I am (24F) & my boyfriend is (25), we are just a few weeks away from our 7 year anniversary & he still has not proposed & when I attempt to bring up future plans he almost tries to hide from it, he denys that’s what he’s doing but it feels like a very forced conversation, it’s never anything he brings up. Always me.
To give you a back story, I have been inlove with this man since we were about 16.. but he always kind of kept me by a string, so I’d date other people & when that didn’t work it was always be us back communicating.. but again, he never really took me as seriously as I so badly wanted him too.. he graduated high school a year before me, and the summer he graduated is when he decided he wanted to take things to the next level – we started dating and about a month into dating , he broke up with me because he wasn’t ready. I was really hurt about this. Yes although it was just a month, the chemistry we had was far longer than when he made things official. We were broken up for around 3 months, with little to no communication.. I was moving forward with my life, but was still missing him so much.. so , I reached out telling him if he was not going to be ready to be with me then he could hang it up for good because I was not going to wait around any longer, that one conversation changed everything & we were together since , fast forward to when I graduated – about a year 1/2 after graduation, we moved into our own apartment we agreed before we moved in that, we would be moving towards our future , marriage & kids. I’ve known for a long time I wanted all those things with him, and he has always told me he wanted the same.
About a year of or so of us living in the apartment I began to ask about our future to see where his head was , at first he kind of made it sound as if it would happen soon , he’d be like “in a year “, a year would go by I’d bring it up again, he then say “well I want to buy a house first” , well as far as having kids I understand wanting to buy a house first because our apartment isn’t necessarily ideal to raise kids it’s not in the hood or anything but I respected his thoughts on that. However, he still had no timeline or didn’t have any discussion with how we can accomplish this goal so we’re not staying in one place & I wouldn’t think that should take proposal off the table.
So now we’re at almost year 7 … I tell him, I really mean business about our future – today he tells me it’s because we need to buy a house , that is being delayed due to me not having a better job – I have a good paying job for my age , but my job does not offer benefits and or paid holidays – so when these holidays come up I technically am losing money.. , anyway. Me leaving my job, is the newest reason for the delay, the big picture is everything has to be when we buy a house.
I explain to him , even if I quit my job today and work for somewhere else I will start out with what I’m already making more than likely & yes I’ll have the benefit and paid holidays but it isn’t going to make a huge difference as far as my financial income goes, but I said say I left how much money would we each need to be setting aside ? How much are we approved for? HOW can WE accomplish these goals & I got nothing from that.
TL;DR
Im building this uncomfortable resentment, and it’s really causing me serious pain and anxiety as someone who already suffers from PTSD. he claims everything has to happen when we move, but has no plan or goal to help us achieve it. If I don’t bring up our future, it isn’t brought up. I’m not comfortable, just being comfortable. I want to feel like our relationship is growing , I want it to work so badly. But I don’t want to wait 10 years for someone to commit to me.
Any advice would be so appreciated, this may be a bit all over the place bc I’m trying to summarize my situation at work which has been a bit difficult considering I’m on the phone all the time lol.
*also, I’ve told him many of times I’m NOT materialistic, you could get me a ring from Walmart and I’d be as happy as a clam, it’s the principle – it’s the commitment. He knows I don’t need much, I never needed much to be pleased. *
Comments
Sweetheart when somebody shows you who they are, believe them. If he wanted to, he would. You are still young. Being miserable in a relationship is so much worse than being alone.
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It seems you’ve spent 7 years trying to force a relationship with someone who just isn’t that into you.
If he wanted to marry you he would.
It kind of sounds like you need to be in charge or nothing will be done. Do you think that’s true? Is this true in other parts of his life?
Are you wanting a big/expensive wedding? Even a small wedding can be $10k. Is there a way to pay for this? That may be a legit reason he doesn’t want to get married?
Maybe you need to propose or at least tell him when he should propose to you?