Writes Stephana:
My boyfriend and I have been together for almost two years. We share an apartment and two cats together. I know we’re still young, but I’m very ready to be engaged and then married. My boyfriend, unfortunately, isn’t on the same page. Naturally, it’s causing a lot of tension between us. How can I help ease this? Should I just keep my feelings to myself from now on?
Here are my thoughts:
Well, a guy shouldn’t feel like he’s being forced into getting engaged—at the end of the day, you want him to want to marry you. But on the same note, a girl shouldn’t feel like she’s waiting around forever for a ring that may or may not come. In either scenario half of the couple is going to be hugely frustrated—and that’s not helpful (or healthy) for anyone.
I think the first thing you need to do is figure out a realistic timeline for yourself. What’s the absolute longest you could wait to be engaged? Basically, at what point would it be more worth it for you to throw in the towel than to continue on in what felt like a dead-end relationship?
Once you’ve come up with a number of years (or, gulp, months) I think it’s fair to present the timeline to your boyfriend. I don’t recommend stomping your feet or declaring, “I better have a ring by Christmas or ELSE.” Instead, explain that you want him to know your plans for the future because you want to make sure you’re on the same page. You might say—calmly—“I want to have kids before I’m X age and I want to own a home with my partner by the time I turn Y. For all this to happen, I’d need to be engaged by the time I’m Z.” Tell him that you’re not trying to force the marriage card, but you need to at least understand what his next few moves are so you can plan your own.
While this conversation might be uncomfortable, explain that you want to get everything laid out on the table in one knock-down, drag-out session so you can have a clear picture of your both of your futures—and make sure those pictures match up.
After you’ve agreed on a reasonable shared timeline, rest assured that your boyfriend willremember it. You don’t need to “accidentally” leave magazines open to pictures of engagement rings lying around the house or remind him that so-and-so got engaged on their two-year anniversary. If you leave him a voicemail announcing your ring size or start sighing dramatically while watching Platinum Weddings marathons, he’s just going to get annoyed, which isn’t going to get him to propose any faster. Rather than shoving marriage down his throat, remind him why he should marry you in the first place; that is, keep being the wonderful girl he fell in love with, no strings attached.
Oh, and if you can’t set a reasonable shared timeline? Maybe it’s time to cut your losses, pack up the cats, and move on. If a guy flat out says, “I don’t want to be married in X number of years, period,” chances are he’s not going to change his mind, no matter how many Engagement Chickens you shove down his throat.
Originally Published: http://www.glamour.com/weddings/blogs/save-the-date/2010/04/how-long-is-too-long-to-wait-f
