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thisismynickname2
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Marriage Ultimatums
thisismynickname2
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in Chit Chat
From Jezebel:
Thoughts? The comments on the article got fairly heated.
When I was in my mid-twenties, my boyfriend of nearly 3 years wanted to move in together. I was against living together before engagement/marriage for a variety of reasons, the primary reason being that I had seen many friends move in and out of homes with various partners. As if breaking up is hard enough, now one person's homeless, greaaat. So anyway, I gave him the marriage ultimatum: I expected to be engaged if we were to move in together. Then I relaxed to "engaged within a year of moving in together." Ultimately, we never moved in together and broke up shortly after trying to look for a place together. Now? We're both married to people who are far more right for us than we ever were for each other.
But, I have friends who just aren't, or weren't, on the same timeline as their boyfriends and remain together. I see how frustrating it is for them. They want the security of marriage, they want to buy a home together and plan a family (not that you can't do that without marriage anyway), while the boyfriend was happy to just be a live-in boyfriend. One couple married after 10 years together and another friend is still waiting (7 or 8 years and counting). I have to be honest; I figured if you weren't on the same timeline in terms of wanting to establish a home and grow a family, that there are plenty of fish in the sea and maybe someone else was out there whose life goals are aligned with yours. I've heard a whole host of reasons for a lack of proposal in friends' relationships, but sometimes it just seems like the guy wants an easy out from the relationship just in case someone better comes along. Under the right circumstances, I think an ultimatum can work. It's like Aidan and Carrie in Sex & the City: "If you don't want to marry me right now, you won't ever want to marry me."
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Re: Marriage Ultimatums
DH and I were kind of in category #2. We were both approaching 30 and had thoroughly discussed timelines, expectations, etc. I knew he loved me and had every intention of marrying me, but to me it seemed like he was dragging his feet. It took a few months of having some honest discussions before we were able to get to the root of it. A combination of being an only child and his mother passing away suddenly when he was very young was genuinely making it difficult for him to take that next step.
So did I give him an ultimatum per se? No. It was more of "Ok, we have reached a point in the timeline that we discussed and agreed upon where it is time to take the next step. This seems to be hard for you, so let's figure out why together". That worked for us, and in the long run I am so glad we got to the bottom of it BEFORE we got engaged instead of having these issues crop up right before the wedding or even after!
ETA - we did not live together before we got married because of our religious beliefs, so that wasn't a factor in any of this.
In my early 20s, I lived with a guy. Though we would get married. We definitely got too comfortable though I think, and there was just not motivation to move to the next step. So I broke it off, because I did want more. But then, like mentioned, I was "homeless" and had to scramble to find a new place. Now looking back though, I see other red flags so the relationship probably wouldn't have lasted either way.
Fast forward..I made a new rule to myself that I wouldn't live with someone without being engaged. I stuck to this, and it worked out. Sure, it may have been easier to move in with him earlier, and probably more cost effective, but after going through the whole breakup and needing to move out thing, I was not willing to put myself in that position again. Then boyfriend knew that, but I didn't make a big deal about it or pressure him into proposing before he was ready.
So I suppose this holds true to me, but the really issue is the "ultimatum". Those are threatening, and a red flag that the relationship is in trouble anyways, in my opinion. For me, the not moving in was more just a personal conviction.
I, personally, didn't want H to move in until we were engaged. But, at the same time, I never pressured him into an engagement.
If we had worked with my timeline, we would have been engaged and married at least a year earlier than we were. I also knew that H wasn't ready for an engagement, so I was happy to have him on his timeline. The same has been with children. I would have liked to have started a year earlier than we did, but H wasn't ready. Again, I was just happy to have him and was happy to wait for his timeline.
I think a potential difference was that I knew H was going to be ready for engagement, marriage, and kids in x months/years. So I knew his timeline. When a couple can't even communicate their preferred timelines to each other, there is a problem. I do realize there are also people out there that, even though they know their partners preferred timeline, they don't care and will still issue the ultimatum.
I'd always been against the living together things w/o the commitment of engagement or marriage, mostly because as you said I had friends who had lived with someone for years and they wanted to get married and it never happened for one reason or another. My theory was if you have to live with me to decide if you want to marry me then I'm not sure our relationship is right. FFW to my H who had very strong feelings about how a couple needed to spend more time together and living together was the only real way to do it. It was a big issue with us and I finally gave in (for lack of a better word), sold my house, got rid of most of my stuff since there wasn't room for both, and said a quick hope and a prayer that it would work out. My house buyer ended up backing out so while it was back on the market he proposed and it all worked out that way I guess. I've told him many times he could have saved a lot of heartache and fighting (my parents were not ok with the moving in before marriage) if he had proposed 6 weeks earlier!
He said one time I gave him an ultimatum, which I disagree, it was the relationship expectations I set out and my boundaries. I said if I did move in with him and nothing had changed (no engagement or true clear path to definitely being married) in a year or so then I wasn't sure I would be able to continue in the relationship because I wanted marriage and family and couldn't stay in limbo forever.
That particular article, to me, was a big waste of time, and a better format would have been commenting on the original article, rather than writing a whole page which is mostly quoting the original with a nice "click bait" title.
Anyway, I sort of agree with the first comment on this article, wondering how invested are you really if you will leave over a ring. What I don't agree with is that the idea of being married is "only a ring and a party." I guess I'm finally starting to actually feel different than I did when we were dating/engaged!
I'm not a fan of ultimatums. My last boyfriend actually said that he would never get married unless his girlfriend produced a child for him, because he wouldn't want to miss the opportunity to have his own biological child. The old uterus shut down real quick after this convo, let me tell you!!
As far as living together, I lived with a previous fiancé for 3 years before we got engaged. The previous shitstain boyfriend I mentioned, I lived in his rental house which he packed with 5 other girls (probably 9 or 10 over the 2 years), so I was trapped without the "benefit" of actually living with him. He could come and go as he pleased and I couldn't.
I bought my house to escape that situation (rentals are expensive here, plus almost impossible with 2 med/large dogs) and met DH 2 months later.
DH didn't want to live together until we were engaged, and he actually kept his apartment until 7 months after we were engaged, and 6 months before the wedding. I was shocked honestly that he brought up getting engaged on his own, because I always kind of assumed it was something that a woman kind of had to push on! Turns out he had been waiting until our 1 year anniversary because that was an appropriate amount of time in his mind. The feeling was so different compared to my previous fiancé, who I just kind of looked at one day and was like "hey, it's been 3.5 years, we should probably get married next summer" and he said "Okay."
Before we were engaged, my now H and I would talk about marriage and we knew we wanted to marry each other as soon as possible, but he was job-less, in school, etc. and he wanted to be "worthy of me" (his words) when proposing. So it took a while to get there.
And at one point I did have to tell him that I really hoped he'd make good on what he said he was going to do (propose- he is more traditional and when I'd asked him once if he'd say yes if I proposed he said he would be really uncomfortable w/ me proposing to him) because I'd heard for years someone say they were going to do something and not do it. Thankfully, he did- and it happened sooner than I thought it would overall.
If anyone would have been given an ultimatum it would have been me- from myself. If you really want to be married or engaged by a certain time, and you've let your partner know that w/o delivering an ultimatum, then you've got to be the one who moves on when it doesn't happen. You don't even have to tell the other person you'll be the one to break it off- they may just propose to put off figuring things out...
I actually have a co-worker who did this recently. She'd been w/ her b/f for 5 years, they've lived in two different states together, and she let him know at about year 3 that she wanted to get married and have kids. She decided that, if he hadn't proposed by their anniversary in August (year 6) she was going to break it off. He didn't and so she told him she didn't think they wanted the same things and so she was breaking it off.
It was in the beginning of the relationship with my now H that I brought this up and said that I am not wasting my time on someone like that again, I never ever want to hear "I will marry you after this happens"
Then 2 (almost 3) years into the relationship, we had been living together for over a year, we were driving home one day, and I looked at him and said, "why have you not asked me to marry you yet, I am not willing to wait around for you to decide you don't want to? We have been together for almost 3 years, and if you're unsure still, I don't think you ever will be sure." He only said that he was sure and not to worry.. Man of few words drives me crazy sometimes, but about a month later he popped the question..
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With FI, things were just different. We contemplated go to the court house before we were even officially dating, he told me wanted to marry me before our first anniversary, he just wanted to get a good job first. By our 2nd anniversary, we had bonded in a way that I knew I wanted to be with him forever. That christmas he gifted me a promise ring. Year 3 was our hardest. He got a new job in a new state at the same time I started a gig that kept me traveling for 7 months. A month before my gig ended, he transferred to another state, across the country. I went with him. We had a lot of repair work to do from being long distance. But 6 months after our 4 year anniversary he proposed. We just passed out 5th, and a week after our 6th, we will be married.
I absolutely refused to give him an ultimatum, not that I needed to. I wanted him to propose of his own free will. Even though it killed me at times. His mom had given him his nana's ring to give to me, and I knew about it (he told me/ showed me the ring), and he still waited 6 months. But honestly, I knew I wanted to be with him. I wanted the security of being married but at no point would I have traded that for him. He knew my position though, no marriage, no babies. Idk if that had anything to do with him proposing or not.
And for those who want to get married and are with a partner who seemingly doesn't want to- almost the exact same question can be posed: if you are living every other aspect of your life as a married couple except he hasn't put a ring on it, why doesn't he want to put a ring on it?
I think that's a fair question. Because if all that's going to change is a ring, and a piece of paper and maybe access to other benefits, why not- what is preventing this person from "making it legal?"
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I had four serious relationships before I married DH:
1. Mr. Maybe we'll get married someday, but I'm not ready. (I wasted four years on him, and he broke my heart.)
2. Mr. I want to marry you someday. (I learned. I only wasted 8 months.)
3. Mr. I can't commit to anything because I'm finding myself. (He tried to talk me out of marrying DH the night before our rehearsal. God, he was hot!)
4. Mr. Marry Me NOW!!! (This is DH.)
My son has learned not to waste time dating poly-amorous ladies. He wants a traditional marriage.
This article seems to come from a perspective of its always women giving the ultimatum and wanting to get married. My H actually had a faster get married timeline than I did! We got engaged sooner than I would have expected.
I do have different views on things than many people. For one, I chose to only date guys that I could see myself marrying in the future, not that we had to get married but we aligned in most our beliefs and future desires. H was fairly similar. Neither of us ever dated anyone else. I chose not to pursue one guy (who seemed interested when I was a freshman living at home), and turn down another guy because I knew there wasn't a future there - it would just be fun for a little while. So H and I discussed important things like kids and stuff pretty early on. If he didn't want to get married for 10 years or didn't see himself getting married, that relationship would have ended very quickly.