Introductions

[EliAnn]

Hi everyone!

I've been lurking for a while now but I'm going through a rough time at the moment and need to vent.

We're are both 26, been together for 2 and half years and moved into together after a few months of dating (we live in Sweden - he's Swedish and I'm Australian - and it's quite common to move in quickly here). I've known that I want to marry him for over 2 years now and have been (not so patiently) waiting for him. When we were first together he told me that he didn't want to get married but then it changed to he does want to marry me but "not yet". He says he's not ready but he can't tell me when or what would need to change for him to feel ready. A few times he has said it's not years, but months he needs to be ready but then he's been saying that for over a year. I feel like he's just trying to find a way to end the discussion and buy himself more time. He says that he feels like he's becoming more comfortable with the thought but I don't see any change. He still can't talk about marriage and hates the idea of a wedding (alot of issues there I know). I feel like he is never going to be ready to marry me and I'm starting to think it's time for me to move on. It hurts so much to want to commit to a life together and feeling like he won't.

He's Swedish and it makes things harder because it's almost more accepted to have been together for 10 years and have 2 kids before marriage than to get married young (he believes we are too young and the relationship is still quite young too, whereas I think it's a good amount of time and I probably expected to be married already by this age).

I feel like he is never going to be ready and am about to give up. Anyone been in a similar situation or have any advice for me?

Thanks in advance ladies

 

[sweetpea&babycorn]

Hi EliAnn, and welcome! I think you found a great place to vent, because a majority of us have been there. I just went through that very recently. Although we haven't been together as long as your SO and I, my boyfriend said almost the exact same words as yours months ago. I definitely think the differences in your culture play a role, have you been able to sit down with him and share how your culture views marriage? Do you know why he isn't ready to talk about marriage? I feel like even with his culture of being together for a long time before marriage doesn't mean it's ok to be super uncomfortable with talking about marriage. Do you feel that he IS committed to you with the exception of getting married?

My boyfriend said that he had to go through this thinking process of when he was ready for us to get married. I had no idea what this process was and he could not describe it to me, it was SO frustrating. But, I knew I couldn't force him to feel ready to marry me, so I had to be patient (so hard to do!!!!!). He had never been in a long term relationship before, and I had been in one for 6 years with a wedding in the works. I was really sad that it didn't work out, but I really loved being in a long term relationship and all the perks that came with it. So I had a really good idea of what I wanted, and my boyfriend wasn't quite sure. He also wasn't surrounded by the best examples of marriage. Between his clients, parents, and brother, he didn't have much faith in marriage.

For a little while, I talked incessantly about getting married, and I realized I was just burning him out and doing the opposite of what I wanted to. No matter what I said, I couldn't hasten his process, and I couldn't change the exposures he had to make him feel what he felt about marriage. So instead of talking about getting married, we started talking a lot about our future together, like where we wanted to live, what we wanted to do when I was finally done with school and training, if we were going to have dogs... basically all these things that had nothing to do with marriage but just what we wanted to do together. I definitely had my LIWitis moments when he would start with "When we're married..." because he was still going through his process and was still keeping me in the dark. I wrote a thread about it, and got a lot of insight from other LIWs, which is another why this place is awesome. It kept my head in line, and just last week he said he was ready to proceed with getting an engagement ring.

My point is that if he loves you and you TRUST him, and he's getting closer to feeling comfortable with getting married, then your relationship is doing something amazing. You have to let him have his process, but don't stop talking about all the things you look forward to doing with him in the future. And if you already haven't, tell him why marriage is important to you and your views about how you feel like the relationship is mature enough to proceed to getting married. I think communication is key here, and I hope he can hear you out as much as you've heard him out.

You have tons of support here, and I hope to see you posting more, especially with updates on how things are going with your boyfriend. Lots of hugs to you!

 

[madelise]

Hi everyone!

I've been lurking for a while now but I'm going through a rough time at the moment and need to vent.

We're are both 26, been together for 2 and half years and moved into together after a few months of dating (we live in Sweden - he's Swedish and I'm Australian - and it's quite common to move in quickly here). I've known that I want to marry him for over 2 years now and have been (not so patiently) waiting for him. When we were first together he told me that he didn't want to get married but then it changed to he does want to marry me but "not yet". He says he's not ready but he can't tell me when or what would need to change for him to feel ready. A few times he has said it's not years, but months he needs to be ready but then he's been saying that for over a year. I feel like he's just trying to find a way to end the discussion and buy himself more time. He says that he feels like he's becoming more comfortable with the thought but I don't see any change. He still can't talk about marriage and hates the idea of a wedding (alot of issues there I know). I feel like he is never going to be ready to marry me and I'm starting to think it's time for me to move on. It hurts so much to want to commit to a life together and feeling like he won't.

He's Swedish and it makes things harder because it's almost more accepted to have been together for 10 years and have 2 kids before marriage than to get married young (he believes we are too young and the relationship is still quite young too, whereas I think it's a good amount of time and I probably expected to be married already by this age).

I feel like he is never going to be ready and am about to give up. Anyone been in a similar situation or have any advice for me?

Thanks in advance ladies

Hello, darling Welcome.

I was with a guy for three years prior to meeting SO. He didn't want to get married. After a few years of silent LIW-itis (I was 18-21, so I never actually brought it up as often as I do now with SO), and just dabbling some conversation into it here or there, he made it clear he didn't want to get married until way later. He had no plans for wanting children (which worked fine in the beginning! I was 18 and thought I wanted to never have kids!) while I wanted a few. We had a heart to heart after his cousin's wedding, where I asked him to talk future, and he said he didn't see us getting married for YEARS. I broke up with him shortly after that. I loved him a lot, despite hating a lot of him now in retrospect. I loved him when I broke up with him, and it hurt a lot to let someone, who I thought I wanted to spend my life with, go.

He would come and go from my life the next few months, but when he saw that I was getting serious with SO, he actually came over and proposed. By then, it was too late. If a man has to be cornered into proposing, with threats of another man, he's not doing it because he wants to-- he's doing it because he feels he has to. Just as much resentment as I would have, being a LIW for another 10 years, he would have for being forced to propose/marry.

I hate to ever encourage anyone on the 'net to really think about separating since I don't know you, him, or your circumstances, but since you brought it up, I will go there. You're already thinking of it. Your heart's already somewhere there. IME, being in love and being happy does not equate to thinking of separating. There must be quite a bit of logic and reasoning behind your thoughts, cus girls, we tend to hold on to the crappiest guys FOREVER cus we're masochists.

Don't break it off without giving yourself or him to have a good heart to heart. Have a no-pressure-but-we-have-to-talk conversation when you both don't have anywhere to rush to afterwards. Sunday breakfast? Talk about the different cultural expectations. If being married is important to you, it should be important to him, regardless of how the Swedes do. It's not like ya'll just met yesterday. That way, if he honestly tells you he isn't interested and won't be for a long time, you can walk away with the truth. If he comes running after you with some dramatic sob story like in soap operas, ignore it. He's doing it as a last resort, and it won't be happy.

If he honestly tells you that he just needs some time, give him a firm deadline because he's had history of being aloof with his prior, lax timelines. Create a timeline as to when you are to be married, and work backwards. A time to be engaged, a time to search for rings together ( if that's what you want), and a couple of times in between where you have these heart-to-heart conversations again, to follow up. Be firm in what you want, EliAnn. If you don't get it, walk. Give YOURSELF all your love, and know that you deserve to have exactly what you want, and not have to settle for someone else's wants.

 

[Chewbacca]

Girlfriend, I am feeling you! I have JUST come out the other side of this kind of situation.

My SO also had marriage reservations, reasons including age, family, tradition, length of relationship etc. Basically everything scared him. I have written about this in the 'Updates, anyone?' thread very recently, but the long and short of it is after a little push of encouragement from the LIW's I had A Serious Talk with SO. We have had many of these talks over the years, and every time SO would withdraw, just like yours! He just was not ready, he had too much emotional-issue to work through by himself first.

This last time went differently. I thought hard about what I wanted to say during our discussion, and made sure I hit these few key points (while making sure I remained calm!): "I am worried that you will never be ready to get married. I really don't want to leave, but I might have to." "Can we talk about the things that scare you the most about marriage?" "I think we need to move at least a little forward now, today." SO had never heard me say that I might have to leave, and how serious I was frightened him. He had never been able to pinpoint what really scared him until this conversation, so we talked them through. It went well, oh boy it was emotionally draining!, and the next day SO said to me that he had decided to let it all go, and that it was time to move forward. He no longer wanted to hold it all back out of stupid fear! It just suddenly clicked. Now when any of the 'dreaded' topics come up, marriage, engagements, weddings, he is happy! It is as though a weight has been lifted.

I know that the saying is something along the lines of 'if he really wants to marry you, he will, RIGHT NOW' kind of thing. Don't be scared by this! While I know my brain works like that, my SO's does not. It takes him 1000 x longer than me to decide on ANYTHING, so why should this be any different?

If you think that your disgruntlement is rooted in something wrong in your relationship, then perhaps you need to hear something different (though I didn't get that impression). I'm coming at this from the angle of everything is rolling along nicely, but SO has clammed up out of marriage uncertainty.

If the age factor is the main concern, then I think I lovely wee compromise is in order! Is meeting somewhere in the middle an option?