First of all, no one knows me here but if they knew me they would know I normally never talk about problems that are currently really bothering me. I’ll talk about lighthearted stuff, and serious problems that have already been resolved, but things that make my heart ache are private.
That being said, I feel like I really need to share this with someone, and you people are always so nice. This one is overflowing in me.
My SO and I have been together for about eight years. I am ready to get married. He is not. This is OK, I mostly understand this (at least logically). I want very much to be married but I also believe no one should get married until they really want to.
My problem is his family. His brother loves me, and I love him. He just got married. I won’t lie, it was kinda painful to be there wondering when it was going to be my turn.
I don’t think his family likes me very much. I spent the entire weekend before her wedding with his sister-in-law (SIL). I don’t know why her friends or her sister couldn’t be there for her, but I went out of my way to help because I didn’t think she would have asked me unless she really needed a friend, plus it’s going to be my family, too one day. (I’m beginning to not be so sure, though).
Well that was a couple of months ago. She promised to email me and get in touch with me, and she hasn’t done either. I’m beginning to feel like she used me. I really want to get to know her better. We’re very different, but it’s supposed to be family, right? I know she’s off because she’s a teacher and has the summer off.
His mom thinks he should move out of this town and back home where he could probably be making better money. I have questioned him multiple times on this, and have even offered to break up for a little while so he could go home and decide if that’s what he really wants. He tells me he loves me, and wants to marry me.
I think his mom doesn’t like me because I’m not the same race…SIL had the same hurdle to jump.
His sister-in-law, however, is MUCH more pushy than I am. His brother loves her, but we all have the feeling she pushed him into asking much sooner than he was ready.
My SO keeps saying he wants to wait to get married until he has a better, high-paying job. This reason bothers me, it means it’s not that he’s not ready for marriage but insecure about money. We don’t plan to have kids, so I can’t see how getting married will change anything financially. Of course we disagree on this.
The thing is, I don’t know why his family doesn’t like me. I don’t make a lot of money, but I’m a really nice person and have always gone out of my way to be sweet to them. And I’m more what they like in their daughter-in-law.
Frankly, I’m jealous that she got accepted seemingly so easily. She lives close to them, and was always over their house in their personal space, where I live hours away. Is this my fault?
Jealousy is NOT like me. This is ruining my normal cheerfulness and making me unhappy. We’ve talked about it many times, but I don’t see what bringing it up again will do. In the early part of our relationship he was not very involved with his family. Now he is, and this seems like an unfair thing to me, that suddenly I have to win these difficult people over to me.
I want to stop being jealous. I want to stop worrying about the future. If he marries me, then that will be good, but I can’t change it if he doesn’t want to, right? I just don’t want him to make the decision based on his parents. Neither do I want him to make the decision just because it’s what I want…this will only cause trouble later in the future.
I want to go back to the eternally happy person I was a year ago. I’m actually starting to get depressed.
I love him so much. 
What am I supposed to do, end the relationship? We’re wonderful together. It’s just this one thing that he hesitates on more and more.
Should I talk to him again about it? Bring it up again? I’m feeling lonely and having grown up in a completely non-affectionate house as an only child, I positively hate that feeling.
I’m sorry for this long thread. I am hoping it will be a catharsis.