Engagement Envy

[tellerz]

My boyfriend and I have been together for 5 years. We started dating before senior year in high school and have been together ever since. We've "officially" been living together for 2 years, but were neighbors in a townehome a year before that so it's nearly been 3. There's no question in either of our minds that we've each found our soul mates in each other. There is no doubt that we want to be in it for the long run.

I'm near graduation now, and I'll be starting a "serious" career hopefully in the spring, if luck is on my side and I can find a job after graduation. He's still got a couple of semesters left. Recently, a lot of people my age have been getting engages. It's going around like crazy, many of them only having been in relationships for a few months. One good friend even posted on my fb wall, saying "when are you two getting engaged!? It's been long enough!" Talk about awkward. A lot of these friends are engaged, with no wedding date set.

We've talked about it, and he is pretty traditional. He doesn't really believe in that sort of engagement, he thinks there needs to be a wedding date set in order for it to happen. He also doesn't want to get engaged and married before he is stable in a career, and we are living in our own place (we currently have two roommates). I am happy that he has so much sense about him, and that he wants to be the best he can be for me before jumping into things.

But these girls go around, showing off their shiny new rings, discussing wedding colors, swooning over their newly titles "fiances". I can't help but feel a little jealous, sometimes I even feel like they look at our relationship as inferior, or juvenile. They go around tossing out 'my fiance' or 'my husband' while I talk about 'my boyfriend'. Sometimes I wish that *I* had a pretty engagement ring to show off...

It's not like me to be materialistic, but his cousin was recently married and it was so beautiful and happy... I just have a bit of envy and impatience. Is it normal to feel like this? Sometimes it feels like the day he proposes will never come!

[Only-virgins]

Don't worry about it. It is what people do, they brag. There is nothing wrong with dating longer or waiting to a point. Their relationship isn't any better or worse compared to yours. What does their marriage mean to you? nothing. Anyway if you started dating before senior year which should be around the age of 17 then 5 years later you should be around 22? That is young as hell. I'm 27 and I don't even see it happening for me in the next decade. Don't worry about it. If you are that young you are missing some fun times though by not being single a little bit at least after 21+...you know...when you can actually do things.

[vashti]

Don't allow yourself to be swept away by the wedding drama! Right now, you are in the wedding cycle of life, but what you may not realize is that there is also a divorce cycle that follows in 5-10 years, with people who married too young making up the bulk of those divorces. Besides, your boyfriend is right - if there is no date set, there is no engagement. A lot of males use a psuedo-engagement to keep the girls from nagging, and I am sure many of these weddings will never materialize.

Also, you ARE very young to be thinking about marriage. It is better to have established a career path (BOTH of you) before taking the plunge.

[tellerz]

I do feel like I am very young to get married. Everyone around me doing it has my head spinning though! I know we need to have careers, but it feels like these days we are the ONLY people waiting. I even had one of my engaged friends tell me "wow 5 years and no engagement. He'll never ask you to marry him!" Ugh! We've talked about it, and we both know we want to get married some day. Neither of us are ready though. I just guess I need to learn to get over my envy of other people. I NEVER want to become one of the divorce statistics.

All our friends are getting engaged. We decided to adopt a couple pets together instead. LOL We do get a lot of enjoyment and love from our kitties. It's our practice for having kids some day I suppose XD My friend's boyfriends get them rings, and mine gets me a kitten. I AM a veterinary major, so I suppose he knows just what I truly love in this life.

If you are that young you are missing some fun times though by not being single a little bit at least after 21+...you know...when you can actually do things.

Welll.... I don't really drink much, if at all. I'm not a party-er type. We both weren't really into dating much in high school, both of us are very shy and awkward sort of people, except with each other. There was about a 1 week phase when we started college where we thought about what we were potentially missing in the "dating scene" and we separated, then realized what we were really missing was each other. We've never questioned out relationship since that 1-week trial phase. I'm not too concerned with it- it takes me a long time to get comfortable with people, even longer to trust them. So I'll never know what it's like to be single, oh well. It doesn't bother me much, I'm very happy with him.

[sparkle_jello]

In all reality, it's just a day. My husband and I eloped, and it doesn't make us love each other any less than people that had a $30,000 wedding. Once it's done you have great pictures, but you don't have a ton to look forward to. You already live together and have sex. Aside from wedding pictures the biggest thing to look forward to is a tax return.

[Agape]

"I can't help but feel a little jealous, sometimes I even feel like they look at our relationship as inferior, or juvenile. They go around tossing out 'my fiance' or 'my husband' while I talk about 'my boyfriend'."

Question, who cares? why compare? does it directly affect you? why does it matter? . . . it sounds you two are going pretty steadily and that's good - let things develop naturally and go from there.

[Judie]

I think it's okay to feel like that sometimes. You can't stop the way you feel about certain things, but you can always redirect your feelings to something else, such as how great a relationship you are having together, how nice a person he is and how much he wants to spend the rest of his life with you. Having a ring on your finger can only secure you the opportunity to brag about it with others, but it does not necessarily secure you a happily-ever-after marriage. You are both very young, many things to achieve in life. You might as well want to enjoy and focus on that