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.
We’ve discussed this as well. He knows I want children. He doesn’t want a whole bunch more of them but agreed to at least give me one.
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.
Booya. You are home fre, then, we can hope – fingers crossed?
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.
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?
And toes!
bup: 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?”
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Erm… not to get off the subject, but don’t you find that a bit alarming? I would.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.