A typical sitcom situations revolves around a character asking another to marry. And the answer comes as “no,” to typical hilarious sitcom results.
So my question is to all that asked a woman (or man) to marry him or her, how sure of the answer were you?
Did you think she/he would say no? Did he/she say no?
If you were asked, did you already have the answer before the question was popped?
I was a bartender at her dad’s bar when I first met her. I can remember everything about her, down to the color of her nail polish. I knew I was going to marry her. Right then.
I was a little nervous when I asked, but I enlisted my Pug’s help so I knew the answer would be yes.
Of course, we divorced 5 years later but remain friends.
I was asked, but we had previously discussed and agreed to marriage. I just thought we were going to wait till I finished law school, so I was super-surprised.
In a related story, I interrupted my husband 3 times while he was trying to proprose. I was telling a rambling and pointless story about Junior High School, and he was beating around the bush a bit, so I was trying to finish MY story… Finally he was like
soIreallylikeyouletsgetmarriedOKAY???
I was asked - and the answer had being Yes for three years.
The asker says of course he knew, he wouldn’t have asked otherwise.
Being lesbians we were never permitted to marry in Illinois, 21 years later we have the opportunity to have a civil union… we asked one another at dinner one evening after it was announced, we said yes.
No doubt.
99.99%
I was unexpectedly turned down. It was harsh.
I was very sure, but I didn’t manage to actually get the question out before she asked “Don’t you want to ask me something?”
<shame> Biggest question of my life, and I froze. Just sat there with the ring box open in my hand and my mouth open like an idiot.
I finally pulled it together and completed the task. She said yes.
Yeah, I knew what the answer was going to be before I asked. But I did it old school–down on one knee, in a beautiful natural setting.
We had discussed the issue often enough beforehand, so I was absolutely sure the answer would be yes.
I don’t think Sr. Olives could have had a more sure thing on his hands. We not only discussed it several times, we pretty much decided the day it would be, and he had me give him an online printout of my favorite engagement rings so that he could have something to go by when he picked mine out (we’re planners. We like planning.) We planned a trip to the local arboretum, where we had our first ‘‘date,’’ specifically so as to create the romantic atmosphere, on our three year dating anniversary.
And then, when we knew it was time, we had to wait for the couple near us to stop arguing, and so we were just sitting there staring lovingly at one another and cracking up.
He did manage to surprise me though - with two megathick binders full of every e-mail we ever sent one another. Though we knew one another IRL, e-mail was our primary mode of communication for the first year or so, thus we have this tome of e-mails that shows our progression from vague aquaintances to best friends to deeply in love (even though we didn’t know it yet.) Something to share with the grandkids someday.
I knew she would say yes, but I was nervous as hell anyway.
90% sure. We had discussed if the relationship was serious previously, so I was a little more than reasonably sure.
Our twenty-ninth anniversary is tomorrow.
Regards,
Shodan
Dude. Your marriage is older than me.
(Congratulations, that’s awesome.)
I had no idea, and hadn’t planned anything. The idea just popped into my head and out of my mouth within a couple of seconds. She cried and said yes and even though it didn’t work out in the end, the expression on her face right at that moment is something I’ll always treasure.
The next day I woke up and thought “wow”. When she got up I said “you know what I said last night?” She thought I was going to retract. I didn’t: “I meant every word of it.” We were married two years later (and divorced five and a half years after that).
You sound like you’re still in love with her, or at least in love with the woman she was. I’m sorry things didn’t work out.
I was quite sure she’d say yes. We’d been dating for over 6 years.
I proposed June 1980, we married June 1981.
Less than 1 month until our 30th wedding anniversary.
I was not at all sure, though I should have been. We dated all through college, wrote each other constantly during the summers (email hadn’t been invented yet), our relationship was very serious, and we’d had many serious conversations about “us”. Summer before our senior year I missed her so much that I knew I had to have her in my life forever. I asked without a ring or anything, and she said yes. We married three years later due to jobs, grad school and such. Mama Zappa’s and my 28th anniversary is this summer. 
Three times in my youth I ask women to marry me knowing full well that they would say “NO!” I thought of it as a burning bridges exercise - get that one out of the way too, to further reduce the chances of and undesirable reconciliation.