Waiting to get engaged..

LegacyUser

Hi
I never really understood couples who had planned engagement or couples who had a ring for ages before making it official before and now it turns out I am one of those couples!
I am going out with my boyfriend nearly 8years, we always discussed marriage and our future. Last December my boyfriend asked me to marry him and asked me help him pick out a ring.. he said it wasn't and "offical" engagement..
I went along with that, we had a look at rings but found it hard to find the one so we eventually decided to get it made, it arrived in April.. since April we have been on 3 fabulous holidays and still no engagement..
I don't want to put pressure on him but this is driving me mad!!
we had planned on getting married before the end of 2010 but that probably can't happen now as he doesn't want to book anything until we are engaged.. so i am getting a little frustrated now because it feels like he has no intention in asking me any time soon and to make things worse i have the ring in my bedside locker.talk about teasing me!!

Has anyone ever being in this situation before? Should i bring this up with him as he probably doesn't realise how long it takes to plan a wedding or should I just leave it be for a few more months and hope he won't it too long.

All opinions appreciated..
Thanks

Zen65

Waiting to get engaged wrote: »

All opinions appreciated..

OK, let me offer this opinion:

You have the ring already... propose to him.

And if you do get married, don't let anything drag on this long without talking about it, nothing kills a relationship like silence and assumptions.

Be at peace,

Z

rainbowtrout

Waiting to get engaged wrote: »

Hi
I never really understood couples who had planned engagement or couples who had a ring for ages before making it official before and now it turns out I am one of those couples!
I am going out with my boyfriend nearly 8years, we always discussed marriage and our future. Last December my boyfriend asked me to marry him and asked me help him pick out a ring.. he said it wasn't and "offical" engagement..
I went along with that, we had a look at rings but found it hard to find the one so we eventually decided to get it made, it arrived in April.. since April we have been on 3 fabulous holidays and still no engagement..
I don't want to put pressure on him but this is driving me mad!!
we had planned on getting married before the end of 2010 but that probably can't happen now as he doesn't want to book anything until we are engaged.. so i am getting a little frustrated now because it feels like he has no intention in asking me any time soon and to make things worse i have the ring in my bedside locker.talk about teasing me!!

Has anyone ever being in this situation before? Should i bring this up with him as he probably doesn't realise how long it takes to plan a wedding or should I just leave it be for a few more months and hope he won't it too long.

All opinions appreciated..
Thanks

I don't get this. He asked you to marry him, I assume you said yes, and he bought you a ring. What more is there to being engaged??? Isn't accepting a marriage proposal/agreeing to getting married an engagement???

Is this guy just trying to stall you in a 'I've bought the ring, but we're not engaged' type way to avoid getting married. It really does sound bizarre.

Why don't you sit him down and ask him why he does not consider ye to be engaged? What is his definition of being engaged because I think most people would consider it from when he asked you to marry him.

I don't think it's a case of him not knowing how long it takes to plan a wedding. It would seem that the women usually end up doing a lot of the wedding planning but generally there seems to be 1-2 years from time of engagement to wedding day. I think most people are aware of this type of timeframe.

Ickle Magoo

Have you told him how you feel? Have you asked him what's going on? I don't understand why you can't discuss these issues with your boyfriend? Eight years of relationship and four months with ring a locker it seems a bit mad not to be able to have a chat about future plans....

tenchi-fan

Waiting to get engaged wrote: »

Last December my boyfriend asked me to marry him and asked me help him pick out a ring.. he said it wasn't and "offical" engagement..

Pure and absolute nonsense! You either got engaged or you didn't.

I think you should give him the ring back until he is ready to make the commitment.

tinkerbell

Ok he asked you to marry him so you are engaged. Tell your boyfriend to cop on and get over himself, you're engaged now, that's that. None of this "not official" crap, he proposed already!! Time to have a chat with him, this sounds really odd tbh ...

I agree with tenchi-fan, time to give the ring back until he's ready to make that commitment. Because right now what's the point of the proposal and ring if he doesn't want to be "officially" engaged?

magneticimpulse

I dont get this? He proposed to you and you have the ring?? What else do you want...a little jig and dance to say thats it. Im sorry but YOU ARE engaged!!! The ring is proof that you are engaged. Your bloke is prob thinking why have you not set a date yet. Seriously if a bloke bought me a ring after proposing i would take that as being engaged!!!

Set a date!! What you waiting for??

SallySweet

You really need to talk to him and if you cant talk to them then you need to gauge whether or not ye are ready for marriage.

Is he controlling in other areas?

Chinafoot

magneticimpulse wrote: »

I dont get this? He proposed to you and you have the ring?? What else do you want...a little jig and dance to say thats it. Im sorry but YOU ARE engaged!!! The ring is proof that you are engaged. Your bloke is prob thinking why have you not set a date yet. Seriously if a bloke bought me a ring after proposing i would take that as being engaged!!!

Set a date!! What you waiting for??

Thats a bit unfair. A jig and a dance?? He's the one telling her it's not an "official" engagement so I seriously doubt he's wondering why she hasn't set a date.

OP, personally I would find that entirely unacceptable. Either he wants to marry you or he doesn't. Telling you its not an official engagement makes me think he's buying you the ring to placate you but he doesn't want anyone else to know about it. If it were me I'd be thinking this guy has no genuine intention to marry me.

A conversation needs to happen. Tell him you want to start wearing the ring, you want to set a date and you want to tell your friends and family your good news. He needs to start being honest with you (and himself) about how he really feels.

BettePorter

apparantly if it hasn't happened after 3 years you're doomed !


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1292014/Didnt-aisle-years-Your-marriage-doomed-says-relationship-expert.html

Fox McCloud

To be honest I would question whether he wants to get married or not..
You love someone and want to marry them. You ask them do they feel the same way and would they like to get married(proposal), you tell your friends and family you plan to marry and organise it(engagment) Then you get married!

metrovelvet

Engagements can't be anything but official and public. I think he's getting you in a double bind.

Ask him how long he wants to wait before you start planning the wedding. How long is this engagement going to go on for.

OP, wait for a little while but not forever.

LegacyUser

I think I understand your situation OP. My OH and I discussed our future, and agreed that we wanted a future together, and that included marriage, so we actually did similar to you. We went ring shopping. But he hadn't formally proposed, so we didn't consider ourselves engaged.

At some later stage, he ordered and bought the ring while I wasn't around, and he kept it hidden from me, and didn't tell me if/when he had the ring. We went to Paris about 3 months after I had picked the ring, and I had a fair idea he had the ring with him, and it was only then that he did a formal proposal and we officially got engaged. So I do understand how you can have the ring, but not be officially engaged.

Does he want the surprise factor? Although as your said, you've been on 3 holidays which could have been ideal, he may have thought it was too predictable.

I think as other posters have said, communication is really important here. You had discussed getting married by end of 2010, but he doesn't want you to book anything till you're engaged? Why not? I know many couple who have everything pre-booked before they announce their engagement.

Time is getting extremely tight for 2010, and there is a lot to organise .. so perhaps you can discuss that with your OH. Does he still want a 2010 wedding? What kind of wedding were you planning (eloping? big party?) .. as he may not be aware of just how much organising there is. And also he may not realise that you have to give advance notice in Ireland to get married.

Good luck!

Trier

Maybe he's thinking of a very simple wedding, with just the two of you and your closest family and friends that would be easy enough to prepare and plan.

A beach wedding/eloping with you to get married "in secret" or something like that?...

Did you ever talk about what kind of wedding you were respectively wanting?

Maybe since all this, many things happened at his work/in his life and there is something that bothers him and make him reconsider/postpone this wedding plan? Maybe he's struggling with something, having problems?

You should definitely discuss that with him.

Best of luck!

OS119

Trier wrote: »

Maybe he's thinking of a very simple wedding, with just the two of you and your closest family and friends that would be easy enough to prepare and plan.

A beach wedding/eloping with you to get married "in secret" or something like that?...

Did you ever talk about what kind of wedding you were respectively wanting?

Maybe since all this, many things happened at his work/in his life and there is something that bothers him and make him reconsider/postpone this wedding plan? Maybe he's struggling with something, having problems?

You should definitely discuss that with him.

Best of luck!

sorry, this has nothing to do with the type of wedding either party wants - complete red herring.

OP. if someone asks you to marry them, and you say 'yes' then you are engaged - you don't need a ring, or a party, or an anouncement in a newspaper to complete the process, its complete when you say 'yes'.

its exactly the same as being pregnant - you are pregnant the moment a sperm fertilises an egg, you do not have to wait until you tell anyone, or have a baby shower, or start getting swollen ankles in order to be 'officially' pregnant. you are either pregnant or not - like with an engagement, you are either engaged or not.

as others have said, 'hiding' an engagement is not usually an indicator of good news - though the important issue is that the person he appears to be hiding it from is himself, which is much worse.

he either wants to marry you - in which case some attempted at arranging it or timetabling it should be evident almost regardless of what timescale or type of wedding you choose, or he doesn't - in which case fobbing you off with a ring while somehow claiming that him asking you to marry him doesn't actually constitute a marriage proposal - and hence an 'engagement' - seems to be a pretty good indicator.