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He says he's not ready....
My boyfriend and I have been dating for almost 5 years. We moved in together after the first 6 months of dating, so we have been living together for approx. 4 years.We are 25 years old. We have two dogs, and recently just purchased a house together. We talk about marriage and kids ALOT as do our families. The pressure is on since most of our close friends and family members are getting married and starting families. I know this is something we both want but he says 'hes not ready yet" I dont understand that.... I dont know if hes truely not ready or is it just an excuse because he either doesnt want to get married or is afraid to. We have the house, the dogs, the bills, the loans, ...most things married couples have but hes not ready to get married?!?!??! Help!
Re: He says he's not ready....
What does he say when you ask him this questions?
I don't understand why you would move forward with buying a house with someone unwilling to legally commit to a life together.
I was with my DH 10 years before we got married. Basically through our 20's. He had certain goals he wanted to reach - mainly going to law school then getting a good job. He did that, we got engaged, bought a house, got married.
if you've acutally bought a house w/ him and he's still giving you "I'm not ready" - I give him the huge side-eye, to be honest. I think he's content - the whole "why buy the milk" concept.
You have to take out of the equation what your friends are doing and your fmaily thinks. YOU AND HE need to work this out and figure out if this is really a relationship you want to stay in.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
You want different things. You want marriage, he wants to be a bachelor.
What was your agreement for the property if you two split? Let me guess, no agreement, right? You guys never discussed what you would do with the property you purchased in case you split.
SMART!
Okay, no offense. Did you discuss it? If not, you need to.
You guys can be "in love" but you have a joint asset with no legally binding agreement. Ack!
DH and I bought property before the wedding and I insisted on a "right of survivorship". Not romatic, but my cousin died before he married his bride (it happens). So, who gets the 'right of survirorship' if one of you dies, right now. Either of you??
What happens a year from now, or two? Do either of you really wanrt the other's benefiticairies to take-over half the house and push the other out?" Are you protected agaisnt that? Are you each other's beneficiaries?
This is grown-up stuff. Way beyond 'I don't wanna get maw'ried'. But still legal. Get real.
You had money to buy a house, but not get married?!?
I'd be iffy, especially if he talked about it freely before and is now "not sure"...yikes
He does not want to marry you. He is ok with sleeping with you, buying real estate wiyth you, living with you but he does not, for whatever reason, want to have to tell people you are his wife. that's your reality.
So. Figure out if you can live with that from now on. If you can't then figure out how you are going to get out.
Reading some of these is really irritating. A whole case load of making something bigger then it really is. Is it REALLY that far fetched that he's just not ready yet? That there is just one little thing making him wait for the perfect time to take that step?
My fiance told me the same thing for 3 1/2 years. We had pets, a great relationship..basically a settled down life together. When I'd ask him about marriage it was the same thing. He wasn't ready. I didn't get it. Nothing would change. We were practically there already. It finally hit him one night that this was it. I was 'the one' or however you want to put it. Once he realized that, he asked. We're getting married in 6 days. He's been calm and zen like the entire time. When I ask him how he says because he knows it's right. He's never wavered on that.
Sometimes men just go by their gut. They need that moment of realization that says "THIS IS IT!" Perhaps he's waiting for that sign.
Or maybe he will never be ready to marry the OP. How long should she spend with him hoping that he will have his "Aha!" moment? 10 years? 15 years? Just because your husband decided he wanted to marry you *eventually* doesn't mean that the OP's bf will.
OP, decide if you want to wait for him to figure it out. Don't give an ultimatum. I have never seen a marriage that came from a "Marry me or I walk" that worked out well. Just tell him that you want to get married within the next two years and ask him if he wants the same thing. He will say no. Then you will know where you stand. Tell him that you want to be with a man who whole heartedly wants to spend the rest of his life with you and you are going to be moving out to start the part of your life when you can find him.
OP, I did this when I was 26. I had been dating a very immature guy for three years by the time I had had enough. I looked him in the eye and asked if he saw us living together within the next two years. He said he didn't. I told him that we were through. Never looked back. He is in his mid 40's and has NEVER gotten married.
This. I gave my boyfriend of 2 1/2 years an ultimatum. He proposed- and two days later he called it off, because he really wasn't ready. It's not a small thing if OP has already invested time and if she's ready for marriage now. Some women don't want to wait around until a man is ready, and there's no shame in that. My ex-fiance is in his mid-thirties and still hasn't married, and he probably never will. If I had stayed with him, he'd still be my boyfriend- and that's not even close to something I wanted for my life.
OP, you need to decide if this is something you genuinely want to do. If a man wants you- I mean really wants you- he'll move heaven and earth to get you. And if a man isn't ready for a lifetime commitment, there's nothing you could say or do that will make him ready. That's just not how it works, sadly.
I'm currently with a man who adores me- and we're having a child together. He's never doubted that he wants to marry me or that he's ready to make that change in his life- and it didn't take him years to do it, either. You deserve someone who doesn't have to be begged to marry you.
Just my two cents.
Are you guys still in the RV w/the roommate, or did your FI get that job in Chicago?
Yes, it is that far fetched. I had a friend in a similar situation and this was the advice I gave her: It's ok if he isn't ready and you should respect that instead of force it, but he should also be able to say why he isn't ready and give you some kind of idea of a time table. And if you get tired of waiting you should be prepared to walk. It worked out for them and they're getting married this Fall.
BUT this is the huge difference: they were not already living as a married couple. He understood what the commitment truly was and wanted to be sure he was ready for it, which is totally understandable to me. In this case they already have a house and joint finances, their lives are already tied together and the OP deserves the legal protection and the full emotional commitment that goes along with that. If he wasn't ready for marriage or didn't want to be married, he shouldn't have bought a house and joined finances with someone who did want that for herself.
That said, the OP is incredibly stupid for joining finances with someone she wasn't married to but wanted to be married to. DH and I dated on a similar timeline, had been dating 6 years and were living together and engaged when we were 25 but there is no way I would have created a permanent financial obligation between the two of us before marriage.
That's great that your H got to that moment. I doubt OP's bf will. The big difference is that OP's bf is backtracking. He was discussing the idea with her before, and now it's "i'm not ready." It's more like "i don't want to marry you"
If you are going to stay together and see if he is ever going to be ready, I would uncombine finances and get a plan in place regarding the house and other stuff. You don't have the protection of marriage yet when it comes to finances, and this stuff gets messy. I had a friend in the exact same situation-long time together, bought a place, combined finances. It made the breakup and aftermath hell for him.
Only you know your bf and your relationship, but after so much time and after you have committed to so much together besides marriage, I think there must be something going on with him that he still is not ready to marry you. I agree that ultimatums are not a good idea, but I think you should be able to have a frank conversation about what he is thinking and where your relationship is heading.
"That chick wins at Penises, for sure." -- Fenton
OP- if you're still around- if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then chances are, it's a duck. And absolutely no amount of wishing will make it a swan. Yeah, it sucks, but it's better that you know now.
I bought a house from a non-married couple who had bought and lived in house for five years. They broke up and had to sell the house immediately as a result, in the worse time to sell a house. I don't know why they broke up, but it's safe to guess that something like this was the cause. They both lost big time and are probably still recovering from the mess.
Buying a house together does not guarantee a marriage down the road, just like having a baby together doesn't guarantee marriage.
I think you should separate your finances, and seek counsel on a plan as what will happen if you do break up. What happens to the house, cars, and yes, even the dogs, and put it all in writing. You can tell him that as a non-married woman, it's the only sensible thing to do. You can say the last thing you want him to do is get married when he's not ready, but until then you have to protect yourself.
To the OP and jlynnez......
Let me ask you this.....if you have the house, the dog, and a great relationship with a man then why do you feel you need to get married right now?
I ask because I was in a similar situation. I moved across the country to be with a boyfriend I had dated for about 10 months. I moved in with him into the home he already owned and with the dog he already had. We discussed marriage and he said he would definitely want to be married at some point. After living with him for about 2 years I decided it was time for a "come to Jesus" type discussion. I told him that I wanted marriage and that if he didn't he needed to be forth right with me so I could move on and find someone who wanted the same things as me. He was a bit shocked. I basically said, either I'm the one, you know it, and we move forward or I'm not the one and we go our seperate ways. It was the most difficult discussion and I told him to take some time and think about it. After we had the discussion I really stopped and thought about it. Why was it so important to me to say the vows immediately? I loved him, he loved me, and as a result I made a decision. I decided that I would rather live my life with him in it, unmarried....than without him. A couple months later he said he wanted to take me ring shopping. Long story short, we got engaged, married, and are living happily ever after. lol
I guess what I'm trying to say is that he may just legitimately not be ready yet. My boyfriend, now husband, took longer to warm up to the idea than I did. I was patient and gave him time and it worked out. Obviously this isn't ALWAYS the case.
Perhaps having a "do you want to get married? Do you see me as that person somewhere down the road?" discussion would do it. Only you can decide what to do based on the discussion but also ask yourself, "Is it worth losing a great relationship to force the issue or give him an ultimatum?"
I went through this too. Same thing. He ended up finally proposing but after a talk about why he didn't want to before. It was mostly just simple things I should have seen being a slight bump in the road. Just be patient...and don't drive him nuts about it lol.
I went through this too. Same thing. He ended up finally proposing but after a talk about why he didn't want to before. It was mostly just simple things I should have seen being a slight bump in the road. Just be patient...and don't drive him nuts about it lol.