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I can’t stop crying…

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  • #203269
    dreaming715
    Participant

    I’m a female who will be 30 in several months. In my close friend group my last “single” best friend got engaged today. I’m officially the last of all of my friends. I do live with my boyfriend of 2 years, but I have many differences from my friends. I’m not engaged, married, a home owner, and I do not have pets or kids.

    I love my boyfriend more than I can describe, but he is not ready to get married “yet.” We’ve been fighting a lot lately about me pressuring him. Whenever we get into a fight he says “Ok, do you want to go look at rings?” to appease me so I’ll stop talking about it. I tell him I only want us to do that when we’re happy, not in an emotionally unhappy state.

    Tonight when I told him my best friend got engaged he said, “Are you okay? Do you want to go look at rings?” I calmly told him I’d like him to do it on his own, unprompted, out of genuine love and wanting to do it. The he said, “Alright, we’ll dont say I never ask you.” He said it not in a loving tone, but like he just wanted to get ahead of me so he could check off an “I brought up something marriage related” box. (He did later admit this was true.)

    He’s told me many times to just trust that he’ll eventually get there and enjoy what we currently have together.

    I’m not being dramatic when I say this, but I feel like something is wrong with my brain because everyone around me is celebrating their engagements, marriages, etc… and I don’t feel I can just be content right now.

    I’ve waited my whole life to experience this with the person I love and am committed to. I want us to start our “official forever.”

    The only option I have is to just accept that an engagement to my boyfriend isn’t currently in our plans right now and frankly because nothing is guaranteed in this life, if we wait a long time who knows of we’ll experience it? People get sick, accidents happen, etc…

    So please help me :(. How can I find genuine acceptance in this, I want to be married and experience everything that comes along with it more than I can describe, but how can I just be happy with being on a normal cohabitated relationship?

    #203287
    nextsteps
    Participant

    Hello!

    Firstly I want to say that I am not married so perhaps people who have been married or are married on tiny bhudda would be able to give you better advice here.

    I just wanted to say in my view please please enjoy what you have with your boyfriend. Pressuring him into proposing is not going to help and could ruin or drive a wedge through your relationship. You say you love him more than words so perhaps just trust him and he will get there. I was pressure by my boyfriend to buy a house and it did affect our relationship for a long while so I’m saying this with sort of experience. Just because he hasn’t proposed does not make you a less of a person or girlfriend or partner than your friends who have. It is not a reflection of your self worth.

    Also, just because your friends have got engaged or are married doesn’ mean it will last forever or that because they have it wont it doesnt mean you wont. There is enough to go round. I don’t say that to be negative, it’s more just accepting that everyone has their own life to live and race to run, so whilst you are the only one out of your friends to get married, compared to the whole world you aren’t. I like to think people have their own paths.

    My final thought is to perhaps just ask yourself why you are putting marriage on such a pedestal and what it exactly means to you and why it’s so important. It could be your boyfriend’s reasons for marriage are very different so that’ why he isn’t working to the same timescale as you.

    There are lots of YouTube videos/ted talks or books about letting go of expectations so perhaps they could help.

    #203299
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear dreaming715:

    My first thought/ feeling was: I wish you did get married to your boyfriend very soon. I wish that wedding took place and that you will be happy.

    After a wedding, it will still be the same “normal cohabitated relationship” that you are having now, of course. No magic to add to it, following the wedding. It is still you, him and day to day living, just like now.

    There will probably be comfort for you when you are married, and marriage does bring comfort to many, having that ring on the finger. It makes a difference.

    I hope you stop the fighting and pressuring. I listened to a piece of stand up comedy recently where a comedian, said: “men don’t settle down; they surrender”-

    Better not have a war. Better marry because of love, not because of war.

    anita

    #203317
    Inky
    Participant

    Hi dreaming715,

    This is what I did:

    I said “This is my ring size” with a smile and a wink. And I didn’t say anything more about it.

    I also never lived with him. If you are living together, move. I’m not kidding. Unspoken pressure (that you can leave anytime) is better than spoken pressure.

    This is what his friend did (unprompted my me, it just happened):

    He said “If you don’t marry her you’re crazy. This is the one. You know her ring size. Go to Tiffany’s. You can’t go wrong picking out any ring from there.”

    Also, two years is long enough. He knows you don’t just want to get married. He knows that you want the proposal itself to be romantic. For some reason he is withholding that from you.  Just say, “Here’s my ring size. I’m moving in with my friends for a while. This has to come from you. No pressure.” And say it with a smile and a bounce to your step as if some other guy was shopping at Tiffany’s as you speak.

    Good Luck!

    Inky

     

    • This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Inky.
    #203343
    dreaming715
    Participant

    Thank you all for the responses. We are locked into a lease where we both pay a set amount and to be completely honest I don’t think I have any friends that would welcome me to live with them for an extended period of time (lol this is true, unless my apartment burned down or something). But I can see why an idea like that would work.

    So I slept on it and have a couple of thoughts:

    1) Maybe “marriage” starts before the proposal? I’m trying to shift my mindset a little. Like what is the foundation I want to build with my boyfriend for a future together? One where we argue every week and I pressure him into something he’s not ready for? A lot of men want to have kids eventually, but just because they’re married and say they’re not ready for one “yet,” doesn’t mean they’ll never be ready. So I do believe he does want to marry me, it’s just a financial/timing thing right now.

    How would I want to look back on this time in my life with him? We did move in together a few mo the ago, so that in itself is worth celebrating.

    2) I have to go to a friend’s bridal shower next weekend (I’m a bridesmaid) and also next weekend is my newly engaged friend’s birthday party so there will be a lot of congratulatory engagement talk happening.

    I’m going to have to exercise a little mental and emotional toughness that day. I’m obviously happy for my friends, but I feel the “lack” of an engagement and marriage in my life right now.

    How do I want to look back on their celebrations though? I want to have fun and celebrate the happy moments in their life.

    I know this will sound weird, but I almost want to be in the experiences like an outsider looking in and detach myself a little. Like I can experience it all, but not on a personal level. Sort of like I’m watching it happen on TV and thinking “Wow that’s wonderful!” I think it’s a self-coping mechanism and maybe it would be healthy for me to detach myself a little. In dialectical behavioral therapy they say to “observe your thoughts” and just acknowledge, oh yeah there’s that thought again, okay thought you can go now… and let it go. This might be a good wedding season strategy for me?

    #203345
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear dreaming715:

    Reads like a good strategy to me, to practice detachment during the wedding.

    The title of your thread is “I can’t stop crying..”- having read your threads over time I got to know you as a very rational person. Your rational part is very strong and keeps you moving through difficulties.

    I also got to know your boyfriend through your threads and my impression is that he is a decent man. He was slow from the beginning, in the relationship with you, consistent from the very start, that is, being rational himself, cautious, planning ahead.

    anita

    #203365
    dreaming715
    Participant

    Thank you for the helpful, compassionate, and reassuring response, Anita. I always look forward to reading what you have to say. I’ll try to keep things in perspective and practice my “detached” strategy. Detached kind of has a negative connotation, but I think in some circumstances it can be a good thing.

    #203375
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear dreaming715:

    You are welcome. Pleasure to read from you. The detached strategy is absolutely positive sometimes, healthy. This is why it came about evolution wise, because it is helpful in certain circumstances.

    anita

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