'Not Ready' to get married...?

LegacyUser

I am looking for some perspectives on an issue that started off small in my head, and has at this stage the potential to end my 2 year relationship.
First off, I love my BF very much. We have been together over 2 years are both around 30. I have a house, and a child (from a previous relationship) and we live together since late last year.

We have a good relationship, good communication about most things and are fairly balanced.
We have had light conversations at various points over the last year about our long-term 'theoretical' views to marriage and children and I thought we were on the same page.

I had always thought I would want the big wedding, we would have to save and this would take time (years!). My BF wanted to get married (in the theoretical future) but never really seemed that interested in a wedding, letting on that he would do whatever I wanted etc...

However, I have recently been thinking about it seriously and came to the conclusion that i dont want a big wedding... we dont need to save and that i would be happy to get married to him in a registery office and go on a fab honeymoon togehter instead! This lead to the conclusion that we didnt have to wait years, i got super excited at this realisation and I thought he would be delighted at this also! So, I came home all excited with the prospect of eloping!!

The reaction i got has left me shaken about our compatability. Turns out he's 'not ready', which he didnt have to tell me when he had years to save for some wedding getting in the way. Now i am hurt, I feel rejected, I dont know what 'not ready' means and I dont know if we are all that compatible. All i keep thinking is how can he not be ready when we are married on all but paper?!

I thought we were happy, I thought we were going that route, I thought why the hell not!?


I want to be able to discuss getting married, practically, with timelines, budgets etc., ideas and he wants me to not talk about it until he decides to get down on one knee! He is not happy to talk about it, he wants me to drop it, says i'm 'pestering' him and 'pressuring' him because he is 'not ready'. I am quite logical and his reaction doesnt make sense to me, i just feel hurt and doubts are now creeping in about what 'not ready' actually means...
I actaully feel a bit deceived and controlled as he is does want to get married, just when it suits him and on his terms!

And yes, I have asked him what 'not ready' means. It means he is just 'not ready' and i need to accept that and not mention it but trust that he is going to propose when/if he is ready...
I would love to do this, but i cant now that it is out in the open! I feel like he is taking all the control on a decision for both of us, that i thought we both wanted! I dont want HIM to propose, I want US to make a decision together and go with that.. not very romantic but it turns out that is just me and I guess its not him which is weird because we are as i said very equal in every other part of life!

I think we are going to break up over this as i think we want different things and view getting married quite differently. I would love to know if other people have encountered these challenges and how they were resolved.

All perspecitves welcome!

Thanks

ManOfMystery

Not Ready wrote: »

I thought we were on the same page.

Not Ready wrote: »

However, I have recently been thinking about it seriously and came to the conclusion that i dont want a big wedding... we dont need to save and that i would be happy to get married to him in a registery office and go on a fab honeymoon togehter instead! This lead to the conclusion that we didnt have to wait years, i got super excited at this realisation and I thought he would be delighted at this also! So, I came home all excited with the prospect of eloping!!

This is not being on the same page. You were on the same page, then you changed all the plans - in your head. Now you can't understand why your boyfriend isn't as excited as you when you've dropped these new plans into his lap and expect him to have the same reaction instantly?

Not Ready wrote: »

I dont know what 'not ready' means and I dont know if we are all that compatible.

'Not ready' means ................................... he's not ready. It's really that simple. He thought marriage was a few years ahead, now you've decided that it's perfectly ok to bring this forward and he should just step in line.

'Not ready' doesn't mean he doesn't love you. It doesn't mean he doesn't want to commit to you. It doesn't mean you are meaningless to him.

All us married folk have, at one stage or another, not been ready. I was with my now-wife 5yrs before we got married. Was I ready after 1yr? No. Was I ready after 2yrs? No. Was she? I don't know. But when we were both in agreement and both on the same page, that's when we were ready.

Being ready to get married isn't just about how much in love with you he is - it's a big stage in anyone's life, and it takes a lot of thought and consideration to commit to someone for the rest of your life and take on all the changes that come with it. Getting married is a joint decision made by 2 people, but it's also a very personal decision to progress to that next stage of your life and relationship. Some people feel that it makes things more serious, and some want to hold on to the more spontaneous boyfriend/girlfriend dynamic a while longer, even if in reality very little changes on a daily basis.

Not Ready wrote: »

I want to be able to discuss getting married, practically, with timelines, budgets etc., ideas and he wants me to not talk about it until he decides to get down on one knee! He is not happy to talk about it, he wants me to drop it, says i'm 'pestering' him and 'pressuring' him because he is 'not ready'. I am quite logical and his reaction doesnt make sense to me, i just feel hurt and doubts are now creeping in about what 'not ready' actually means...
I actaully feel a bit deceived and controlled as he is does want to get married, just when it suits him and on his terms!

Well I kinda agree with you here. He should be communicating with you. However, it takes 2 to tango - you're saying he's only wanting to get married when it suits him, but are you not doing the same by bringing the timeline forward?

Look, if your boyfriend and you had been debating this for 10 yrs, I'd tell him to cop on. But you've only been together 2 years and only moved in together recently. What's the rush? You are not giving him a chance to reach the same milestone in his head that you're already at.

LegacyUser

Thanks so much for the reply Man of Mystery, I agree it looks like i have changed the plans... but it feels like we werent ever on the same page, i just hadnt asked the right question before!
When I said I'd like to get married to him someday, I meant that someday could be tomorrow, I meant i had decided he is the one for me, not in theory but in reality or i wouldnt have said it. The timeline for me, was based on finacial constraints and I had (incorrectly) assumed that he meant the same when he said it.

But what it seems he meant is that yes, he would like to marry me in theory, but not in relaity (as in tomorrow)... And that is very different to me but i didnt realise there were caviets or 'not readiness' until i suggested a different plan.

You are right that i did change the timeline, however i thought we both wanted to get married so i thought the decision had already been made amd i was doing us a favour suggesting we scrap the big wedding idea so to speak. I guess i have got ahead of myself a bit.
I still dont fully understand what 'not ready' means... I know you say everyone is not ready at some point, but why say 'i see us getting married if your not ready... as in you dont!?

I didnt say i could see myself marrying him, until i could. Before that, it wasnt a case of not being ready, i just wasnt sure he was the one for me...

Merkin

Not Ready wrote: »

You are right that i did change the timeline, however i thought we both wanted to get married so i thought the decision had already been made amd i was doing us a favour suggesting we scrap the big wedding idea so to speak. I guess i have got ahead of myself a bit..

A bit? I would say massively. You've had a vague chat about wanting to get married some day and then one evening you arrive home, springing it on him that you're actually ready to get married immediately and would like to elope. How can you possibly be even remotely surprised that he's not as enthused as you are? He said he's not ready and I think that's totally fair enough, give the man a break!

ManOfMystery

Not Ready wrote: »

Thanks so much for the reply Man of Mystery, I agree it looks like i have changed the plans... but it feels like we werent ever on the same page, i just hadnt asked the right question before!
When I said I'd like to get married to him someday, I meant that someday could be tomorrow, I meant i had decided he is the one for me, not in theory but in reality or i wouldnt have said it. The timeline for me, was based on finacial constraints and I had (incorrectly) assumed that he meant the same when he said it.

But what it seems he meant is that yes, he would like to marry me in theory, but not in relaity (as in tomorrow)... And that is very different to me but i didnt realise there were caviets or 'not readiness' until i suggested a different plan.

You are right that i did change the timeline, however i thought we both wanted to get married so i thought the decision had already been made amd i was doing us a favour suggesting we scrap the big wedding idea so to speak. I guess i have got ahead of myself a bit.
I still dont fully understand what 'not ready' means... I know you say everyone is not ready at some point, but why say 'i see us getting married if your not ready... as in you dont!?

I didnt say i could see myself marrying him, until i could. Before that, it wasnt a case of not being ready, i just wasnt sure he was the one for me...

It sounds to me then like your conversations have been skirting the topic and not detailed enough. There have been assumptions made on both your parts and vague agreements. You 'thought' he meant this, he 'thought' you meant that and so on.

Were you ready to marry this guy 1 day after you met him? No, because you weren't in love then. That doesn't mean he has to have the same reason. He may love you deeply but still not be ready to marry you because of a million other reasons - concerns about marriage, financial worries, wanting to enjoy your current relationship as it is before 'settling down', becoming a stepfather, etc.

By all means talk to him calmly and without pressurising him to find out what his reticence is, but please accept his explanations and do not keep repeating "I don't understand what you mean". Just because you're ready to marry and find it all very simple to decide doesn't mean you can project that perspective onto him. And I feel I should repeat the timescale reference again - you're together 2yrs. A perfectly acceptable time for a couple to want to move on to the next phase of their relationship, but it would be equally acceptable if it was 3yrs or 4yrs.

P. Breathnach

I suggest that you look at a differnet question: not when you might get married, but if you and he want to marry one another. If he says that he wants to marry you, then at least you are in the same book, even if not on the same page.

Holsten

Why do you have to get married?

Why end a good relationship over a piece of meaningless paper?

I wouldn't try and pressure him into it, but do know that if he doesn't want to he is unlikely to change his mind.

LegacyUser

Thanks Merkin, it does read as if i dropped it on him, but the conversations weren't that vague. He had said he saw us getting married. I was under the impression that money was the constraint and it wasnt until i suggested we forget the big wedding bit that i found out it wasnt money, it was that he 'wasnt ready'.

Man of Mystery, i wont be repeating this with him anymore. I have asked him to explain what he means by 'not ready' in a practical sense to alieviate my concerns and he cant/ wont so i am not going to keep asking. The problem is, where do we go from here...
I am finding it hard to accept a blank 'not ready', he isnt explaining himself and now my head is full of doubts and i am getting more and more upset about the whole thing. I dont want to 'pressure' someone into marrying me, that is not the way i actually am, but I dont want to live in a fantasy land where i think our lives are going one way and he is just going along being 'not ready', whatever the h**l it means!
As for becoming a step dad, that comment makes me even more concerned because he is now as much as he ever will be a 'step' dad to my daughter and if he has doubts, then i would want to know because I am not sure i am comfortable continuing to live together knowing he may not see our relationship as having the life-long future i thought he did.

P. Breathnach, he had said that he saw us getting married, we had talked about having a child in a 'couple' of years and i wanted to be married before that.

Holsten, I would like to be married as I already have a daughter froma previous relationship and would like to make that committment befire having any further children and as he is the one for me, i would like to have children with him. I know marriage is not the be all etc. and plenty of people live long happy lives never getting married but i want a more stable structure considering my previous experience.

December2012

You are coming across as panicking and placing so much pressure on this.

He is allowed to have concerns about becoming a step father (if he is).

You are putting too much pressure and you are not being very kind to him if you're ignoring his wish to wait.

There is a right time to marry - when you're ready to marry. Anything else is going to fail.

meeeeh

Not Ready wrote: »

Holsten, I would like to be married as I already have a daughter froma previous relationship and would like to make that committment befire having any further children and as he is the one for me, i would like to have children with him. I know marriage is not the be all etc. and plenty of people live long happy lives never getting married but i want a more stable structure considering my previous experience.

Sometimes I think a lot of people would be very happy together for life if there was no "when are we getting married" question. Your previus relationship didn't break up because you were not married, it broke up because of whatever reason you felt you can't be together anymore. Getting married won't stop your bf cheat if he wants to, it won't keep him from leaving if he wants to.... In actual fact living together a bit longer than a few months before you get married will make it more likley that you stay together when married.

LegacyUser

Thanks for your thoughts.
I am not pursuing it with him any further. If I cant deal with 'not ready' we will split up. At the moment I'm very upset and I appreciate I sound panicky, I am hurt and feel like I've been mislead so I can get over it and just keep my mouth shut until he decides he is ready or not.

However, I don't think he should have told me he saw us getting married if that's not exactly what he meant either. He should have been clearer and highlighted he meant when HE was ready and whatever other caveats were in place up front!

People's opinions on marriage are individual Meeeh, and I wasn't saying my last relationship would have worked if we had been married, in reality it would have been awful. But being a single parent has had the impact that I would like to be married before having any further kids, that's just for me! Thanks for your thoughts though!

bee06

December2012 wrote: »

You are coming across as panicking and placing so much pressure on this.

He is allowed to have concerns about becoming a step father (if he is).

You are putting too much pressure and you are not being very kind to him if you're ignoring his wish to wait.

There is a right time to marry - when you're ready to marry. Anything else is going to fail.

I agree, I think you need to relax a bit and let him get used to the idea that you are ready for marriage. The fact that he can't actually explain what not ready means could be due to his gut reaction to this idea that you've sprung on him and the change to the plan he thought ye had. Give him some time to get his head around the whole idea.

P. Breathnach

Just an exploratory question: what do you feel about the idea of getting engaged? How might he feel about it? Might there be a useful half-way house there?

LegacyUser

Thanks P. B, I would be happy to take that step but he wants to control that too it seems. Its not something we can decide to do, it's something he will do when he's ready.

I don't feel that there is a point in discussing it any further as he told me in our last conversation that I was pressuring him and I don't want it to happen that way for sure!

We slept in separate rooms last night. I don't want to be someone who forced their partner to propose, but I also don't like his attitude to getting engaged/ married, I actually find it all a bit offensive! We make every other decision together, why should he make this one on his own and I'm supposed to be what... Thankful that he picked me and in the mean time I keep a muzzle on it?!

I think we are at a stalemate... I move on and don't mention it again until he is ready or our relationship is going to disintegrate. It's very depressing and not at all the way I imagined this conversation going!!!

maria34

Can i ask WHY you want to get married? Whats the rush?

bee06

Not Ready wrote: »

We make every other decision together, why should he make this one on his own and I'm supposed to be what... Thankful that he picked me and in the mean time I keep a muzzle on it

But if you look at it from his side isn't this exactly what you've done? You decided by yourself you are ready to get married and when he said he wasn't and needed time you are angry?

Merkin

We have a good relationship, good communication about most things and are fairly balanced.
We have had light conversations at various points over the last year about our long-term 'theoretical' views to marriage and children and I thought we were on the same page.

Read the above again. I think you're actually being really unfair and blindsiding your partner. In fact you could potentially ruin something really good by behaving like this.

The relationship is going well, you moved in together a few months ago and you have only had very general and 'theoretical' chats about your future. You can't go from that to suddenly expecting the man to respond to this very recent brain fart of yours by jumping up and down with enthusiasm, not when you've actually bypassed all real conversations pertaining to marriage. If you had both had a very serious conversation about your future then maybe but you've only vaguely agreed you're on the same page and now you're furious because he won't immediately comply.

Try and take a step back, think about this logically and when you're less angry have a chat about your future TOGETHER rather than taking a unilateral approach and then being disappointed.

Flippyfloppy

As a woman, I can get where the insecurity creeps in when you just keep hearing a blanket 'I'm not ready'

He might just feel a bit uneasy at being rushed though. Marriage is a big serious step in a persons life. Perhaps he was enjoying the relaxed pace of life of a bf & gf. Perhaps he would actually like to take a more traditional route of getting down on one knee, saving for a wedding, having all his friends & family involved. Perhaps some of his family would appreciate a big wedding? When myself and my OH were engaged he did suggest eloping a couple of times, and while it would suit me in particular not having to deal with certain family dynamics at my wedding I just didn't want to. Because for me it wouldn't have felt real/how I always imagined. That's just how I felt, everybody is different.

Looking back, my OH sounded like he was putting a proposal on the long finger after about two years, which was fine. By 2.5 years he was out hunting for a ring!

You need to have a calm conversation with him; you are right, you do have a right to talk to him about your future together as it's not the dark ages! You need to tell him very gently where this all came from and maybe that you got a little excited when you realized that a big wedding wasn't the b all and end all. Try to figure out where he stands but be very careful to not make him feel any more pressure because it sounds like he's feeling it a bit now.

LegacyUser

Merkin, that is exactly what I was trying to do when I posted this thread. I was trying to have a real conversation about getting married together.
I would love nothing more.

The point is, when I did he got really p***Ed off and I had to drag the conversation along to the point when he said he 'wasn't ready' and I was pestering him and I had had enough.

Do I not have any right to talk about this subject now until he decides he is ready to even discuss it? How is that fair? I have forgotten the idea of eloping, I get that's not gonna happen but what now?

The reason I mentioned my suggesting eloping was because, until I put that out there I had no idea he wasn't 'ready' to marry me! I just don't know how other people make this decision, it seems like other people have a conversation, set a timeline, set a budget and get on with it.

I don't feel like I can talk to him, I don't really want a 'suprise' proposal and I don't really want a wedding and we can't even talk about it because I'm 'pressurimg' him, it doesn't feel right to me!

I don't even really know what he wants because he won't talk about it. It's making me question his commitment at this stage, his behaviour is making me more worried, not less and expecting me to button it indefinitely and just go back to as if this never happened is not realistic.

I am very confused...

December2012

So you've gone from being happy, living together, talking about getting married in the future; to you deciding you want to elope now, you want a big honeymoon, you've decided that him saying "he's not ready" means he is not committed to you or your daughter, and you're sleeping in separate rooms.

Can you see how much pressure this is?

Faith

Not Ready wrote: »

People's opinions on marriage are individual Meeeh, and I wasn't saying my last relationship would have worked if we had been married, in reality it would have been awful. But being a single parent has had the impact that I would like to be married before having any further kids, that's just for me! Thanks for your thoughts though!

in your last relationship, there was surely a significant period when you were both happy. Imagine you'd taken that as enough of a reason to get married - immediate happiness with no thoughts of long term compatibility. You'd have gotten married and then split up. Getting married is a huge step, and you have to be 100% sure that you're compatible long term, and that you'll make it through all the difficulties life may throw at you. Some people know that very quickly and it takes others a lot longer.

I'm recently engaged. About 3 years ago, my fiancé and I started talking about what our wedding would be like. But we didn't actually get engaged until this February, when we'd been together 5.5 years and living together for 2 years. It took us time to be ready for it but that didn't mean we didn't love each other and want to get married - we just didn't want to rush into a huge decision.

LegacyUser

Thanks Flippyfloppy, your experience is how I thought things would go but obviously I think I asked too many questions and freaked myself out! The insecurity thing was there a little, now it's a lot because I don't understand why he reacts so badly to talking about it...

December2012, happiness feels like a bit of an illusion sometimes, I was happy when I thought we wanted the same things and were on the same page... Now that I have scratched the surface of our happy little relationship I'm not so happy.
I haven't decided what 'not ready' means, that's one of the reasons I started this thread and asked him to explain also (which he couldn't do!)... However, I know what it means to me and thats not good.
And I'm glad I rocked the boat, I'm glad I asked the question. Rather that than live in some fantasy until he turned around in a year and blurted out he isn't actually sure I'm the one for him after all or something equally awful!
I also don't want a big honeymoon, I just meant we could spend half of what we would have spent on a big wedding on going away together, it was just an idea and it doesn't matter either way because it was shot down anyhow.

December2012

I'm going to echo what another poster said earlier because I think it warrants emphasis.

I met my now husband as a teenager. We were together for 6 years before we got engaged.

Like you, we talked about it in the future as something we both wanted.

We got married after a further two years.

We are married 8 years now.

So were together about 16 years.

If we had got engaged, or got married, or moved in together before we were both ready it would not have worked.

You are rushing things and assuming that because your partner is not ready now he never will be. That is not the case.

It appears that you want to break up what you have instead of him breaking up with you (which you assume he wants to do or will do in the next year).

I actually don't think you're ready to get married - marriage is a partnership of equals, it's not because one person is insecure and placing demands on the other.

Merkin

Not Ready wrote: »

Merkin, that is exactly what I was trying to do when I posted this thread. I was trying to have a real conversation about getting married together.
I would love nothing more.

The point is, when I did he got really p***Ed off and I had to drag the conversation along to the point when he said he 'wasn't ready' and I was pestering him and I had had enough.

But you're missing the point. You don't instigate a conversation about such an important topic by coming home and saying you've realised YOU are ready to elope/get married immediately. It's like going from nought to ninety in seconds without actually letting the decision develop over time and organically. Can't you see how this has come out of the blue for him?

LegacyUser

Thanks December2012, food for thought there and fair challenges.

Maybe I need to reflect on why this is such an issue for me. Maybe I'm not as happy and secure as I thought and maybe I'm not ready to get married. The self-preservation of dump him before he dumps me has struck a chord and it might be something I need to review myself and may explain why 'not ready' bothers me so much!

I had thought the issue was around him reacting so badly to even talking about getting engaged/ married in real terms but that might not be what I should be focusing on, why I am taking 'not ready' as a negative and why I can't let it go might be a bigger issue.

A previous poster asked Why do i even want to get married and it is à good question.

I'm gonna take some time to work it through and ask him for some space. I need to figure out what my problem is I guess as most responses here do seem to agree that I am pressuring him which was not my intention.
There may be bigger issues at play here and it could be a case that we are not as happy as I thought we were. There is definately something not right that has gotten me this upset so thanks again to all you who took the time to share your views on a not very clearly articulated issue!

Stavro Mueller

You're together two years but only living together for a few months. The phrase "if you want to know me come live with me" doesn't exist for no reason. As well as getting used to living with you, he has moved into your house and has taken on a kid that's not his. That's an awful lot of adjustment in my book. Then to lob this in on top of everything else?

LegacyUser

Thanks Cymbaline, it's not that sudden I just didn't go into the detail! We are together over 2 years, he moved in originally after 6 months but had to work away for 1 year so we did long-distance. He would come home every couple of weeks but it was like we were living together all along. The long-distance finished late last year.
As for taking on a child, I 50/50 parent with her dad so she's only with us every second week and he is not filling a Dad role so those things are not or were not big adjustments for him from my perspective. It was just like he was coming home rather than moving in if that makes sense.

tinkerbell

OP, you are being completely irrational here. Your poor boyfriend has been totally blindsided. You don't just come home one day and start talking about eloping when you haven't even had a proper discussion about marriage yet and have only just moved in together!! Give the guy a break. This is huge for him - he's just moved in with you AND your child. Marriage is a huge step for a childless couple, nevermind for a couple where one already has a child.

You are being really selfish and demanding, and in my opinion you are gonna drive him away if you keep it up. He's only just moved in with you, allow him time to get used to that idea first before you arrive home and go all bridezilla on his ass.

Bananaleaf

Yeah but to be fair to the OP - she didn't just bring it up out of nowhere.

He was the one who started talking about it first. He was the one who mentioned marriage first and yes, she ran away with the idea, but a lot of women would if they were with someone they loved and wanted to share their lives with.

I'm sorry, but I think the OH DOES have some explaining to do. The OP has every right to know what Not Ready means. It's an extremely vague answer to something so important and not good enough seeing as he was the one who brought up the conversation in the first place.

I mean, from reading the OPs first post, there was no mention of this until he spoke about wanting to marry her. And judging by the enthusiastic way she kept on the idea, obviously it was something she had been thinking about for a long time and didn't mention.mthen when she got what was seemingly the green light to proceed, she went for it.

And as an aside OP, I commend you for not wanting a huge wedding, shows you are not just in it to get a nice day/dress/ring.

OP, everyone is telling you here that you are putting your OH under pressure, sorry I disagree. He opened himself up to that pressure when he mentioned it first. You have every right to know what he means by not ready. Don't harp on at him 24/7 about it. Don't bring it up during a tense time, maybe at a casual time when you are both getting on well. But he owes you an explanation.

Bananaleaf

December2012 wrote: »

I'm going to echo what another poster said earlier because I think it warrants emphasis.

I met my now husband as a teenager. We were together for 6 years before we got engaged.

Like you, we talked about it in the future as something we both wanted.

We got married after a further two years.

We are married 8 years now.

So were together about 16 years.

If we had got engaged, or got married, or moved in together before we were both ready it would not have worked.

You are rushing things and assuming that because your partner is not ready now he never will be. That is not the case.

It appears that you want to break up what you have instead of him breaking up with you (which you assume he wants to do or will do in the next year).

I actually don't think you're ready to get married - marriage is a partnership of equals, it's not because one person is insecure and placing demands on the other.

A TOTALLY different scenario in your 30s.

If the OP is 30 at the youngest (her first post states they are in their 30s) if she works by your numbers, she will be 36 before she is engaged, 38 before married.

Things move at a much faster pace as you are older. I was married within a year of meeting my husband, I was 30.

Being with someone for 2 years in your 30s when you already have a child and a house (ie are mature and responsible) is so much different to being with someone two years when you've just done your leaving cert.

bee06

I knew I wanted to marry my OH before we even got together and we talked about "theoretical" marriage within a month of getting together but it doesn't mean I said "right so, I'm ready. Let's do it". There's a big difference between discussing wanting to marry and have kids at some stage and moving onto that step for real.