I am 32-years old and I’ve been with my partner for 4 years, living with him for 3 of those years. He was previously married, for a short time (9-months) to a woman who one day left him after announcing she is gay. She moved out of their home and in with another woman right away, so he has some issues with trust. He finalized his separation five years ago and finally got the divorce a year ago (he had been procrastinating about it due to cost and the fact that all they had left to do was sign the divorce papers, everything in court was done). He is an only-child who was brought up by unmarried parents who separated when he was 7. He had a workaholic father who meant well but just didn’t spend much time with him as a child. I was brought up by happily married parents with a dad who worked and a stay-at-home mom.
Throughout our entire relationship I’ve always made it clear that I eventually wanted to get married and have a child someday, and he never had a negative response to this exactly. Whenever I brought up the subject of future children he said he “didn’t know” and he had “never really thought about it”. I told him to put some real thought into and left the subject alone for almost a year. Recently I’ve brought it up again and he still is unsure what he wants. I also brought up marriage and his response was to cover up his face with his hands and say “I just don’t know if I want to go through with all that again”. He claims he’s afraid due to the fact that the house is in his name and if we were to marry (we live in Ontario where it is called the matrimonial home, so a pre-nup would not change anything re the house), I would automatically be entitled to half if we were to separate even though I did not purchase the home or pay any of the mortgage (since house is not in my name and I make less than half what he makes annually, I contribute to bills, groceries and other expenses). He also claims that because things are good the way they are now, why change anything. He told me that I’m his best friend, that he loves me and he has no plans to leave me at any time, and when I told him that having a child is a dealbreaker for me, he got very teary eyed.
I am considering and brought up with him the idea of a commitment ceremony, basically a small “wedding ceremony” with exchange of rings, vows, friends and family present. To me it would be a marriage as I like the tradition of it, and the exchanging of vows. It just wouldn’t be a marriage in the eyes of the government. We’d sign a cohabitation agreement and have wills done to protect each other, but he wouldn’t have to worry about losing his home. He agreed that would be a good idea but nothing more has been said about it. My sister even offered to let us have the ceremony at her home on the river this coming summer if we wanted to cut down on costs. My family and his mother were really questioning him and putting the pressure on him “jokingly” over Christmas (which I thought was a bit annoying as that might just make him shut down more).
I don’t know whether to bring it up again, or wait a bit and bring it up….or whether it’s simply time to just leave him. I just don’t want to waste more time with him if he will still be undecided a year from now….I love him and I want to be sensitive to his trust issues but I may be only hurting myself by staying. I suggested he go to counseling to deal with these issues and he agreed it could be a good idea but nothing has been done about it. I just don’t know what to do anymore and it really hurts.