Hello all!!
My boyfriend and I have been together for almost four years. He just turned 35 and I am 24. We have hit every milestone imaginable - long distance, school, age gap, death of a parent, unstable finances - and have come out the better for it. I found out that my boyfriend purchased a ring for me about two years ago, and I have not seen or heard anything about it. In the last year I lost my mom, and he quit his job to start his own business. Without my mom, I had a hard time imagining each day let alone a huge milestone like my wedding. But as time went on I thought a small ceremony with our extremely close friends and family would be great. With his new business venture, he lost his health insurance. He has, in the last year, developed some pretty severe health issues that need maintaining. To fix this issue, we decided we'd get married quietly and not tell anyone so that he could get on my health insurance. The process was horrible - I did everything on my own as he considered it a "fake wedding". A week before we were to get married I told him tha I could not go through with it because I was not going to have these horrible memories attached to my wedding day. Now here we are, in limbo, with our marriage lisense expiration date quickly approaching, and we are still not engaged. In fact, he seems to not realize there is an issue. He seems to think weddings just "happen" and that inviting 200 or 300 guests is not unheard of on a tight budget. He doesn't want to talk about cost or planning but occasionally he acts as though we are already halfway through the planning process!! CLEARLY, we are both lost and I need some guidance!!