down to, at least largely for women, is that we only have so many years that we can have a family. After 30, your fertility rates go down, and after 40, chances of birth defects and infertility go way up. So yeah, each year that goes by that we don't settle down is a year less that we have to reproduce. we don't have the luxury of biding our time.

** Footnote: ironically enough, about 3 years after we broke up, he showed up again saying that letting me go was the biggest mistake he ever made, and he would do anything to get me back, and he still loved me, blah blah blah. Well not only was I in a new and wonderful relationship, but I was finally over him. While I still cared for him a great deal, the romantic love was completely gone.

bup

05-17-2006, 03:27 PM

Almost precisely the words that sent me screaming, even though I was crazy about her(with all due respect to you and your wife, and meaning no ill-will whatsoever to the future of your relationship)

And this is a bad thing, why?Because it came so close to meaning that we would not spend the rest of our lives together, when I see now that it's a great thing. It came so close, in fact, that I would guess if we went through the same thing 100 times, more than 90 of those times we'd never have ended up back together.

lez, he told you you have nothing to worry about. Law school is damned stressful. At least don't do anything until you can see from a less-crazy perspective.

Green Cymbeline

05-17-2006, 03:34 PM

What it really comes down to is this: No self-respecting woman who wants committment and a family should stay a relationship with a guy who isn't willing to commit. The time you spend hemming and hawing, waiting around hoping he will want to commit would be better spent out "on the market," trying to meet someone who truly appreciated you and wants to be committed to you.

On a side note, I am 30 and recently have started to feel a little embarassed referring to my "boyfriend," when many/most people I know my age and younger are referring to their "husband" or "wife." You begin to wonder, OK why is it that all these other people found mates who are willing to commit? What is wrong with me? Maybe irrational, but a totally understandable feeling.

Fat Chance

05-17-2006, 03:34 PM

Cuts both ways. As others have noted, if the commitment is there anyway, how much does it hurt him to humor her desire for the "meaningless paper and party?"
.

But to me its not "meaningless paper in party." I am actually of the opinion that marriage is actually a negative not a neutral.

Because instead of looking at my girlfiend (and her at me) everyday knowing that there is nothing keeping her here with me but the love and fun we have, even after a fight, is so much better than looking at my wife (and her at me) and wondering if the only reason she is still here is because of the fact that we are married and she feels she should be.

2 anecdotes:

1 - A friend of mine was dating a guy for about a year. They started talking marriage and looked at rings. All she had ever talked about for years was how marriage was her dream and her goal. But then she started telling her close friends how she wasn't sure about this guy anymore, how the magic had faded, how she didn't know if she really loved him that much. Eventually she broke up with him. I have no doubt that if he asked her to marry him a few months earlier she would have said yes, planned the wedding and lived several misearable years with him after.

2 - Another friend who's GF gave him the ultimatem of marriage or breakup. He married her, because he didn't want it all to have been a waste and to avoid being alone. He admits it now, its been a few years and he is very unhappy. His entire lust for life is gone. He looks and acts beaten and defeated. He says heis pretty sure if they had not gotten married he would have broken up with eventually.

Acsenray

05-17-2006, 03:37 PM

There are already hints of this thread developing into a Mars/Venus "men be this," "women be this" thingy, so I'm going to respond to Fat Chance with the caption that I am a man who believes that marriage has benefits, and reflects a stronger, more serious type of commitment than a non-marital relationship.

1) The idea of marriage as a goal or dream in life. I know many people like this. From the first date with someone they are weighing whether they are marriage material.

I have an idea of the type of person that you are thinking of, the stereotypical M.R.S. degree seeker who has been planning her wedding since the age of 8 and spends every waking minute worrying about getting married.

But let me describe myself as a person that has always wanted -- at some point in my life -- to be married. I see it as a desirable, essential part of my life. It provides me a home base for operating in the world, professionally, socially, financially, emotionally, and otherwise. I have a need for my "home" to be a stable, secure, refuge.

2) Idea of marriage as proof of commitment. Its possible to be 100% commitment and caring without having to declare it to the world. What’s more important, having a partner you can trust, or forcing them to declare their love for you in front of family and friends? If you want to have a big party the honor yourselves, than just have one.

Yes, it might be possible, but so what? In general, public acknowledgement of an increasing level on a social level is required at all levels of seriousness of a relationship? What did you think of the guy in junior high who would like to hang out with the girl but would speak to her in public? The guy in high school who would kiss the girl when they were alone, but would pretend not to know her otherwise? The guy in college who would sleep with the girl, but wouldn't introduce her to others as his girlfriend?

Public acknowledgement and declaration is hard and it's scary and it can be embarrassing. That's part of what makes it significant and serious. It's asking the world to treat the two of you differently than they would otherwise.

The concept that marriage automatically equals a lifetime of enjoyment.

Who believes that? I mean, seriously?

If my girlfriend stops loving me she moves out. We are all sad and there is some issue with what’s her’s and what’s mine, but there are no lawyers and fighting. ... It much easier to recognize that and move on if one doesn’t have the expectation and hardship of marriage overhead.

Bigger risks can come with bigger potential rewards.

But, just because it didn’t last doesn’t mean I don’t value the fun, companionship, love, and learning that I got out of it. I can’t think of a better way to spend those 6 years.

Do you know anyone who has spent not six years, but 30, 40, 50 years together? Many of them end up with more than fond memories of a few fun nights at a bar and a handful of nice screws. And you can bet that few of them got that far without riding through some major crises when they could have walked away from it to save themselves some pain.

Walloon

05-17-2006, 03:47 PM

From CNN (http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/07/24/cdc.marriagereport/index.html), 2002:The CDC's National Center for Health Statistics report also compared the success rates for marriage and pre-marital cohabitation.

It found that the probability of a first marriage ending in separation or divorce within five years is 20 percent, compared with the 49 percent probability of a pre-marital cohabitation breaking up within the same time period.

After 10 years, the study found, a first marriage has a 33 percent chance of ending compared with a 62 percent chance for cohabitations.The report (PDF): Cohabitation, Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage in the United States (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_23/sr23_022.pdf).

Fat Chance

05-17-2006, 03:51 PM

I have an idea of the type of person that you are thinking of, the stereotypical M.R.S. degree seeker who has been planning her wedding since the age of 8 and spends every waking minute worrying about getting married.

But let me describe myself as a person that has always wanted -- at some point in my life -- to be married. I see it as a desirable, essential part of my life. It provides me a home base for operating in the world, professionally, socially, financially, emotionally, and otherwise. I have a need for my "home" to be a stable, secure, refuge..

Fair enough. But some people don't need that or have it as a goal, and it doesn't mean they can't be committed loving people. To relate this back to the OP, just because he doesn't need marriage the way you do, doesn't mean he is scared or uncommitted or anything.

Yes, it might be possible, but so what? In general, public acknowledgement of an increasing level on a social level is required at all levels of seriousness of a relationship? What did you think of the guy in junior high who would like to hang out with the girl but would speak to her in public? The guy in high school who would kiss the girl when they were alone, but would pretend not to know her otherwise? The guy in college who would sleep with the girl, but wouldn't introduce her to others as his girlfriend?

There is a big difference between hiding your relationship and just not putting it on display.

Who believes that? I mean, seriously?

Huerta's ex-GF for one. I've known others, maybe not to the extent I described it, but surely in the "Once I have a family and a husband and a nice house, I'll be happy." kind of way.

Bigger risks can come with bigger potential rewards.

What are the bigger rewards?

Do you know anyone who has spent not six years, but 30, 40, 50 years together? Many of them end up with more than fond memories of a few fun nights at a bar and a handful of nice screws. And you can bet that few of them got that far without riding through some major crises when they could have walked away from it to save themselves some pain.

Not sure what your point is here. I was talking about calling something a "Waste" just because it didn't last forever. Not sure what your response is supposed to mean.

Huerta88

05-17-2006, 03:54 PM

On a side note, I am 30 and recently have started to feel a little embarassed referring to my "boyfriend," when many/most people I know my age and younger are referring to their "husband" or "wife." You begin to wonder, OK why is it that all these other people found mates who are willing to commit? What is wrong with me? Maybe irrational, but a totally understandable feeling.
Free advice to the ladies, to be added to my above script:

Do not ever admit, say, hint, or give reason for it to be inferred, that this has anything to do with your eagerness to be married.

No man alive will react positively, and most will react very negatively indeed, to anything that sounds like (or that they think sounds like) "I need to get married [incidentally, to you, I guess, because time's running short] so my friends/family won't think I'm a loser." Men do not want to be viewed as accessories or social proof. Men think that women are herd creatures and do not view a herd impulse as in any way a legitimate reason for them to alter their thought process. Men think women tend to accessorize and no man really wants to be the Ken doll who keeps Barbie from being dissed by those other biatches.

I know it's natural to feel this way, but just as your b.f. has to be discreet in not speaking (or acting on) his desire to bone the barmaid at his favorite pub, you need to keep this particular factor tightly under wraps.

YMMV, but I doubt it -- this is one of the factors (the Bridezilla Princess wedding is probably the only one that's mentioned as frequently) that guys talk about with true anger and scorn when they discuss "Yeah, my GF's giving me a hard time about getting married, just because all her shallow friends are" over beers. There's some legitimacy to this view, because implicit in the "peer pressure" position by the girl is "You know, I wouldn't be so into you if my other friends weren't getting married." Not so flattering.

Fat Chance

05-17-2006, 03:55 PM

As to why I consider it a "waste:" Well yes we had many many good times and I loved him very much. He is a very good person, but in the end he had kind of an identity crisis and needed to be on his own to figure out what to do with himself.

The first 5 years of our relationship we were in college. After that we were in the finding-jobs, establishing-careers-mode. Then we moved in together and lived together for a year and a half. I always knew I loved him, and I was sure after living together that I wanted him to be my life-partner. But when time kept ticking by, and we didn't move forward, and no true committment was made, I decided he needed to "shit or get off the pot," so to say. I never told him this, because if he knew that I had an internal deadline whatever his reaction would have been would be a tainted one.

In the end, when it didn't work out, I looked back on all those years and felt they had been wasted. Why? Well many reasons. I spent the entirety of college with him; who knows how many other people I could have known or experiences I could have had in that time? These were my early- and mid-20s, I was in the prime of my social life and was looking my best and meeting a lot of people, none of whom I ever had a chance to date because I was already taken. Who knows if one of those potential relationships could have worked out, and I could be happy, committed and stable now? But no, I gave up on many other opportunities to invest in our relationship, in the hopes that it would be a lasting one, and all that investment went to waste.

All those years went by and what do I have to show for it? Memories, some good, some bad, but also a lot of sadness, regret and bitterness. **

That might be the saddest most messed up thing I have read. To think that everything that doesn't last forever or work or perfectly is a waste is a terrible way to live.

Green Cymbeline

05-17-2006, 04:26 PM

That might be the saddest most messed up thing I have read. To think that everything that doesn't last forever or work or perfectly is a waste is a terrible way to live.
You may think it's sad, but to me, it's just being realistic and honest. To me, what's sad is that the relationship ended the way it did, with a lot of hurt on both ends.

lezlers

05-17-2006, 04:50 PM

eleanorigby

05-17-2006, 05:01 PM

And kudos to you for your honesty--I feel the same way about my marriage, which is on life support and soon to be removed even from that....

I cannot write off all the years as a "waste"--I have 3 healthy, reasonably happy children. I can say I learned alot.

What is lacking (and has been since early on) is a sharing of lives, of day to day trials and triumphs, a sense of camraderie and fellowship --heck, friendship. No, he wasn't like that when I married him, although looking back, I can now see signs that I couldn't or didn't read at 24 (which is too damned young to get married).

There is a part of me that has been wasted on a person who does not love me, and most likely does not even like me. Christ yes, that is a waste--of me. Not to be excruciatingly obvious, but this is not a dress rehearsal. Yes, I chose badly--and I live with those consequences every day. To now be castigated for labelling that a "waste" is a bit much. I could have been doing all manner of things, but for him. Harsh? You bet-but honest.

It is incredibly hard to dance alone when you want a partner. I've tried it for 18 years now--I am done.

to the OP: I say give him (in your head) one calendar year. And if he is still of the same mind, then it is time for you to move on--to the future that is important to YOU. A clarifying talk (just one) as delineated above would be good, as well.

Never, NEVER think he'll change after marriage, or it'll "get better" or "that won't happen to us"--it all will and then where will you be? Maybe with a resentful, pressured spouse. Don't waste your life--don't lose today by betting on tomorrow.

you with the face

05-17-2006, 05:04 PM

That might be the saddest most messed up thing I have read. To think that everything that doesn't last forever or work or perfectly is a waste is a terrible way to live.

I think you don't understand nyctea's view towards "waste" because you may be more of a live-in-the-moment type of feller. That kind of outlook allows you to not see every relationship and experience as a road to a particular destination, which is fine, for you. For someone who is goal-oriented and who has their eyes on the horizon and not just on the ground in front of them, investing a lot of time into someone becomes a disppointment if the experience doesn't bring them closer to their goals in life. There's nothing with that. Not everyone wants to be in their late 30s and 40s still roaming the streets for a hook-up.

For me, I can argue both sides of the marriage debate. I recently ended a 2 year relationship with someone whom I loved and had hoped to marry, but things didn't work out. We broke up. Surprisingly, though, I'm not all that upset about it because I don't view that experience as a waste at all. I'm not a live-in-the-moment person but when it comes to relationships, I'm not extremely goal-oriented either. I'm somewhere in between. If kids were not a goal of mind, the whole marriage thing would probably rate at the bottom of my priorities.

To lezlers, I think you already know what you should do. Make sure he knows where you stand and if he loves you, he will give you what you want. I like the idea of the two of you sitting down and having a open discussion about it, and then agreeing to rediscuss it in 6 or so months. For now, try not to stress. Whatever will be, will be.

dangermom

05-17-2006, 05:07 PM

Can't post too long righ tnow (at work, eek!), but I just wanted to say really quickly, this is EXACTLY how I am feeling right now.
I can't remember ever agreeing with nyctea in my life before, but I do agree with that.

lezlers

05-17-2006, 05:07 PM

What I have learned is that the "clock should start ticking" as soon as you are done with school and have started your career. I would say give it a year from the time you guys are done school and have gotten jobs. If he still hasn't acted within a year, then he's not worth one more mili-second of your time.

This, however, I can't do. We graduate next May. After that, we take the bar. We're taking the bar at separate times (I'm taking it in July, he's doing it in Feb) so one of us can pay the bill while the other studies. By the time that's done and we both find jobs, a good 2 to 3 years (from now) will likely have passed. I'm not willing to wait that long before even starting the clock.

And for the poster who asked about my relationship with his daughter on the first page, we get along wonderfully. In fact, because he works weekends, when she visits us she ends up spending more time with me than with him. Everything is all good with us. She's actually asked me if we're ever going to get married. :eek:

Green Cymbeline

05-17-2006, 05:11 PM

Can't post too long righ tnow (at work, eek!), but I just wanted to say really quickly, this is EXACTLY how I am feeling right now.
I know the feeling well!

Some have said above (see quote below) that you shuldn't feel this way because you shouldn't care what others think, etc. But for me, it's not that I care what others think. I care because of what I think. I feel embarassed that I'm a grown 30-year old woman and I have a boyfriend. Get it? It makes me feel like something is very wrong with me or with my partner that many/most people our age feel it is a natural and normal part of life to find a mate and settle down and they WANT to do it, yet in my life, it's such a foreign distant concept...

Most anyone would feel worried if they felt something was very wrong or abnormal in their life.

Do not ever admit, say, hint, or give reason for it to be inferred, that this has anything to do with your eagerness to be married.

No man alive will react positively, and most will react very negatively indeed, to anything that sounds like (or that they think sounds like) "I need to get married [incidentally, to you, I guess, because time's running short] so my friends/family won't think I'm a loser." Men do not want to be viewed as accessories or social proof.

By the way, whereas men don't want to be viewed as accessories, or whatever, women do not want to feel like they are being used as a warm body to screw until something else better comes along that is good enough for them to want to settle down. Women don't have the luxury of biding their time. Unlike men like Sean Connery, Harrison Ford, etc. women in their late 40s and 50s aren't really considered "hot" in our society (with a very few rare examples).

Huerta88

05-17-2006, 05:12 PM

Can't post too long righ tnow (at work, eek!), but I just wanted to say really quickly, this is EXACTLY how I am feeling right now.
And that is fair. Just remember that for most men, including I venture yours, there is a shocking (to you) lack of corellation between friends getting married and family members asking them about marriage, and the desire/need to get married (or, think of it backwards; the thought of getting married might never cross his mind, but then, after every single one of his friends is hitched and seems to be happy, he may say, well, I guess it can't be that bad, oh, all right).

Her: Oh, look, all my friends are getting married, they're so happy.
Him: That's nice. But what on Earth does that have to do with us?

Both are being sincere. Neither's impulse/thought process is "illegitimate" because in both cases they are borne of hardwired and socially-programmed imperatives/algorithms that have respective benefits for them (and society). Little boys do not, ever, grow up dreaming of their wedding. Little girls usually do. So, you get what we have here.

The tricky part is distinguishing between the "natural" reluctance and the "this is a serious problem, he's never going to give me what I want" reluctance.

Risha

05-17-2006, 05:20 PM

Originally Posted by nyctea scandiaca

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fat Chance
That might be the saddest most messed up thing I have read. To think that everything that doesn't last forever or work or perfectly is a waste is a terrible way to live.

You may think it's sad, but to me, it's just being realistic and honest. To me, what's sad is that the relationship ended the way it did, with a lot of hurt on both ends.I understand why you're saying what you're saying, Fat Chance, but I think that nyctea scandiaca's position is an honest one, and she doesn't deserve scorn for it. She wanted to get married to this man. It's something that she values, is important to her. He didn't want to marry her. So she gained something from those years, but ultimately not enough to make up for what he refused to give her. Not only did she not receive what she valued most from him, but he actively took away the possibility of her getting it from someone else.

I've noticed that women are more prone to this sort of zero-sum analysis then men are.

I'm married and about to turn 30. My biological clock has been ticking for a couple of years, but my husband wants to wait until we're out of debt (which I've reluctantly conceeded to be a reasonable position). He's well aware of how important children are to me, though. I've agreed not to bring it up again for another year, but I'm agonizingly aware of my failing fertility. If he came to me at the end of this year and told me that he decided that he never wanted children, that would be a betrayal of massive proportions - not only preventing me from having children with him, the man I love, but also probably preventing me from ever having them at all. In such a situation, I would consider those years a waste as well. Not to mention I would want to beat the s*** out of him.

S***, I just terrified myself. He wouldn't do that to me, he wouldn't do that to me...

lezlers

05-17-2006, 05:21 PM

The tricky part is distinguishing between the "natural" reluctance and the "this is a serious problem, he's never going to give me what I want" reluctance.

And this is my problem and the reason I started this thread.

Green Cymbeline

05-17-2006, 05:23 PM

This, however, I can't do. We graduate next May. After that, we take the bar. We're taking the bar at separate times (I'm taking it in July, he's doing it in Feb) so one of us can pay the bill while the other studies. By the time that's done and we both find jobs, a good 2 to 3 years (from now) will likely have passed. I'm not willing to wait that long before even starting the clock.

That's a toughie. I would give to you the same advice I gave to my dearest cousin...

She is in her mid-20s and dating a guy for over 2 years now. It was long-distance, Virginia-to-England for one and a half of those years. She recently moved to England to live with him on a 6-month visa, but unless she finds a real job that will sponsor her (which is much harder than you think), she will have to leave after 6 months...

They are getting along wonderfully, and seem to be in love, but as the 6 months draws to an end, the only way she will be able to stay is if they get married. But he is dragging his feet. He doesn't know "if he is ready." She says if she has to move back to the US and start doing the transatlantic thing again, she'll have to end it.

I told her, you have been with this guy over 2 years, you moved to England for him... if he really loves you and wants to be with you, he will marry you. If not, then move on! Don't waste any more of your time and effort. If the guy can't make a decision after more than 2 years, then he's not worth dedicating yourself to.

It's a terribly hard situation, but I just wish I had ended my relationship years earlier, instead of wating for the committment that never came. In the long run, it would have been so much easier on me.

bup

05-17-2006, 05:25 PM

I told him a little while ago that I wasn't expecting it to happen anytime soon but if he honestly had no intentions of ever getting married I deserved to know... To this, he replied I had nothing (he stressed the word, not me) to worry about.

...he was with his ex for a very long time and never married her, no matter how much she pressured him. To this, he replied that he knew it would never work between them, he was together with her for those years because they had a child and that our relationship is different.Do you trust him? If not, it'll never work anyway. If you do, he's already answered you.

BTW, try not to read the google ads below this thread. ;)

Huerta88

05-17-2006, 05:25 PM

By the way, whereas men don't want to be viewed as accessories, or whatever, women do not want to feel like they are being used as a warm body to screw until something else better comes along that is good enough for them to want to settle down. Women don't have the luxury of biding their time. Unlike men like Sean Connery, Harrison Ford, etc. women in their late 40s and 50s aren't really considered "hot" in our society (with a very few rare examples).
Fair enough. To continue along the lines/generalizations you rightly note about biological imperatives/shelf life issues -- it is a structural problem in the dating/mating marketplace that (very broadly speaking) the qualities that give women power and options (youth, fertility, looks) come to them young, and the qualities that give men power and desirability (authority, confidence, career success) come to them later. I know a lot of 30 year old women whose attitude is: Well, the last fifteen years of being belle of the ball has been fun, but now it's time for serious stuff. And the 30 year old guys are saying: Man, my career's finally taking off, I know how to not come across as a callow youth -- finally, I've got some options with the hot young chicks who wanted nothing to do with me when I was a lowly social retard grad student!

The human condition, in all its tragic splendor.

Tastes of Chocolate

05-17-2006, 05:26 PM

I am part of a circle of friends that have stayed close in the nearly 20 years since college. Of the entire group, the most well-adjusted, longest-lasting, domestically stable couple is the couple who are not actually married. They have owned many homes together, have moved from city to city together, and would be what I would hold up as a wonderful example of a married couple -- except that they're not legally married.

Chalk this date up on your calendar. It's probably the only time you will ever see me called stable and well-adjusted. I'm the friend that mrklitz is talking about. My SO and I have been living together for 13 and a half years now. We've been through all the kinds of things that long-term partners go through. Most of our neighbors and co-workers assume we are married.

Why aren't we married? It's never been a big deal for us. While there has been lots of pressure from my parents to get married, neither one of us sees it as a big deal. We know we are committed to each other. We don't need someone else to say some magic words to make it so. Signing a piece of paper won't change how we feel about each other. There just hasn't been a benefit to getting married (other then getting to throw a party for our friends). Heck, at this point, I'm not convinced that seperating would even be any easier without a marriage. After several mortgages, shared bank accounts, common stock holdings and listing each other as beneficiaries, it would probably take as much work as a divorce.

So I can see where your boyfriend is coming from. For some people it is true. A marriage license really is just a piece of paper.

I also don't understand the "I've wasted the last 10 years" attitude. Even if my SO and I broke up today, I wouldn't have wasted those years. We have had a wonderful time together, and nothing will change that. To say that time was wasted, implies that you spent that time waiting for something else to happen, not living/enjoying what you have.

Green Cymbeline

05-17-2006, 05:32 PM

I understand why you're saying what you're saying, Fat Chance, but I think that nyctea scandiaca's position is an honest one, and she doesn't deserve scorn for it. She wanted to get married to this man. It's something that she values, is important to her. He didn't want to marry her. So she gained something from those years, but ultimately not enough to make up for what he refused to give her. Not only did she not receive what she valued most from him, but he actively took away the possibility of her getting it from someone else.

I've noticed that women are more prone to this sort of zero-sum analysis then men are.

I'm married and about to turn 30. My biological clock has been ticking for a couple of years, but my husband wants to wait until we're out of debt (which I've reluctantly conceeded to be a reasonable position). He's well aware of how important children are to me, though. I've agreed not to bring it up again for another year, but I'm agonizingly aware of my failing fertility. If he came to me at the end of this year and told me that he decided that he never wanted children, that would be a betrayal of massive proportions - not only preventing me from having children with him, the man I love, but also probably preventing me from ever having them at all. In such a situation, I would consider those years a waste as well. Not to mention I would want to beat the s*** out of him.

S***, I just terrified myself. He wouldn't do that to me, he wouldn't do that to me...
Wow, thank you so much for understanding and putting it so eloquently, Risha.

I think the major disconnect between men and women is twofold:

(1) Women naturally want to feel secure and settled-down. Probably has some sort of evolutionary advantage since women are the main caretakers of children, and being secure and settled increases the chances of the offspring surviving.

Men have a tendency to want to wander around, "spreading their seed," so to speak.

(2) Women only have so many childbearing years. Like it or not, it's a fact. As men hem and haw the years away, biding their time deciding if they want to commit or not, our ovaries and egg cells are getting older and older and less viable.

I don't want to end up childless someday and look back at the years I spent with my ex and think I could have met someone else in that time who would have married me and given me children. You only live once, you only get one chance. Time is limited. Sucks, but it's just reality.

Triskadecamus

05-17-2006, 05:49 PM

I know everyone thinks my "just leave" is some expression of vengeance, or extortion. The reason I said just leave is to make it clear that that was not the intent.

He might decide that you leaving was not what he wanted. But, do you really want to "convince" someone to marry you? Do you want to be the member of this relationship who sets the limits, and defines the priorities? Would you prefer a relationship of equals?

Just leave. Don't slam the door, or make him your ex. Let him know why you are giving up a relationship you wanted, and still value. You want a marriage. He doesn't. You don't want to blackmail him into a marriage, because that won't give either of you what you want. If he decides after you leave that he was wrong, and he does want a marriage, then you both get to consider if that is what you want together, and as equals.

You are a person. You are not just a woman looking for a husband. You want a marriage, not a husband. It isn't settling, or coercing. Finding a marriage is not likely if you continue to play house with someone who doesn't want a marriage. I should make that stronger, finding a marriage is never going to happen until you find someone who wants to be your partner in a marriage. Leaving this relationship does not prevent that same man from discovering that he does in fact want that same thing. But it does not make you the one in charge of defining the relationship. You look for what you want in the world. So does he.

It is blunt. It is not harsh. Just leave.

Tris

lezlers

05-17-2006, 06:05 PM

It's a terribly hard situation, but I just wish I had ended my relationship years earlier, instead of wating for the committment that never came. In the long run, it would have been so much easier on me.

Yup. That's why I'm so obsessive over it now. I think it would be easier on me to leave within the next year, then to wait for 2 or 5 or however many else before I finally get fed up.

Tris, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to leave him. Like I said before, I'm deeply in love with this man and love living with him. I'm not willing to walk away without at least giving him an opportunity to give me what I need.

Tastes of Chocolate, again, I'm not here to debate the merits of marriage. It's something I want and need and that's not going to change.

Fish

05-17-2006, 06:18 PM

(1) Women naturally want to feel secure and settled-down. ...
Men have a tendency to want to wander around, "spreading their seed," so to speak.
I would just like to say that these stereotypes are responsible for enough broken marriages without perpetuating them. Men sometimes use this as an excuse to cheat, and say "I can't help it!"; women can use this as an excuse to cheat and claim that "you made me do it." That doesn't mean the stereotype is true.

Men are not inherently unfaithful any more than women are naturally or inherently pristine good little girls who never think about anyone other than their husbands.

Both men and women both have a natural tendency to wander in a relationship when they aren't satisfied. Both men and women can resist the temptation if they desire.

They just aren't satisfied by the same things, that's all.

Linty Fresh

05-17-2006, 06:25 PM

My theory is that most men know almost immediately whether they want to marry a particular person.

Couldn't disagree with you more. I had to think long and hard before I married Mrs. Fresh. I made the right decision in marrying her, but saying that I knew from the beginning that I wanted to marry her would be a huge exaggeration. Don't get me wrong, I was--and am--crazy about her, but that whole commitment thing threw me for a loop. It took a couple of years to make up my mind

Along those lines, I see opinions all across the spectrum here, and I think there's a good reason for that. lezler's boyfriend's statements and actions can be interpreted in a variety of ways through a variety of viewpoints. We simply don't have enough information about the guy to offer constructive advice.

Hell, I said pretty much the same thing to Mrs. Fresh regarding marriage. I said that I didn't believe in it, that I wasn't ready for it, that I'd never be mature enough. I joked about never getting married all the time with her. Less than three years after that spiel, we were engaged. Of course, I do know guys who said that and didn't get married, so it works both ways.

I guess I can't offer much advice, because I find the whole situation pretty murky with the information given, but I feel I should mention this from the perspective of a guy: Be careful about pushing him. If you must give him an ultimatum, do it straightforward and up front. Note that many guys (myself included) consider the ultimatum in and of itself the immediate death knell of the relationship, so be prepared to say goodbye.

(Note that nothing you've posted in here or anything else suggests that you need the following warning, lezlers, but I feel I should give it to you, because I consider it important.)

Whatever you do, don't try to manipulate him or trick him into doing anything he doesn't really want to do. Don't try any shit you see in a Joan Collins movie. If you're lucky, it'll fail and he'll just walk away from the relationship. If you're unlucky, you will quickly find yourself in an unhappy marriage to a very resentful husband.

Linty Fresh

05-17-2006, 06:27 PM

Whoops, forgot to mention that I've been happily married for the past 8 years. :)

lezlers

05-17-2006, 06:40 PM

To lezlers, I think you already know what you should do. Make sure he knows where you stand and if he loves you, he will give you what you want. I like the idea of the two of you sitting down and having a open discussion about it, and then agreeing to rediscuss it in 6 or so months. For now, try not to stress. Whatever will be, will be.

I like the idea as well. So far, our conversations on the topic (after he makes some comment, I never bring it up), have consisted of me saying very carefully as to not scare him off, "you know you're gonna have to marry me someday if you want to keep me" and him giving a heavy sigh and replying "It hasn't been that long, relax." Then I get all paranoid that I'm being pushy and don't say anything else. He'll then periodically make comments about how he sees no benefit in marriage, that it's just a piece of paper and he thinks 40 is a good age, if ever (knowing full well I am NOT waiting 7 years) and that there's no difference between what we have now and being married. Then, whenever anyone asks him about it in front of me, he turns white as a sheet. And lets not forget about how bummed out he gets whenever another one of his freinds gets engaged or married (3 of them in the time we've been together.) It's like, he'll make comments meant to lead me to believe we're going to eventually get married to keep me placated until the next time I get antsy.

So, I obviously need to do something different. Perhaps not letting him weasle out of another conversation about the topic with his "relax" routine. Thing is, he seems to be answering my questions (i.e. "relax"), but at the same time, not really answering them(with the anti-marriage comments). He teases me all the time and I can't quite figure out how much of it is teasing and how much of it is serious.

lezlers

05-17-2006, 06:54 PM

Forgot to add, he knows full well where I stand on the issue. I just don't know where he stands, if he intends on marrying me eventually and is just not ready yet, or if he doesn't want to get married at all and is just trying to hold onto me as long as he can or hopes to eventually change my mind on the topic.

Triskadecamus

05-17-2006, 06:56 PM

[QUOTE=lezlers]Tris, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to leave him. Like I said before, I'm deeply in love with this man and love living with him. I'm not willing to walk away without at least giving him an opportunity to give me what I need.
[QUOTE]Don't be sorry. I hope you get what you need. Blessings to you both.

Tris

Green Cymbeline

05-17-2006, 07:00 PM

I would just like to say that these stereotypes are responsible for enough broken marriages without perpetuating them. Men sometimes use this as an excuse to cheat, and say "I can't help it!"; women can use this as an excuse to cheat and claim that "you made me do it." That doesn't mean the stereotype is true.

Men are not inherently unfaithful any more than women are naturally or inherently pristine good little girls who never think about anyone other than their husbands.

Both men and women both have a natural tendency to wander in a relationship when they aren't satisfied. Both men and women can resist the temptation if they desire.

They just aren't satisfied by the same things, that's all.

What I said was an attempt to explain what Huerta88 said here:
Neither's impulse/thought process is "illegitimate" because in both cases they are borne of hardwired and socially-programmed imperatives/algorithms that have respective benefits for them (and society). Little boys do not, ever, grow up dreaming of their wedding. Little girls usually do. So, you get what we have here.

Ok, why is it that girls grow up dreaming of being married and boys don't?

I theorized that it's somehow ingrained in us by evolution... Women are more likely to desire marriage because women have more of a tendency to want to settle down and be in a stable situation... it's been more advantageous to them over the millenia.

Men on the other hand don't grow up dreaming of their wedding day. It seems men have more of a reluctance to to settle down. Maybe it's because men have less of a desire to be in a stable situation, they're more likely to want to "spread their seed," because somehow that has been ingrained in men over millions of years of evolution.

What are some other explanations as to why women are more eager to get married? We hear scenarios like the OP's all the time, and it's almost always the women who wants to marry and the man who drags his feet, not the other way around. Why is it this way? What are some real reasons?

dmatsch

05-17-2006, 07:04 PM

(On preview, in response to Triskadecamus: DON'T leave. You say you love this man - why the hell would you throw that away because of one disagreement? Don't waste what could be the rest of your life with a man who cares for you. Talk it over - many times - and think about it from his perspective and yours.

Thank you. Walking out on a loving relationship over this issue is a mistake in the most extreme. As I said before, a gift such as this relationship is rare and should not be taken lightly. What ever happened to compromise?

Most of the responses here (mainly from women) say "if he doesn't conform to your wishes, leave him." What a load of crock. How dare you give this woman this possible life-changing advice?

This kind of shit was the primary cause of the failure of my latest marriage. A bunch of uneducated (in the professional heathcare sense), unqualified, anonymous message board folk giving half-assed opinions as advice to an emotionally hurt person who desparately needed professional relationship advice involving someone actually trained in this field.

Does his wishes and desires in life mean nothing to you? Do you not care one thing about he feels? Can you not come to a happy medium? Is this not what relationships are all about?

Given the fact that so many here are urging you to make ultimatums to your SO is why the divorce rate is so high in this country. That is not what relationships are about.

Stay with your man as long as he is good to you. Who cares whether or not you two have a piece of paper?

Isn't it all about love and partnership, anyway?

Please let me repeat that: Isn't it all about love, compromise and partnership anyway?

Fish

05-17-2006, 07:07 PM

dmatsch

05-17-2006, 07:15 PM

Yup. That's why I'm so obsessive over it now. I think it would be easier on me to leave within the next year, then to wait for 2 or 5 or however many else before I finally get fed up.

Is the exact opposite statement of the following:

Tris, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to leave him. Like I said before, I'm deeply in love with this man and love living with him. I'm not willing to walk away without at least giving him an opportunity to give me what I need.

What about what he needs?

Tastes of Chocolate, again, I'm not here to debate the merits of marriage. It's something I want and need and that's not going to change.

Sounds like you already have got an ultimatum, he just doesn't know about it yet. Thanks for perpetuating the stereotype. Best of luck to you. May you find the prince that will make you Happy Ever After.

Green Cymbeline

05-17-2006, 07:34 PM

Sounds like you already have got an ultimatum, he just doesn't know about it yet. Thanks for perpetuating the stereotype. Best of luck to you. May you find the prince that will make you Happy Ever After.
Hey, why should she have to give up something that is of extreme importance to her?

In any relationship, you have to "pick your battles." It really comes down to, weighing how much something means to Partner A and how something means to Partner B... If lezlers puts extreme importance on marriage, how does the weight of that compare to the importance her boyfriend puts on NOT getting married? That is something they will have to figure out. And he needs to be more communicative so lezlers had enough information t o make a decision.

Basically, he must weigh how important it is to him to (1) not get married and (2) keep lezlers in his life. Then compare the weight of the two and make a choice. he can't have it both ways.

Call it an ultimatium, call it whatever you want. This decision process is how we all make most of the decisions in our lives - about schools, jobs, relationships, even down to small things such as comparing and contrasting products at the grocery store. You have the weigh the pros and cons and make a choice.

Shayna

05-17-2006, 07:41 PM

See, the not-telling-him part is crucial to avoid you having a suspicion that he was pressured in to it. If you tell him you have an internal "deadline," then he might feel pressured, and might resent that, and you will always wonder in the back of your mind whether he married you on his own volition, or because he perceived some sort of ultimatum. Telling him you have set a deadline looks too much like an ultimatium. It's imperative that you keep this to yourself for it to have any true value. This is really bad advice. If you take it, this is what will end up happening to you. . .

I always knew I loved him, and I was sure after living together that I wanted him to be my life-partner. But when time kept ticking by, and we didn't move forward, and no true committment was made, I decided he needed to "shit or get off the pot," so to say. I never told him this, because if he knew that I had an internal deadline whatever his reaction would have been would be a tainted one.

In the end, when it didn't work out, I looked back on all those years and felt they had been wasted. No long-term relationship is ever going to work without open and honest communication. Hiding things from your partner results in a relationship that ends "with a lot of hurt on both ends." You'll eat yourself up alive not only keeping secrets and hiding your true feelings, but wondering about all the 'what ifs' when it's over.

It may be painful to walk away from an otherwise wonderful relationship, but if it's ultimately not fulfilling for you, odds are that it won't stay a wonderful relationship for very much longer. Resentment and disappointment have an ugly way of building up and destroying affection.

I understand exactly how you feel about what you want and why. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks about the value or merit of your decision. You want it for whatever your personal reasons are, and you have a right to pursue relationships that will potentially offer you that. I gave up a relationship in my early 20s, after 5 years together, because in spite of how deeply we loved each other, we wanted different things for our futures. He's Catholic and I'm Jewish, and compromising turned out not to be an option with regard to raising children. I don't regret a moment of that time I spent loving a man who brought extraordinary joy to my life and helped me grow and learn, even though he ultimately changed his mind about how strongly he felt about having only his religion in the home. A lot of people disagreed with our decision to "let religion get in the way of our relationship," but I respect him enormously for having the strength of his convictions and I wanted nothing more than for him to find happiness in his life, even if it couldn't be with me.

And I have since found my soulmate, too. But my husband is from Denmark, where they take a much less 'urgent' view of marriage. Couples tend to live together, start families and then get married after many years have gone by. It's kindof SOP over there, so that's what his expectations were with how things would progress with us. However, like you, that's not the way I wanted it. I wanted to be married, and I made it quite clear from the beginning that I wasn't willing to compromise on that particular issue -- no 'playing house' for me. If he didn't want to get married, we could move on and look for more compatible partners. He proposed 9 months after we met, and I feel pretty confident in saying that he doesn't feel as if he was pressured into doing it my way as opposed to his.

To sum up, the best advice I can give is not to compromise and to be forthright in your desires. I don't think you'll ever regret either action, even if you end up having to walk away to pursue what's important to you if he's unwilling to provide it. I wish you well in resolving this situation with your partner.

Green Cymbeline

05-17-2006, 07:42 PM

What about what he needs?
It sounds to me like what HE needs is the following:

--for lezlers to be a good girlfriend to him;
--for her to remain silent about her needs and desires to be in a committed relationships;
--for her to stay with him for an indefinite amount of time whether he is willing to make a committment or not.

He uses tactics to shut her up about the issue, or to give her just enough hope that she will stick around, but at the same time makes it just clear enough that he doesn't want to hear about it. That doesn't seem fair to me. All the while lezlers sits patiently, but with no knowledge about how he feels or where things or headed, or if there is any chance that he wants the same things out of the relationship that she does. I think she may be giving him too much power over the status and future of the relationship.

lezlers

05-17-2006, 07:45 PM

dmatsch, I'd like to believe that we've created an environment here where people can be honest about their feelings and not be judged. If you can't do that, please don't participate in the thread.[/b]

For everyone else, we just had an unplanned conversation about it (he saw me typing over here and guessed what the topic was about, go figure), wherein he again tried the "relax" bit, which didn't fly. He convinced me that he does intend to marry me, so it appears as if we're good. At least, I feel much better now.

Thank you everyone for your advice and support.

eleanorigby

05-17-2006, 07:45 PM

What perpetuating of stereotypes is the OP doing?

She may have started out the thread with that statement, but (as with most issues) once delved into, her position became clarified. This is perpetuating stereotypes? :confused:

I NEVER as a child played "wedding" or "bride"--I did play house (I preferred to play school), as did my brother and every other child socialized in a house. Kids mimic their parents and want to be grown up.

Forget the stereotypes--I think you have more than one problem on your hands at present. I don't like his evasion of this topic. "you have nothing to worry about" sounds awfully close to "don't worry your[pretty little]head about this." It's dismissive and almost patronizing (alot would depend on his tone and body language when he says it, though).

He is of an age that should be wrestling with this-I also don't like his cricket who sang all summer attitude. Perhaps he is wrestling(?). IMO, he needs to come clean with you. Either come out and say, "the thought of this so paralyzes me that I can't breathe" or "there is no chance for us" or "yes, in 2 years" or whatever.

At least you would know where you stand. No one wants to coerce anyone into anything, much less something as crucial as marriage, but there are limits and standards of conduct to be adhered to.

How is it fair to the OP to just go along to get along? What is that? How is that "a compromise"? Seems to me that that compromise is pretty one sided. He gets a convenient fuck and nice company (and hell, probably clean socks too) and she gets...what exactly? Not what she wants--which is to be married and planning a family. She gets a convenient fuck and nice company--but it's not enough for her. He would be getting the same things if they were married. She is not getting what she needs at present.

There is no shame in that, and she shouldn't have to defend it as a choice. Jeesh.

Green Cymbeline

05-17-2006, 07:50 PM

How is it fair to the OP to just go along to get along? What is that? How is that "a compromise"? Seems to me that that compromise is pretty one sided. He gets a convenient fuck and nice company (and hell, probably clean socks too) and she gets...what exactly? Not what she wants--which is to be married and planning a family. She gets a convenient fuck and nice company--but it's not enough for her. He would be getting the same things if they were married. She is not getting what she needs at present.

There is no shame in that, and she shouldn't have to defend it as a choice. Jeesh.
AMEN! eleanorigby! Well put, well put.

eleanorigby

05-17-2006, 07:50 PM

oops- a simul-post! Good news, and I hope things work out for you.

(excuse my bitterness in my previous posts, I'm in a bit of a turmoil re men and marriage right now)

lezlers

05-17-2006, 08:03 PM

clairobscur

05-17-2006, 08:18 PM

The OP is asking about his boyfriend not willing to marry her, but I'm going to ask the reverse question : why exactly does she want to marry him?

I don't think the default assumption should be marriage and that only the person refusing to get married should have to justify himself.

You'd certainly have to come up with a good reason to convince me I should marry you (something practical could do the trick) . Also, I find marriage unromantic.

TVeblen

05-17-2006, 08:23 PM

So far, our conversations on the topic (after he makes some comment, I never bring it up), have consisted of me saying very carefully as to not scare him off, "you know you're gonna have to marry me someday if you want to keep me" and him giving a heavy sigh and replying "It hasn't been that long, relax." Then I get all paranoid that I'm being pushy and don't say anything else. He'll then periodically make comments about how he sees no benefit in marriage, that it's just a piece of paper and he thinks 40 is a good age, if ever (knowing full well I am NOT waiting 7 years) and that there's no difference between what we have now and being married. Then, whenever anyone asks him about it in front of me, he turns white as a sheet. And lets not forget about how bummed out he gets whenever another one of his freinds gets engaged or married (3 of them in the time we've been together.) It's like, he'll make comments meant to lead me to believe we're going to eventually get married to keep me placated until the next time I get antsy.

I really hate to say this, lezlers, but his actions and signals to you sure aren't encouraging. He's not a child; he flat-out knows marriage and children are important to you. But he still evades, stalls and makes dismissive comments about marriage in general. All his 'answers' come slantwise but every signal he sends is, no, he doesn't want to get married. It sounds like he's hoping enough time will drift past until you give up on the idea.

Why be so concerned about his peace of mind? He shows little sign of being concerned about yours. If he's so antsy he can't even handle a little honest communication then the relationship isn't all that strong to begin with. Stating your needs and wants isn't confrontational. Neither is letting his know that you won't wait forever while he makes up his mind. That isn't fair to you...or his daughter, whom he allowed to become fond of you. If his committment to you is so fragile it won't bear even some serious talk then better to know that now.

My advice, which is about as useful as anything from a total stranger, is to just sit him down and tell him, without apology or debate, that you want marriage and children. Period. If he doesn't want that then he owes you honesty enough to say so. If he might, then he also owes you some indication that he's seriously considering it. Telling you to 'relax', making dismissive comments about marriage, etc. isn't just dishonest. It's damned unkind, at the very least, especially towards one he claims to love enough to make marriage unneccessary.

At the least, put him on notice that you are not his to string along forever. If he can't make a firm committment right now, at the very least he can promise to stop treating the idea carelessly. He owes you that. If he can't even do that much...then, I'm sorry to say, you already have your answer.

The best of all possible luck to you, lezlers.

dangermom

05-17-2006, 09:00 PM

Well, it looks like things are winding down, but I just had to chime in and say AMEN to eleanorigby as well. Anyway, best of luck lezlers and I hope it works out; glad to hear he made some sort of a committment.

A little ways back, nyctea asks why men behave like this while women behave like that. I wonder if part of it isn't just our culture encouraging it. Girls are encouraged to play wedding--lots of them anyway--I wasn't and I didn't. Guys are sometimes brought up to value getting around and not family life.

I have to say that I grew up in a sub-culture that highly values marriage and family, and a huge percentage of guys I've known have actually been more eager to get married than the women have. Not that I haven't known any women who wanted to get married right away, or guys who wanted to wait, but by and large, when my rather large network of friends was pairing off and getting engaged and stuff, it was very, very common for the women to be the nervous ones and the men to be the impatient ones. I can remember living in a house with 3 other women, all of us in possibly-permanent relationships, and we were completely freaking out. When DangerDad asked me out for the first time, I panicked, and when he proposed, I had hysterics. And we were all like that!

I dunno, maybe we were weird, but there were quite a few of us. (Oh, and I got two proposals from boyfriends long before I was ready to think about marriage; one was at 17. Neither of them were in my little sub-culture, either.)

sunstone

05-17-2006, 11:10 PM

Here's my $.02....to me, marriage is a contract that a person enters into with the idea that there are special commitments that should stand the test of time and temporary circumstances.

Having said that, as a man, when I willingly married, it was with the intention of promising that I would hold to certain standards of faith, affection, tolerance, and companionship. The concept of marriage is only for those who want to make such a promise (I have no issues with those who don't want to agree to those conditions; I don't really understand those who want to waffle later with claims of being pushed into the marriage); so if you want a marriage you need a partner who also wants a marriage.

But I admit that there is a certain bias after 42 years of marriage.

Best wishes.

John Carter of Mars

05-17-2006, 11:55 PM

Who cares whether or not you two have a piece of paper?

lezlers cares.

Huerta88

05-18-2006, 07:32 AM

What I said was an attempt to explain what Huerta88 said here:

Ok, why is it that girls grow up dreaming of being married and boys don't?

I theorized that it's somehow ingrained in us by evolution... Women are more likely to desire marriage because women have more of a tendency to want to settle down and be in a stable situation... it's been more advantageous to them over the millenia.

Men on the other hand don't grow up dreaming of their wedding day. It seems men have more of a reluctance to to settle down. Maybe it's because men have less of a desire to be in a stable situation, they're more likely to want to "spread their seed," because somehow that has been ingrained in men over millions of years of evolution.

What are some other explanations as to why women are more eager to get married? We hear scenarios like the OP's all the time, and it's almost always the women who wants to marry and the man who drags his feet, not the other way around. Why is it this way? What are some real reasons?
Well, this is opening up a can of worms, but . . . .

As I mentioned, one factor is that in a grossly-oversimplified view of things, the dating/mating marketplace favors hot, young women and established, secure (older) men.

Without pointing a finger of blame, when we ask, why don't 30 year old men always leap at the chance to marry 30 year old women who are "ready," we could also ask, why don't hot college cheerleaders stop to examine the merits of the stammering freshman chemistry major? Because they don't have to. They don't gain much by doing so. And they don't lose much of value to them by not doing so, whatever inner virtues Poindexter may have.

Here is a theory: people rarely spontaneously act much better or more philanthropic than the market requires them to. Professionally successful 30 year old men have some market value among similarly-aged women (just as hot college cheerleaders have a market value with just about any men). They may subconsciously sense that even if they do not please their current squeeze 110%, they might likely be able to find another. They don't experience, at all, any sort of biological clock. (In my early 30s, I would occasionally do the math and think, well, I'd be fifty when my kid went to college, that's a bit old, but oh well -- but that was the extent of any time pressure I felt, and it wasn't comparable at all to the fertility concerns my GFs had at the time).

Another theory: Empathy is pretty weak as a human motivator. Everytime I or my friends heard the biological-clock arguments, there was a tendency to think: Okay, but that's not MY problem. Of course that's an awful way to put it, and of course it's not true if you're really committed to her such that it is your joint problem -- but I think it's a human-nature knee-jerk reaction.

I believe that (many) women do have a hardwired desire for security in the form of marriage. The writer Alain de Botton once theorized (I don't think he's alone) that (paraphrasing) feminism had really screwed women by dissing marriage as some form of servitude and creating an illusory age of free love where it was socially "okay" (for the first time) for men and women to shack up (more or less monogamously), long-term, with no real shame and without the man feeling any pressure to "make an honest woman of her." Women, who had previously demanded a ring as the price of admission, felt "old-fashioned" or otherwise embarrassed at the thought of "demanding" marriage, so they stayed silent and in relationships that were "good" for the guys, who got what they wanted (companionship and sex) without having to give the usual reciprocal commitment (longterm presence and financial support over time).

I think de Botton was a little harsh on the guys (he doesn't mention the market advantage that hot young women have and exploit, and the effects this might have on the equation), but essentially correct. If nothing else, the fact that we see, overall, a pattern of young/middle-aged women wanting marriage and their peer-group men sometimes evading it (exceptions exist, YMMV) pretty crushingly gives the lie to any Friedan-esque notion of marriage as slavery for women.

Huerta88

05-18-2006, 08:39 AM

No worries. Thank you, both eleanorigby and nyctea, for your support, especially. You both put into words exactly what I was feeling, much better than I have been able to.

He wanted a definite time table, but I didn't want to give him one, it seemed way too business-like. He said he thought a good time was when we were established in our respective careers. I told him that would be a good 2-3 years away which was too long for me. He mentioned he wanted to concentrate on school right now and I told him that was entirely reasonable. So it appears we reached some kind of compromise.
I don't want to sell a brother out, but are you sure that is a compromise? It sounds like you guys were not exactly joining issue.

You: I'm not going to wait forever.
Him: Ummm, okay . . . how long will you wait?
You: I'm not going to make an arbitrary deadline.
Him (hopeful): Umm, okay, then how 'bout let's say 2-3 years?
You: No, that's too long.
Him: Okay, umm, I want to concentrate on school now, let's talk about this later.

To me, there's a reading of that that says when the conversation took a turn he didn't like, he sort of changed the subject to an equivalent of "I can't think about this right now." Unless you read this as affirmatively meaning "I'll marry you as soon as school is over." Which is plausible, and you were there and I wasn't, but I just wanted to point out that he might not implausibly think the only "compromise" you reached was an agreement that you would not bug him about this until graduation.

Acsenray

05-18-2006, 09:09 AM

Fair enough. But some people don't need that or have it as a goal, and it doesn't mean they can't be committed loving people. To relate this back to the OP, just because he doesn't need marriage the way you do, doesn't mean he is scared or uncommitted or anything.

What some people need is not really relevant. If party A in a couple wants marriage and party B doesn't, it's a problem for that couple. A person who doesn't "need" marriage needs to find a partner who feels the same way about the matter.

I just don't feel the need to announce or prove my feeling toward someone to all these people.

What you feel the need for isn't necessarily the sole consideration when you're in a relationship with someone who needs or wants more. The question is, really, does what party A need conflict with what party B needs. The question for party B in this relationship is: Is a public declaration for you simply unnecessary in your view or is it undesirable?

ChuckForbin

05-18-2006, 09:19 AM

I've been exactly in the position her boyfriend is in.

She wants children. IMHO the discussion should be more about whether he wants children then whether he wants to get married. The fact that he already has a kid seems pretty important to me, and in my experience if he did not already have a child he'd be more willing to move forward. One thing that scared me about (re)marriage was that should it fail and we had children, I didn't want to be in the position of being a part time father again. It's hard to be a good father when limited to biweekly visitation.

I think lezlers should focus on the children issue, and that will answer the marriage issue.

Acsenray

05-18-2006, 09:21 AM

What about what he needs?

And that's exactly what he should be thinking through. If he really does not want to get married, then he should be looking for someone who doesn't want to get married. The facts as presented suggest that he's either trying to avoid thinking about it or trying to string Lezlers along as long as he can.

If the things that the two of them need are seriously in conflict, then it's better that the relationship end sooner than later.

Nava

05-18-2006, 09:51 AM

One advantage the notion of "marriage" has for me:

It carries certain given definitions of levels and details of compromise.

So, if you consider "adultery" as a "bad thing", since that is part of the legal definition, you don't need to talk about it. It's already been talked about, and by accepting the whole "legal package" you accept it.
If, on the other hand, you want to be with this person forever but want an open relationship, that's one point you need to clarify.

Once you have this "basic package" on the table, you need to clear up some details (which ok, can be real big things; in Spain for example you have to decide whether property obtained after the marriage will be common or separate ownership, with the "default value" changing by region and by how you obtained said property) but you have a list of possible details and of the usual options for each of them.

eleanorigby

05-18-2006, 10:00 AM

Well, I hope I helped. IMO, you should show him the whole thread. NOT in a "see, I'm tallking about this with complete strangers in your face" way, but as a forum to really talk about it.

I know you said you have discussed it--but are you any further along than you were before? IMO, you backed away from the sticking point--and he gets to coast on YOUR decision. He can now say, "well, I asked you and you said you didn't have a definite date/time frame."

You could be me (he doesn't sound a bit like my husband, so no worries there!)--I mean this nicely, but you need to be more assertive, even with generations of socialization screaming "don't speak your needs aloud". It doesn't have to be marriage--you can say that in one year, you would like the two of you to get engaged. Small steps. "In 5 years, I'd like to be either a mother or pregnant"--whatever your timeframe is.

To generalize hugely(and why not since that seems to be the trend here)--guys like concrete, quantifiable goals. If for no other reason than they can at least agree or disagree with them. Vague, nebulous "plans" baffle them. I think you may be driving the bus on this one--so drive. (I also would be a bit concerned that you are driving the bus here--are all major life decisions to come from you? They should be mutual, as much as possible, ie, not many people "decide" to have twins etc). :)

Dunderman

05-18-2006, 10:10 AM

So, if you consider "adultery" as a "bad thing", since that is part of the legal definition, you don't need to talk about it. It's already been talked about, and by accepting the whole "legal package" you accept it.
I've never been married, but fidelity has been the default assumption in my relationships anyway. I hardly think I'm unique, or even unusual, in this.

You mean that you by default consider your relationships to be open until you get married, at which point they by default become exclusive?

lezlers

05-18-2006, 10:14 AM

I don't want to sell a brother out, but are you sure that is a compromise? It sounds like you guys were not exactly joining issue.

You: I'm not going to wait forever.
Him: Ummm, okay . . . how long will you wait?
You: I'm not going to make an arbitrary deadline.
Him (hopeful): Umm, okay, then how 'bout let's say 2-3 years?
You: No, that's too long.
Him: Okay, umm, I want to concentrate on school now, let's talk about this later.

To me, there's a reading of that that says when the conversation took a turn he didn't like, he sort of changed the subject to an equivalent of "I can't think about this right now." Unless you read this as affirmatively meaning "I'll marry you as soon as school is over." Which is plausible, and you were there and I wasn't, but I just wanted to point out that he might not implausibly think the only "compromise" you reached was an agreement that you would not bug him about this until graduation.

Actually, he told me it was going to happen when I least expected it and it may be sooner than I think (he sounded kind of annoyed when he said that.) That reassured me that he wasn't going to be waiting 3 or 4 years to pop the question.

lezlers

05-18-2006, 10:17 AM

Fat Chance

05-18-2006, 10:18 AM

I think you don't understand nyctea's view towards "waste" because you may be more of a live-in-the-moment type of feller. That kind of outlook allows you to not see every relationship and experience as a road to a particular destination, which is fine, for you. For someone who is goal-oriented and who has their eyes on the horizon and not just on the ground in front of them, investing a lot of time into someone becomes a disppointment if the experience doesn't bring them closer to their goals in life. There's nothing with that. Not everyone wants to be in their late 30s and 40s still roaming the streets for a hook-up. .

I just think if you spend so much time with your eyes on the horizon, looking toward that goal, regretting everything you ever did that didn't get you there, you miss out on all the good things. Stupid saying, but "Its not the destination, its the journey" The part I find sad is that the goal of marriage seems to be running her entire life, so much that anything that doesn't contribute is a waste of time. Its fine to have that as a goal and look for potential mates that will help, but to look back at everything else as a complete waste and feel all this pressure to get to a certain goal seems to be a sad way to live. Often times, people who set these goals end up dissappointed in the end, even if they do get married and find out its not all they had been dreaming of thier whole life.

Your last part - there are more than 2 options. Just becuase I don't spend my life striving for marriage and regretting everything that didn't bring me there doesn't mean I am out hooking up.

Huerta88

05-18-2006, 10:21 AM

lezlers

05-18-2006, 10:25 AM

Well, I hope I helped. IMO, you should show him the whole thread

He actually asked to see it. I may show it to him, but I'm almost afraid all the anti-marriage responses are going to re-spark the whole "yeah, who the hell needs marriage!" schtick.

He seems to have forgotten about it already (the man has a short attention span), but if I leave my laptop open, I'm sure he'll read it.

bup

05-18-2006, 10:25 AM

lezlers - at the risk of returning this thread to its OP - when did you talk about wanting children? When did he tell you he'd give you at least one?

lezlers

05-18-2006, 10:29 AM

Booya. You are home fre, then, we can hope -- fingers crossed?

And toes!

[b]bup[b]: a few months ago, and he makes comments about it periodically, like the marriage comments. (when I confronted him about teasing me last night he responded that one of his favorite things to do is mess with me because I buy it hook line and sinker every time).

He would always say that he already had a kid and I would respond that she's not mine and while I love his daughter, I still want my own children someday. He agreed. Now whenever it comes up he says "just one, right?"

you with the face

05-18-2006, 10:45 AM

I just think if you spend so much time with your eyes on the horizon, looking toward that goal, regretting everything you ever did that didn't get you there, you miss out on all the good things. Stupid saying, but "Its not the destination, its the journey"

I have that mindset myself, but I can't fault someone simply for viewing things differently. There's pros and cons to both approaches. If your goal in life is to find one person and make a family with them, then it makes practical sense to limit your dates to people who fit the bill in that department. Not everyone is looking to have a whole bunch of new and exciting experiences; some people just want to find one person and stick with them for the long haul (BTW, I'm not like that).

To many people, marriage is signficant because it is a contract that by default says "this relationship is forever". Of course, it doesn't always work out like that. But the unspoken assumption is that a marriage is a life-long relationship, and that concept brings comfort to a lot of people. Non-marriage relationships tend be seen as insecure because that kind of unspoken assumption isn't there. When someone says "Will you be my boy/girlfriend?", it is not implied that they want to be your boy/girlfriend forever. When someome says "Will you be my wife/husband?" all that forever stuff is implied.

I'll be the first to admit that this is all based on perception, though. People are just as able of walking out on a marriage as they are a non-marriage. But still, just because it is perception doesn't mean it is unimportant or "sad". The last bit of the paragraph you quoted refers to this perception, not necessarily to reality. Sorry if it caused offense.

bup

05-18-2006, 11:13 AM

a few months ago, and he makes comments about it periodically, like the marriage comments. (when I confronted him about teasing me last night he responded that one of his favorite things to do is mess with me because I buy it hook line and sinker every time).

He would always say that he already had a kid and I would respond that she's not mine and while I love his daughter, I still want my own children someday. He agreed. Now whenever it comes up he says "just one, right?"And you were worried to the point you've represented that he wouldn't marry you?

I think you might've mentioned that he's agreed you'll have child(ren) together EARLIER.

lezlers

05-18-2006, 11:18 AM

And you were worried to the point you've represented that he wouldn't marry you?

I think you might've mentioned that he's agreed you'll have child(ren) together EARLIER.

Why? He had a kid with the ex then refused to marry her (and they were together for a very long time). Besides, I said that I wanted to be married before I had kids. Seeings how I'm 28 and don't wish to immediately get knocked up after the wedding, the clock has indeed, begun to tick.

lezlers

05-18-2006, 11:31 AM

I think it's also relevant that his ex "accidentally" got pregnant. He wanted her to get an abortion, she refused. So it's not like they had plans to become a happy family.

Nava

05-18-2006, 11:31 AM

I've never been married, but fidelity has been the default assumption in my relationships anyway. I hardly think I'm unique, or even unusual, in this.

You mean that you by default consider your relationships to be open until you get married, at which point they by default become exclusive?

The particular example was brought by a boyfriend who was asking me to be the mother of his children

while fucking without a rubber every hole that got within reach, on those nights when I wasn't available. :smack:

The "fooling around" part, I might have been able to stomach temporarily and taken as a point to really start discussing what our relationship meant, on grounds that I'd assumed his idea of bf/gf included "one on one" as it does for me but hey, "assume makes an ass of u and me" and we were from different countries so that's a particularly bad position to do any assumptions. It was the no-rubbers part royally pissed me off: if you're asking someone to bear your kids (which normally includes no-rubber sex), the least you ought to do is take care of not acquiring any std's you could pass to this someone and the kids. I'm clean, buttttt...

I'm sure I could have given other examples, like I actually did later in the same post, really... it just is still a thorn in my side, sorry

HMS Irruncible

05-18-2006, 11:45 AM

Male here...

There are a lot of complex reasons and rights involved with getting married, so I understand the following is a gross simplification. But when a woman says "I insist on being married", you're basically saying "love is not enough; kids are not enough; I insist on making it expensive and difficult for you to leave me." Marriage is a huge thing; you cannot demand it and ever expect things to go well. It will always have been "your idea."

All you can really do is say that you want marriage in your future and you want it to be with him, and if he says "it's just a piece of paper" then he wants to retain the option to leave you with no fuss. You don't want to marry someone who feels like that, and you should just leave. If you're 28 you still have time but you don't need to be messing around.

I'm fairly confident this advice will not be taken; it never is.

I broke off one engagement for this reason... I felt the person and situation I was getting wasn't enough to justify what I was potentially losing. And I was very young, we were getting out of undergrad, it just seemed like the logical next thing to do. So I wisely reconsidered that.

When I got married, my wife had lost her visa and basically had to leave the country. I was on the fence regarding our future, but at the bottom line, I knew I had to marry her if I wanted to continue being with her. But it was my idea, I took the leap despite the uncertainty, and 5 years later we're still happy. I don't have regrets because it was my decision and she didn't demand that I give her the rest of my life.

HMS Irruncible

05-18-2006, 11:49 AM

... if I leave my laptop open, I'm sure he'll read it.
Erm... not to get off the subject, but don't you find that a bit alarming? I would.

HMS Irruncible

05-18-2006, 11:57 AM

Actually, he told me it was going to happen when I least expected it and it may be sooner than I think (he sounded kind of annoyed when he said that.) That reassured me that he wasn't going to be waiting 3 or 4 years to pop the question.
That sounds good to me, like he wants it to be his idea. Some people have said they find it juvenile, but I say fuck them. I feel exactly the same way. If I'm about to say or do something meaningful and important, I feel like it totally robs it of its significance if somebody else is prodding me to do it. It's like when you were a kid and your mom said "Go say 'thank you' to Aunt Sally" for the gift, within easy earshot of Aunt Sally. Now Aunt Sally has heard it, so you'd look like an ass if you refused. But now you've been robbed of the opportunity to make a sincere unprompted gesture from the heart; it just looks like you're a schmuck who can't render common courtesy without being told.

Rebecca DiMwitter

05-18-2006, 12:04 PM

I decried this upthread and women who use the "waste" terminology are creating a false dichotomy based on the theory that their relationship with you cheated them out of the (hypothetical) relationship they could have been having with, say, Prince William, never contemplating that they might also have spent those 2 or 4 or however many years alone with their cats instead of being cosseted by you. It's not a very attractive or grateful way to summarize a meaningful if not lifelong relationship.

With all due respect to the OP, who doesn't seem like the type to refer to her current situation as a "waste", regardless of the outcome: when I refer to my own previous seven-year relationship which ended abruptly a little over a year ago as a "waste", it is not at all a reflection of the relationship itself, NOR of him. It is purely SELF-reflection. I foolishly nurtured a wildly naive hope for 7 years that he would commit to me by marrying me, and my disappointment is not with him for failing to comply, but with ME for wishing and hoping and praying in vain all those years, when I knew nearly at the outset that he wasn't going to marry me, ever. The rest of the relationship was rewarding, enjoyable, enriching. Many things were unforgettable. But I stupidly repressed my own needs and desires and it is almost unbearable to think, sometimes, that if I had gotten out of that relationship when I knew there wasn't a chance for the future that I wanted, I might have met my current b/f sooner and we could have started what IS becoming the relationship I want and need just that much sooner. Or maybe I would have been alone 5 years sooner than I was, but enriching my solo life in ways which might have led to less frustration overall with myself.

Is it worthwhile or productive beating your own bad self up in this way? Not at all. But I think it is natural to feel this way for a time, and as such, I defend the use, if applied to oneself, and if given its proper placement upon reflection with the passing of time, of the phrase "it was a waste".

Our worthy OP is asking the right question at this point in her relationship, I think.
I'm with those who believe she ought to open a frank discussion with b/f now, and completely avoid the "wishing/hoping" nonsense, especially if his answer is not what she wants to hear.

--Beck

bup

05-18-2006, 12:13 PM

Why? He had a kid with the ex then refused to marry her (and they were together for a very long time). Besides, I said that I wanted to be married before I had kids. Seeings how I'm 28 and don't wish to immediately get knocked up after the wedding, the clock has indeed, begun to tick.You said you wanted to be married before you had kids, and he still agreed/agrees to having children with you.

Yeah, I think that would've been relevant information.

He sounds like a cautious guy - I'd be worried if he had no reservations about getting married after what he's gone through.

Women are usually then ones who want to get married, and then they're usually the ones who want to get divorced. Any intelligent man would be very cautious about getting married, and want to be able to think about it, to make sure he really wanted it and wasn't just doing it to give in to pressure.

Fish

05-18-2006, 12:14 PM

He actually asked to see it. I may show it to him, but I'm almost afraid all the anti-marriage responses are going to re-spark the whole "yeah, who the hell needs marriage!" schtick.
On the other hand, we might have voiced his inner fears already, making it less scary to admit to them.

Or we might have mis-represented him as a complete cad and he'll want to defend his reputation.

I'd show it to him.

Huerta88

05-18-2006, 12:29 PM

I think it's also relevant that his ex "accidentally" got pregnant. He wanted her to get an abortion, she refused. So it's not like they had plans to become a happy family.
Do NOT let this happen to you or he will resent you forever (if he doesn't leave) out of suspicion you did it to "trap" him (not that the past gives you much reason to believe this would in fact be incentive to him to produce a ring; it didn't last time).

I'm not saying you would ever dream of this, 'cause it would be a pretty unfair thing to do -- just that right about now would be a Hell of a bad time for an accident.

eleanorigby

05-18-2006, 01:42 PM

I have a suspicion that perhaps he has or had made plans to "pop the question" and this has made his surprise a bit awkward. I thought of that when I first opened this thread, but then I thought--that seems a romantic notion, but with him having a child and they're both adults now, it seems improbable.

Now, I wonder. I hope this thread hasn't ruined some great wind up to the Question. (and I hope it's not a Question--I hope it's a discussion--I am weary of Romance and it's false promises).

I have never looked at marriage as a way of saying,"I insist on making it expensive and difficult for you to leave me." per Brain Wreck. I do know that if any person, male or female voiced that thought, I'd be outta there like a shot. What an attitude with which to start a lifelong relationship!

Marriage the institution lasts because the family is still the best way to socialize offspring. I am all for "non-traditional" families, but some type of contract, commitment or tie must be formalized, publicly, IMO. It's too easy to just walk away, otherwise.

HMS Irruncible

05-18-2006, 01:47 PM

I have never looked at marriage as a way of saying,"I insist on making it expensive and difficult for you to leave me." per Brain Wreck. I do know that if any person, male or female voiced that thought, I'd be outta there like a shot. What an attitude with which to start a lifelong relationship!
I'm not saying somebody is consciously saying this. I'm saying it's a fact of marriage... if you demand marriage, you are demanding to make it expensive and difficult to separate. That's a fact. If one were feeling pressured, then one might read it that way, and start thinking of ways to save time and money.

AskNott

05-18-2006, 02:51 PM

We lived together for 4 1/2 years before we got married. I had a whole list of why not, including my parents awful marriage. Then, one evening, I heard a friend tell about the night he proposed to his girlfriend. Suddenly, I realized I couldn't remember my list of reasons not to get married. I went home and proposed.

There are some advantages to being married that I hadn't thought about. Her family treated me differently; I wasn't the villian any more. Insurance companies thought we were a better risk than two singles. There was a subtle shift in vibes from neighbors, hotel desk clerks, and others. Nobody actually clapped me on the back and said, "you're respectable now," but it was implied.

I usually read a whole thread before posting, but I didn't do it this time.

lezlers

05-18-2006, 03:11 PM

Do NOT let this happen to you or he will resent you forever (if he doesn't leave) out of suspicion you did it to "trap" him (not that the past gives you much reason to believe this would in fact be incentive to him to produce a ring; it didn't last time).

I'm not saying you would ever dream of this, 'cause it would be a pretty unfair thing to do -- just that right about now would be a Hell of a bad time for an accident.

No worries there. We're both very career driven and have worked our butts off the last three years. There's no way I'm risking getting pregnant prematurely and throwing that all away. I've got just as much (if not more) as him to lose, in that respect.

eleanor, as much as I'd like to believe he was already had plans to pop the question, I seriously doubt it. I'd bet good money there will be no proposals anytime before graduation. Hell, he wanted to wait until after graduation before we even moved in together! (I didn't push him on that one, he realized a couple months later he was being stupid, considering he already pretty much lived with me)

And bup, the fact that he knew I want to be married before I have children doesn't automatically mean he was planning on marrying me. Especially considering the relationship he had with the mother of his child. But, you're right that he should be cautious. His last relationship was a total freakshow and he's still bound to the main act for another 9 years. I understand his fears. In fact, couples that race to the alter after a couple months of dating kinda bug me because I can't imagine they take marriage as seriously as they should if they're willing to take the plunge that quickly. On the other hand, as many times as he's made a point to tell me how different our relationship is than the one with his ex, I'm always tempted to ask "then what the hell is the hold up?"

want2know

05-18-2006, 04:26 PM

I'm a male, 49, and on my third marriage (so I'm not an expert by any means). I have a question.

A couple dozen posts ago, you mentioned that your SO's daughter asked you if you two were ever getting married. I'd be curious to know if she's ever asked him that, and even more curious to hear what his answer was. I imagine the rhetoric would be quite different addressed to a 9-year-old.

There's no easy answer to your situation. On one hand, if what you say about his past relationship is true, he has a right to be "gun-shy". On the other, the idea of marriage is obviously important to you, and cannot (and should not) be dismissed out-of-hand. However, in a lot of ways, you've made this sound like you've been together a lot longer than you actually have. I mean, you've been together a year and a half, and living together only 9 months. Not only that, but you're both about to graduate law school and take the bar. Now, I'm not saying that there's a statute of limitations (sorry, couldn't resist) on how long two people should be together before considering marriage, but don't you two have something else to concentrate on at this moment?

How about this: finish school, pass the bar (no easy feat and best attempted without any additional pressures), get yourselves started in your careers, and then sit down and have an honest conversation about marriage's pros and cons. No rhetoric, no sidestepping...an honest heart-to-heart. From what you say, you two seem to have a good relationship. Don't you think it will keep for a little while longer? He claims that you won't be waiting long...would it be too much to ask to trust him on that?

BTW, in all my three marriages, I was the one who broached the subject first. I think I finally got it right this time.

Whatever you decide, good luck to you both.

Acsenray

05-30-2006, 06:17 PM

Actually, he told me it was going to happen when I least expected it and it may be sooner than I think (he sounded kind of annoyed when he said that.)That sounds good to me, like he wants it to
be his idea.

I'm sorry to resurrect this thread, but this statement has been haunting me for some reason. I keep going over it in my mind, "It'll happen when you least expect it and maybe sooner than you think," with an annoyed tone of voice.

The more I think about it, the more passive-aggressive and petulant and immature it sounds. Dammit, this is the future of a relationship at stake, not some romance novel bullcrap. The more I think about it, the more I get the feeling he's just saying something to get you off his back for the moment.

Had to get that off my chest.

lezlers

05-30-2006, 10:35 PM

Least Original User Name Ever

05-30-2006, 11:32 PM

It's simple. If he doesn't give you an answer, or the answer you want, get to walking. Let him know that you WILL walk if you don't match up.

There's a kid at stake here, fer cryin out loud.

You don't want to wait, and it looks like he wants to wait. Find out why he wants to wait and get him to give you an answer you believe.

Lama Pacos

05-31-2006, 12:38 AM

I'm married and about to turn 30. My biological clock has been ticking for a couple of years, but my husband wants to wait until we're out of debt (which I've reluctantly conceeded to be a reasonable position). He's well aware of how important children are to me, though. I've agreed not to bring it up again for another year, but I'm agonizingly aware of my failing fertility. If he came to me at the end of this year and told me that he decided that he never wanted children, that would be a betrayal of massive proportions - not only preventing me from having children with him, the man I love, but also probably preventing me from ever having them at all. In such a situation, I would consider those years a waste as well. Not to mention I would want to beat the s*** out of him.

Personally, I'd feel 'betrayed' if I found out that rather than my partner considering me a complex human being with my own dynamic feelings and desires, and someone who she enjoys spending time with for its own sake, she considers me a stepping stone to her unstoppable Pretty Princess Dream.

Green Cymbeline

05-31-2006, 03:08 AM

Personally, I'd feel 'betrayed' if I found out that rather than my partner considering me a complex human being with my own dynamic feelings and desires, and someone who she enjoys spending time with for its own sake, she considers me a stepping stone to her unstoppable Pretty Princess Dream.
What? Are you saying that the desire to have children is a "Pretty Princess Dream?" :confused:

bup

05-31-2006, 07:12 AM

I'm sorry to resurrect this thread, but this statement has been haunting me for some reason. I keep going over it in my mind, "It'll happen when you least expect it and maybe sooner than you think," with an annoyed tone of voice.

The more I think about it, the more passive-aggressive and petulant and immature it sounds. Dammit, this is the future of a relationship at stake, not some romance novel bullcrap. The more I think about it, the more I get the feeling he's just saying something to get you off his back for the moment.If he's already planning on asking her, her nagging him about it might be pissing him off. Not to any serious degree, but more like, "if you want me to ask you, instead of you just proposing to me, and you claim you want it to be my idea so that you know you haven't just pressured me into it, doesn't it follow that you need to, you know, stop bugging me about it?"

Muffin

05-31-2006, 08:16 AM

Why not simply propose to him with a marriage date deadline?

Acsenray

05-31-2006, 08:53 AM

If he's already planning on asking her, her nagging him about it might be pissing him off. Not to any serious degree, but more like, "if you want me to ask you, instead of you just proposing to me, and you claim you want it to be my idea so that you know you haven't just pressured me into it, doesn't it follow that you need to, you know, stop bugging me about it?"

Because maybe it isn't The Proposal that she wants, but a serious and mature discussion regarding whether they are going to get married and when. It's long past the era when a surprise proposal was a gift that was only in the power of a man to give and a woman just had to wait it out.

Muffin

05-31-2006, 09:21 AM

lezlers

05-31-2006, 09:43 AM

Proposal or not, married or not, if the two of you are cohabiting or about to cohabit, and you are about to become a lawyer, and he is about to flunk out, it is time to execute a cohab that precludes spousal support.

Heh. We both agreed that two lawyers getting married without a prenup would be a travisty. Considering the fact that we're both taking community property this summer, many opportunities come up for that particular discussion.

And while the issue in the OP has more or less been resolved, I don't mind continuing the discussion, considering it's one of my favorite topics. ;) As far as the proposing to him goes, I may get flamed for this a bit, but I, personally, could never propose to someone. Seriously, I don't know how you guys do it. I would always be wondering if he really wanted to be married to me or just said yes not to hurt my feelings.

A freind of a friend of mine just got married a couple of weeks ago. While her situation is vastly different from my own, it still cemented the above feeling for me. This girl wore the pants in the relationship from day one. He is pretty much a "yes ma'am" kinda guy. By the time her fiancee proposed, she had already pretty much planned the entire wedding. She had a hall, a dress and bridesmaids all picked out. She had actually booked the hall! Before he proposed! She even had a date, although he didn't know it yet. She bought her own ring, gave it to him and told him to propose. Yes, really. When I heard all this, my only comment was "she'd better have someone guarding the bathroom window on the big day." Talk about pressuring your guy, sheesh.

Now, I just don't have it in me to do that. Like I said, I'd just be paranoid he didn't really want to be married to me and was looking at it like a chore. I'm not saying all proposals made by women to their men are like the situation above. I'd hope none of them are. However, the end result would be the same either way for me.

And Lama Pacos, that was a really insensitive response. Don't project your own hangups on other people. You and I both know Rischa didn't deserve that snide comment.

Lama Pacos

05-31-2006, 11:36 AM

I apologize. I really didn't mean to be cruel, and I should have realized what a sensitive topic it is. Though I did find the sentiment expressed somewhat offensive, it's not really my business.

Acsenray

05-31-2006, 11:57 AM

As far as the proposing to him goes, I may get flamed for this a bit, but I, personally, could never propose to someone. Seriously, I don't know how you guys do it. I would always be wondering if he really wanted to be married to me or just said yes not to hurt my feelings.

But then why would a man ever propose either?

Anyway, it doesn't matter to me, really, because from my point of view, the whole "proposal as an event" thing is irrelevant. People shouldn't get married because one person decides to suprise the other with a proposal and the other person has to say "yes" or "no." People should get married after talking about it mutually -- Should we get married? Will we get married? When? It shouldn't come as a surprise to either party. Forget the whole "popping the question" and saving up for an engagement ring thing, so far as I'm concerned. Those are really the least important things that should be in midn.

Kalhoun

05-31-2006, 12:13 PM

Determine what your rights and obligations would be should you remain together but not marry, and eventually separate. Determine what your rights and obligations would be should you remain together and marry, but eventually separate. What rights and obligations would be different? Which ones are imporant to you? Can they be covered by way of a domestic contract? If yes, then consider making a cohab, so that you would get the protection that you otherwise would not have unless you were married, but your spouse would not have to marry you. Once your rights are protected, then the two of you can take your time to see if your spouse eventually decides to tie the knot.
Well, you can call this whatever you want, but it boils down to marriage. Legal obligations such as jointly owning a house, having children, or legally dividing up "stuff"...all of these things tie two people together exactly as if they were married. You wouldn't get a stake in retirement benefits, but other than that, I don't see a difference. I would think that the objection to marriage would be "obligation." This scenario doesn't remove obligation from the equation.

Count Blucher

05-31-2006, 01:16 PM

Leave.

Don't leave angry, don't leave as an ultimatum. Just leave.

Be honest. You do want marriage, he does not want marriage. This represents an incompatibility of a profound nature. Continuing the current relationship is just ignoring that inevitability.

I don't think it needs to be the end of your relationship, but you have to get on the path that leads to what you want. Dating your current is fine, but approximating marriage while denying it is very likely to make real marriage impossible for you, and you want it.

If he decides that continuing to be close is not possible for him, everyone has hurt feelings, but that is going to happen no matter what. There might well be someone who wants permanent temporary commitment, and he will leave you. Or, he might reevaluate his choices. You might do some reevaluating as well. But continuing to live in a manner that precludes something you want, something as basic and huge as lifetime commitment in marriage is just unreasonable for you.

Tris

Lezlers,

You don't know me. For all I know we might have cut each other off in traffic & flipped each other the bird. (and if I did, for my part, I'm sorry) I'm a lurker that's come out of the cold very recently, but that doesn't make what I have to say a trick, a lie, or a sophistry of any kind. I'm not going to debate other people's posts or points or do a cut & paste research project here; I have no need to be the only one thats right (and eventually I have to get back to work).

I read your OP post, and it was heartfelt and it was honest; I'll try to be the same in my reply. Of all the posts made in the pages of this thread which followed, and yes I read them all, I still come back to Triskadecamus original post as the best spot on advice to you. (its only quoted above so you don't have to wait 10 minutes of paging backwards to find it)

It was 2 pages after I read it that I saw your post where the guy in question told you {not an exact quote}"Relax, it hasn't been that long."{/not an exact quote}

Listening to that sentance, I couldn't help but think that he's trying to keep you long enough so that you'll change your mind. His history is that his Ex couldn't get a ring out of him. Her being pregnant with his child didn't get a ring out of him. His daughter being born a bastard didn't get a ring out of him. These are facts of his history and they are not in dispute.

I'm really, really sorry....but yes, you need to leave him.

Now, the shock may rock his world. He may come after you begging to marry him with a ring in hand...and if he does what you do next is up to you. I wish you all the best either way.

He may just let you go, which would suck, but please remember that even if you were not a really great person, even if you were not a talented writer and debator, even if you were not the amazingy intelligent and sensitive person that everyone on this board knows you to be....even if you had none of your assets or your many friends to speak for you...you would still be worthy of having someone who'd have the guts to risk marriage with you.

If you need time to deal with the loss of this relationship, to gather your strength, to plan your next move and to make it happen, then I'd support you in taking that time only. But if you still have your own place and its just a few boxes of 'things' to get out of his place, then my advice to you is to pull the band-aid off quickly.

Lezlers, I honestly feel that his mind is made up about this. The only really valid question remaining is whether yours is as well. Best of Luck to you.