Engagement, is it all it's cracked up to be? (sorta long)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My boyfriend and I have been together for nearly four years and we’re currently living together as we’re working toward getting our undergrad degrees (we’re in our early 20s btw). We’re in a loving, stable relationship and have only had problems with distance (which we rectified once he transferred to my school and he moved in with me). So things have been working out fine since we started to live together.

I thought that this is all that I wanted, but you know the saying ‘you always want what you can’t have’. Recently our housemate got engaged and that totally surprised us. I’ve been living with her for over a year now and I’ve witnessed lots of arguing, crying and plain hostility between her and her boyfriend. She doesn’t treat him very well and orders him around quite a bit. Hell, a week ago she broke up with him because she didn’t feel like they were suited to each other and then for some reason he popped the question a few days later and now she’s all happy and showing off her glitzy ring.

My question is, I know that my relationship is strong and I should be happy and grateful for what I have, but I also want the validation that having an engagement ring brings to the relationship. I can’t even tell you the number of times that people have said “oh, he’s your boyfriend…so are you going to date anymore men? You might just find Mr. Right” and other mean things like that. I don’t know, I want people to see our relationship as something of substance.

And seeing people treat their SO like crap, then get engaged…it makes me feel jealous. Like I’m doing the right thing, but our relationship is developing so slowly whereas there are people out there who get engaged on a whim just because they have the money to ‘play around’. Not that I want to get engaged right at this instant, I know we’re not ready, but it would be nice to know that people think we’re as strong as an engaged couple .

Plus I think it would also be nice to have that fancy schmancy ring on my finger and have that solid, material symbol of our love and being able to show it off, you know? I want people to know that we’re serious and I’m tired of explaining that yes indeed he’s Mr. Right, and no he’ll never cheat on me. Am I crazy for wanting more (even though I know we’re getting engaged in a few years anyway)? I hate being jealous! Especially of people in a volatile relationship -_-

2

I’m engaged and I don’t have a ring. And that’s fine by me. Because it’s about the implicit commitment, and not some expensive rock. Does the actual commitment bring a sense of security, seal the deal? Sure, but 90% of the time I forget we’re engaged. I still introduce him as my “boyfriend,” since our families and most of our friends don’t know.*

I get the sense that you think you should do it because it’s “the last step” to sealing an already great relationship. Truth is, you’ll propose or he’ll propose when you really feel like it. Why rush? Is marriage the end-all, be-all of what you want out of this guy? My guess is no. So why not just sit back and enjoy your time together, live your lives side by side? You might just find yourselves feeling like a married couple, and for a lot cheaper than the cost of the ring!

On a side note: without knowing your housemate or her new fiancee, my prediction is that they will break up within a year of their marriage, if not before they actually get married (or even next week! :eek: ) So don’t be jealous of the volatile couples. Their engagement isn’t as “real” as the commitment you already have with your SO of four years.

*slight hijack: Well, I guess I’m officially announcing it now. Hooray! I’m engaged!
::does happy dance::

3

I understand how you feel, but there is something you should think over - likely, the only reason they got engaged in the first place is that they had to somehow make their relationship seem stronger, and that seemed like a good way to do it. At least, subconciously.

I’ve seen a few relationships like that - they fight, break up, rinse, repeat as necessary, then get engaged once it gets to the point where either they get married or they have to face the fact that they should break up for good. They just weren’t ready to face that fact yet. (Keep in mind, this is all IMHO, so take it for what it’s worth). I don’t think this is a good basis for a marriage.

Anyway, if your relationship is strong and happy (and it seems to me that it is), then there is no reason to change it until you are ready.

It’s not crazy to want people to view you as a strong couple, but anyone who knows you will know that you are. And anyone who knows an engaged couple who’s had a volatile past will know (or at least assume) that they are not as strong, despite a ring.

4

It’s not a race. There is nothing less valuable about a slowly developing relationship than a fast-developing one. You don’t get extra points for getting engaged or married young.

It’s not about the ring. Lots of people get engaged and married without a ring. My mom’s parents did, and if anyone says they were somehow less married for the 50-some years they were married, well, I might have to hurt anyone who would say a thing like that. I’d also be strongly tempted to hurt (or at least stop associating with, if possible) people who said idiotic things like “oh, he’s your boyfriend…so are you going to date anymore men? You might just find Mr. Right”.

All that said, I was glad when Mr. Neville and I got engaged. It took an article on Slashdot about diamonds to get us talking about it, though. You should talk to your boyfriend about getting engaged (IMHO). I really wish I’d talked to Mr. Neville about it earlier.

5

I really don’t get engagement beyond the time that’s needed to plan a wedding. What’s the need? I know too many stories like the OP’s housemate for engagement to mean anything special or strong about a relationship in my mind. I also know plenty of folks who use an amorphous engagement as an excuse to justify living together. (I say, if you want to live together, live together. Don’t lie to yourself and others and claim you’ve got plans to get married when you’ve got no such thing.)

By the way, I also don’t like engagement rings (for myself, I don’t judge others who want 'em). I told MrValley that if he proposed to me, I wanted a ring from a gumball machine. He actually got me a simple gold ring engraved with something special inside, but tricked me to think it was from a machine as a joke. It was very special to me, and also practical, because my job and recreations both involved gloves that couldn’t handle a stone. But there were some co-workers and such who wanted to see “the ring”, then looked down their noses because it wasn’t a giant rock, which I couldn’t wear 10 hours a day. :rolleyes:

6

Oh we have talked about engagement at length already. That’s how we figured out that wow, if we got engaged that would mean getting married. And seeing as though we’re not yet settled into comfortable careers, nor do we own or rent a house/apartment of our own, that we are not even close to being ready yet.

Also, whenever I ask him about our later engagement, he says verbatim jokingly “woman, everytime you ask me when we’re getting engaged, it only pushes it farther away. Let me surprise you, so just stop asking”.

And I understand that a ring doesn’t mean anything to people who are truly committed to each other, but it’s been something that I’ve wanted since I was little. My parents don’t have rings either and they fight constantly - I’m surprised they’re not divorced. That’s why I strive to make an example for them and others of how to do it right. Take your time, choose someone you actually get along with and love and respect each other. That’s why I want the engagement ring because my family has never chosen their spouses for love, but necessity. I want the fairytale engagement so I can at least start a tradition of marrying for love.

7

I agree with Lily - traditionally, engagement is done only when a wedding date has been set (or is in the process of being set within a very short time), it’s not a “dating exclusively, no really” status, and it won’t save a relationship in trouble. My husband and I dated/lived together for a total of eight years. We got engaged one April and got married October of the following year. My sister got engaged something like a half year or more before we did, and a few years after we’d gotten married, they were still in “engaged” status with no clear view of when they’d tie the knot. She ended up breaking it off with him after she could no longer deal with his drug use, losing jobs repeatedly, and ‘emotional neglect’ of her.

Get engaged on your own terms, in your own time.

8

I was engaged for a year and a half and didn’t get my ring until about 2 weeks before the wedding. AFAIK people took us seriously when we said “engaged” despite my bare finger.

I’m a believer in short engagements: pop the question, plan the wedding, git 'r done.

OTOH, I’ve seen couples date a lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng time and I wonder what the holdup is. IMHO two or three years is enough time to figure out if someone is marriage material and whether or not you want to marry them. Given your ages and situation, though, I’d say you two would be smart to wait. Get that degree first.

However, if you were in your 30s with an already established career, I’d be wondering why you’ve let some guy string you along for 4 years when he knows you’re looking to get married.

Most people in volatile relationships get engaged because it’s “time” to either get married or break up. Those are people who will be separated before the wedding pictures come back from the photographer. You’re in this for the long haul. No need to be jealous.

9

And that, right there, is the heart of this issue. You want the fairy tale, where if the princess does everything according to the formula (the formula your parents didn’t follow), everything works out perfectly and they all live happily ever after. I can understand that. Fairy tales are beautiful stories, and they can be very comforting. When it’s all said and done, though, fairy tales nothing but pure imagination. They’re not real. They have no substance. They’re just made-up bullshit we tell kids at bedtime.

Life isn’t like a fairy tale. It’s uglier and more confusing and less comforting. There’s no formula to follow that guarantees a happy ending. Sometimes we do everything all wrong, and things work out okay anyway. Sometimes we do everything just right, and it still goes horribly awry. We don’t ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after; we’re lucky to have many years of being reasonably content before one of us dies or leaves.

What you’re building with your boyfriend, that’s life. It’s real and solid and complicated and sometimes less than ideal. And I think you already know that. It’s just that the part of you that still wants the prince and happily ever after is making you dissatisfied with something you really and truly want. The trick is to figure out how to untangle which feelings are about what you really and realistically want out of life, and which ones are the dreams about the fairy tale.

After all, fairy tales are romantic and reassuring and quite lovely. Real life is messy and complicated and hard…and beyond glorious.

10

Speaking of rings: a friend of mine got married a couple months ago and she and her now-husband decided to dispense with the engagement ring. She’s not a big jewelery person to start with and they thought it would be more practical and a better use of the money to buy something useful for their house. She’s a total foodie and loves cooking, so as an “engagement ring” (and she calls it that!) they bought a fancy schmancy oven/stove. (Don’t ask me what it is, I don’t know from cooking.) She got some weird reactions from some stick-in-the-muds, but they’re both very pleased with it. IMO, it may be less romantic than a big rock, but nothing says commitment like a major appliance!

Basically, it’s not about the ring.

11

Not crazy; fizzy showed her ring off to half the Southwest Virginia area back when she got it. I think half her livejournal icons at one point were various angles of her ring. Of course, she picked it out (I was not about to lay down money on that sort of thing without knowing for sure what she wanted)…

12

I understand that life is crazy and you won’t always get what you want. Right now we’re both trying to put ourselves through school, dealing with papers/midterms, picking and choosing internships/jobs to have something on our resumes and possibly get letters of recommendations, etc. I believe life is what you make of it, and amidst rent that’s due, bills to be paid and laundry to be done, there can be a bit of something magical. And that’s one little thing that we want for us, something that we can look back on that will be perfect. We have so much going on that for once, we’d like something that can we look back on that we can say was like a fairytale.

Haha that’s so something that my family would approve of! After he buys the engagement, and we pay for the wedding, we’re going frugal! Trust me, I’m registering before my wedding and believe me, everything on there is going to be things that we’ll need, otherwise we’ll ask for money to cover the wedding. And man, with my friends and his tribe of a family, it’s going to be very hard to pay off. :eek:

13

That’s why God invented eloping.

Spend the money on a great honeymoon, have wild sex in an exotic location, come back, throw a reception and STILL get presents and money :slight_smile:

14

Yeaaahhh…now imagine my friends and his family turned into an angry mob waiting for us at the gate when we fly back home…that’s what would be awaiting us if we eloped. :smack:

And my boyfriend was reading your post with me and he starting rawring and pawing at me when he read the sex part. Even though I know he’s half serious, it still makes me laugh when he begs for some lovin :slight_smile:

He also got some ideas when he read about the “engagement ring appliances” and started giving me that puppy dog look :rolleyes: But I think I’ll get him some power tools to start out once he proposes :slight_smile:

15

Better learn to put your foot down now, then :slight_smile:

It’s your wedding. If you want a big wedding, by all means, go for it. If you don’t, though, everyone else is just going to have to deal with it.

16

Do what you want, not what you think others expect. Missuscase and I are still technically engaged, and have been for 6 years now; we’ve been living together for 8, and have a beautiful 2 and a half year old son. We exchanged rings {she lost the first, so I had to get her another one…that’s another story}, but that was a symbol of committment rather than something to flaunt. Our relationship is strong and happy, and we will probably get married sooner or later, but other things have intervened - the birth of lowercase, me moving back from Japan to NZ, her emigrating here - and we just haven’t found the time yet. We will, someday, but to us we’re a family, and that’s all that matters. My advice is not to mistake the wrapping for the gift.

17

If you want a ring so much, go on Ebay and buy yourself one.

If you are looking for a fairytale, it is in the library in the kids section.

Marriage is alot more than a glittery diamond ring and a poofy white dress. Weddings are highly, highly, highly x1000 overrated. The Wedding Industry ( worth in the Billions) has brainwashed women into thinking it is The Best Day In Her Life.

Utter and Complete Bullshit.

It can be a great day, and I am not knocking those that enjoyed their day at all. I enjoyed mine, but I wanted a less glitzy-formal affair but it wasn’t allowed because it simply was not done.

The best days in life are never planned and a camera is rarely around to document the fun had. Trust yer Aunt Shirley on this.

Marriage is hard work. It is not all sighing, hand holding and feeling like butterflies are dive bombing in your stomach. That can wear off. No one ever talks about the in law issues, being pulled two different directions over the holidays, money, death, taxes, prolonged illnesses, basic mundane household maintence issues. Ever. Unless they are bitching about it.

It is the little things like that that start breaking up a marriage more than anything else, IMHO.

Marriage isn’t about throwing a hissy fit and tossing your partner out on his ear until he comes around to your way of thinking.

Marriage is not about who makes more money gets to make the rules or whose the boss and the lesser earning one is the maid.

Marriage is not about one partner always getting to do their big expensive hobby and leaving the spouse by herself feeling lonely and with the kids and no weekends away ever because the husband is too fucking selfish to let her have a weekend away and she is too insecure to assert herself and feels too guilty to spend that kind of money like the husband does for his weekends away because she knows they can’t afford it. But it doesn’t stop him and he never gets a deer or duck and is generally a selfish asshole. Sorry, this is a sore spot with me and a bunch of female friends.

Marriage isn’t about excessive living and Pottery Barn furniture in the living room while your spouse works 90 a week to pay off the bills.

It is about working together, not against each other like the Israeli’s and Palestinians and being of the same mind on Major Important Subjects not trying to change the other person. You will never change the other person. Ever.

Marriage is a partnership. Sometimes it is 50/50, some times it is 40/60 and on those hopefully rare occasions, it is 1/99. (I know, I’ve been the 1 a few times.)

No Ramble Would Be Complete Without A Pithy Metaphor From Shirley

Marriage is alot like a pendulum hanging straight down and wavering a little bit each direction.

In one direction on the far right side it is " I can’t beleive I am so lucky to marry the most patient, kind, decent person. I have learned so much from him and it is an honor to know someone like this.I don’t deserve him. He is too good for me."

On the far left it is, " Holy shit. What the fuck did I marry into? The carnies married Peyton Place. AIIIIIIIIIIGHHHHHH!"
I shouldn’t have open this thead. I cannot resist giving advice ( newsflash, huh?) and now am late getting the kids ready for school. YAY!)

18

Why would this make you happier? You shoudln’t be dependant on other people’s perceptions.

Tell them : I already found Mr Right. That would be him.

Why would you hang around mean people? And if you can’t avoid being around them, why don’t you just ignore their comments? It’s not like non asked for comments are going to change your relationship with your boyfriend.

If you want them to understand your relationship as something of substance then tell them so. If they still hold the view that no commitment can be taken seriously without an overpriced De Beers diamond, then hand them the adress of the nearest clue-seller.

You’re happy, they’re miserable, and you’re jealous? You should thank whatever god you’re praying to (or Darwin, as the case may be) for nort being in their position.

What do you mean by “your relationship is develloping so slowly”? You still haven’t kissed? You’re unwilling to live together? You’re both dating other people until you’ll make your mind? You don’t know each other well enough? You don’t trust each other?

Develloping a relationship has nothing to do with engagement rings.

I’m not sure what you mean by “they have the money to play around”. The kind of playing around I enjoy with a SO doesn’t require any money.

Nope. What would be nice is that you know you’re a strong couple. Being engaged has no bearing on the strenght of a couple, as you yourself demonstrated with the example of your friends.

Now, what is more important and interesting is that you’ re saying “I know we’re not ready”. Ready for what exactly? What kind of new challenges do you expect to face when you’ll be engaged that you aren’t already facing now? My answer is : none (except for trying not to lose a costly ring). The situation will be exactly the same as before.

Now, if by “not ready”, you mean that you aren’t sure that your couple is/ will remain as stable as you would want it to be, that’s certainly something you should put a lot of thought in. But it has nothing to do with the perception of other people. They “validating” your couple won’t make you anymore “ready” (whatever it is you mean by “ready”). Nor will an engagement ring.

No, I don’t know, actually. I’m going to be judgemental, but I perceive this as somewhat shallow. In particular the “showing off” part. I can understand the value of symbols, but any ring (or whatever else), fancy or not, can do. If being engaged is, for you (not for your acquaintances) , an important symbol, then go for it. But if you think you’re “not ready”, then symbols and “showing off” should be the last of your worries. Making your mind should have priority.

Then, tell them you’re serious and tired of their obnoxious assumptions and comments. Or just shrug it off. Or hang out with other people.

As for stating that he’ll never cheat on you, don’t expect people to take your word for it. You might be 100% sure it’s true, he might be convinced of this himself, but most of us have heard people stating the same and still be cheated upon. A polite smile and congratulations are the most you can expect from reasonnable people. And by the way, being engaged, once again, won’t change a thing.

Crazy? No. But you’re giving way too much importance to this engagement thing, or to other people’s perceptions.

And rightly so. Work on it. Being jealous of people who are miserable just doesn’t make sense.

Alternately, dump your boyfriend and find someone else you don’t love but who’s willing to get engaged. You’ll get the arguing, the crying, the hostility, but also people’s congratulations (In your face. What they’ll be saying behind your back is another matter entirely) and the ring to show off . Your pick.

19

Let me see if I’ve got this right:
You’re jealous of people who make each other miserable?
You want to get engaged because you want a pretty piece of jewelry that you think will make other people take your relationship seriously?
When you do get married, you plan to have a wedding you can’t afford and you expect other people to fund it for you?
You blame your parent’s rocky marriage on their lack of rings?

I think there should be a long list of things that you need to do before contemplating marriage, and growing up is just one of them.

20

grin You think that’s bad? Doomtrain bought me a dagger and mace as my engagement present and I got him a lightsaber. I do own a pretty sapphire ring I wear, but that’s because I work in retail and get a lot of guys trying to hit on me, and the ring is a deterrent.