Long engagement...

[Lovelygirl319]

I've been with my fiance for 9 years and we have been engaged for 5 years now...LONG TIME!!!

When he proposed 5 yrs ago, I was a sophmore in college and had plans on going to graduate school and planned on getting married after I graduated, since neither of us had money for a wedding and we knew that our parents would not be able to help us out much.

Now, graduate school was pushed off a little bit and I really want to get married now...I'm ready for that next step...but we still don't have enough money for a wedding. I feel like I want to get married so badly and that he doesn't care if were engaged for 20yrs....yet, he says that he does care and that he does want to get married...but I feel that he just keeps on pushing off our wedding...Yes, money is a huge contributing factor, but I don't want to have such a long engagement....I always ask myself, why did he propose to me if he knew we would have to wait so long???

Now, he may be moving across the country to Utah due to his job situation and I don't know if I want to move that far. I told him that if I moved with him we would HAVE to get married, b/c we would be starting a new chapter of our lives together...and it would be a great time to get married. Unfortunately, we only have $3,000 for a wedding, that's less than my engagement ring and wedding band...and that's almost as much money that we spent last year throwing his grandparent's 50th anniversary party.

Also, he is not romantic at all! And since we've been together he's forgotten Valentine's days many times, and I always get angry and upset, b/c I don't feel special...I am the type of person that likes to hear that I'm pretty and he never tells me...he hates V-day b/c he thinks it's a made-up day for Hallmark and other companies to make money...but it's more than that to me...it's a day that I can expect him to be romantic and do something sweet and special for me...but he rarely ever does. Last night he told me that I shouldn't expect anything for V-day and I just cried b/c it makes me feel like I'm not special to him and that he doesn't care how I feel about the day eventhough I have told him how I feel on numerous occasions...He's told me this same line before, almost every year he tells me and I guess b/c I love him so much I have some hope that maybe he'll suprise me but he never does and it really hurts my feelings and we always end up fighting about it. I don't want to seem selfish or anything, I just think that if someone loves you as much as they say they do, who cares about how they feel about V-day, they should do things to make their significant other happy....

Sorry for the long post...but I am in the need of some advice. Thanks!

[Gigabitch]

How does he treat you on your birthday?

[Lovelygirl319]

How does he treat you on your birthday?

On my birthday he's always sweet and has never forgotten that!

[Gigabitch]

Well, so what if he hates Valentine's Day? Frankly, I think it's a bogus holiday, myself. I think you might have to revise your expectations on that one.

The other stuff, though, I think you have a valid complaint about. If he's never romantic and never compliments you, he's neglecting your needs. It would be like you marrying him and then refusing to have sex with him more than once a month. People in relationships are supposed to meet each other's needs, not suck it up and do without. That sounds like all the crappy part of being single without the hope of meeting the right guy.

Any you don't need more than three thousand dollars for a wedding. The economy is in the toilet. Spending a lot of money on a wedding right now is in poor taste.

[VincenzoG91]

I think that he's stringing you along for the convenient sex. A really long engagement is a good deal for a guy who is afraid of commitment, but it it's unfair to the woman. Talk to him again to see if your plans for life are actually still compatible. If not, it might be time to end this engagement and relationship.

Some guys aren't very romantic, but that isn't the problem here. Even if Valentine's Day is the creation of Hallmark (I do have my suspicions), the important thing is that you have a reasonable expectation of it being a special day for your relationship. If he doesn't agree, that's something to talk about. If he doesn't even care about your feelings, then there isn't really anything to talk about anymore. At all.

Ask yourself why you really want to marry him. I'm guessing that you want to be married some day, but why would you want to be married to this guy? Marriage doesn't magically transform a relationship into a better relationship, it simply becomes a formal, legal relationship. The problems that you are facing right now will get worse, because he already takes you for granted. I'm not saying that you should hold out for somebody perfect, but you should definitely hold out for somebody who actually cares about you and your feelings.

This job in Utah could be a good thing for both of you. He starts a new job that might end up paying more so that he can start saving some money. And you have a chance to bail on this dead-end relationship by not moving with him.

[Lite]

As my mother would say, "Sh*t or get off the pot."

Dump him, return the ring, and go on with your life. 9 years is too long without a wedding.

[bluesummer]

It would be a different thing if you two had agreed to be mutually committed with no expectation of marriage, as a lot of people seem to be doing these days. However, he asked you to marry him. If he was serious and you guys wanted it that badly, it can be done at the courthouse in ten minutes. Five years is ridiculous, I agree with Lite, sh*t or get off the pot sounds about right.

My brother in law and his 'fiancee' are going on to their third child and she still refuses to discuss marriage. He wants to marry her, but she is completely ambivalent. Oddly enough, it came out this year that she isn't entirely sure she wants to be in a relationship with him for the long run, period. Tells you a little something about people that hold out engagements for years. They do it because they figure it will shut the other person up for awhile without having to commit to actually marrying them.

[vashti]

Unless there is a ring AND a date set, I don't consider people to be engaged. Too many of these "engagements" end up falling apart before a wedding date is ever set. I think guys do these fake proposals to avoid having to listen to their women complain about getting married.

[sookie6]

My view but I may be wrong is that at the time of your engagement you were still in that lovey dovey stage. The honey moon period when you are still a mistery to him and he's afraid of losing you.

Now you have fallen in a safe zone where the guy does not even worry he could lose you. I would gently seat down with him one quiet evening and tell him that you both need to decide on a date (you can have cheap weddings abroad no need to wait until you have money enough...a mariage is too expensice nowadays...).

Now if he goes with this and lets you annouce the date to both families it just means he needed a gentle push.

But if he backs off and becomes unsettle borderline angry...you have your answer..he is stringing you along selfishly and wasting on your precious years...

You need to remember one thing. I don't know how old you are but I am guessing nearing 30. A woman in her 30s will always have more difficulty to find a partner than a man..
So put yourself first in this matter.
If you split up your fiance will be able to date a large age group of girls/women while to you possibilities are narrowing...don't want to paint a black picture here...

Just a reality check...

Anyway I hope things will go well with this and that soon you'll be happy and settled.

[vashti]

You need to remember one thing. I don't know how old you are but I am guessing nearing 30. A woman in her 30s will always have more difficulty to find a partner than a man..
So put yourself first in this matter.
If you split up your fiance will be able to date a large age group of girls/women while to you possibilities are narrowing...don't want to paint a black picture here...

I don't think so, at least not necessarily, assuming the 30 year old woman is willing to date younger males.

[Perryville]

Lovely, what is more important to you, being married or a wedding? You don't need more than a couple of hundred bucks to get married. If you really want to see if he's committed to you, tell him that you are willing to get married in City Hall or anywhere, before the big move. If he agrees, then you'll know that he is in it for the long haul, if he tries to crawfish out of it, you'll know that he's only in it because it's a convenient arrangement. Get married now, and have a big ceremony later.

[VincenzoG91]

Perryville, that's a good point about having a big ceremony later. My cousin married a really nice woman about ten years ago, and because they were both early in their careers and struggling with some student loan debt, they had a small, simple marriage. Last fall, to celebrate their 10th anniversary, they renewed their vows with a big, fancy wedding with more than 100 guests, because they could afford to do it.

[sookie6]

I don't think so, at least not necessarily, assuming the 30 year old woman is willing to date younger males.

Yes it is possible but you will find more young women willing to date older than the other way around (I'm thinking with a llong term relationship in mind not the casual fling).

[Lovelygirl319]

Sorry it took me so long to respond to the posts....Actually I'm 25y/o. We have been together since I was 16, and I knew immediately that he was the one for me and I still think he is. We have discussed just going to the court house and getting married their and having a big ceremony later, he is willing to do the court house thing but is not willing to have two ceremonies (so we couldn't do a ceremony later, eventhough the court house isn't really a ceremony he doesn't want to do it twice). We have kind of set a date for this November, he just got a job promotion and is waiting to see if he can get the date off that we are looking at before we announce it.

When we got engaged, we honestly knew that it would be at least 3-4yrs before we got married b/c I was planning on getting my Pharm D, before we got married. But obviously things have changed. Our wedding plans have always been pushed off b/c we have been poor college students for the past 8 yrs. Now that he has an actual career and can contribute, I still can't contribute any money...so he has come up that we have a small intimate wedding (which is fine w/ me) and spend $3000. I think that I can pull this off, it's do-able....I just feel like everything that I want gets pushed off...b/c of money.

I know he loves me and I know he's not stringing me along....He truely does want to get married and I'm trying to figure out if I still want to spend the rest of my life with him. He got the job in another state and wants me to move with him...if I don't were pretty much over, b/c he doesn't want to do the long distance relationship thing...he has it in his mind that it wont work b/c he hates talking on the phone....and wants me to be w/ him and not 5,000miles away. We've both always lived in Florida and it's going to be hard for me to be away from family and friends. I'm hoping that I can adjust and like the new place that we will be living, it will just be a BIG adjustment...and totally different from here.

Being married is very important to me esp that he is moving, I will NOT move with him unless he gives me a date. If I move with him, we will have our wedding later this year. If we cannot get married this year, then I don't know what I'm going to do...I can't move away with him and not be married to him. I do want to have a wedding though, it is also very important to me, as I have been looking forward to the BIG DAY for quite a while now.

[cmacattack1]

First of all, sorry that you backed out of getting your PharmD. I'm going for my PharmD myself and it's brutal at 23 to think of another couple years of school, i.e. being a man child into my late twenties. Did anything with your relationship have anything to do with you not pursuing this? Any relationship is not 100 percent certain because you are not 100 percent in control yourself, but a career and providing for yourself is. He has a new job and can provide for you and it sounds like you are still figuring your life out. It sounds like you have such a dependence on this and yet the longer the wedding is held off, the less likely it will happen and the more likely you are going to be left with nothing to fall back on if it doesn't work out. Maybe your career is something you should be focusing on more and less about the marriage aspect.

A problem with getting engaged early on in life. I always believe that love isn't rational and doesn't make sense, but for it to work, everything else around it has to be rational. There has to be structure, independence and maturity. Alot of the reason why young marriages end badly, although there is always a few happy endings. I agree that it has been a long time though and that no date has been set can be kind of alarming. Kind of like how I feel about long distance relationships. There needs to be a date, even if its tentative, for the distance to come to an end because then it is something to strive and look forward to. No end to the tunnel means it is just going without direction and sinking on both ends. One end is going to sink faster than the other, which would be you in this case.

While I have always viewed marriage as making the state the third party in your relationship, this is an occasion to remember for the rest of your life and signify the bond you have together. It can't be done half assed. There is so much more implication to it than you guys first thought and I hope at least by now you understand that there is far more at stake than just what you thought when you were 20 years old and hopped up on emotions and good times in your youth. I know you are looking for security in this but I gotta tell you that if this relationship is on shaky grounds, getting married will not fix it. It might give you peace of mind, but if it's already going downhill and nothing is fixed you better believe marriage will not save it in the long run.

I can't help but feel the insecurity about you and what you want to do with your life is being projected onto the whole uncertainty of the marriage situation and it is just heightening the intensity.

Either move with him or don't, but be prepared for the consequences of each if it does not work out how you want them to.

Bummer he doesn't like celebrating Valentine's Day. But if he is a great guy all around otherwise, it shouldn't be a deal breaker. If your birthday is special, why can't another day like this be special too though? I don't get it, and I guess I can see where you are coming from in being concerned about this kind of thing.