My BF and I have been dating for two years, talking about marriage for a year, lived together for just shy of a year. We’ve known each other for a decade. We are both older, I am 34 and he is 37, and we definitely want to have kids. I’m feeling the biological time crunch as far as having children, I know that it could take quite a while (years) to get pregnant but he doesn’t feel the crunch at all. I’d be content with a long engagement, but I don’t want to start having kids until we are at least engaged but preferably married. We’ve talked about that together.
We talk about kids and marriage from time to time, he always just says ‘not tonight’. I have been trying really hard not to pressure him and careful not to bring it up, but it’s beginning to build resentment so I thought I should have a conversation with him about it to alleviate that resentment.
I asked what he needed in order to feel ready. He just says ‘I don’t know’. I said, well then what are you waiting for? ‘I don’t know’. Ok, I’m not going to be the forever live-in girlfriend and I feel like my time is running out to have children.
I feel like, at our age, he should know by now whether he wants to marry me or not.
I want a family, and I’m scared that he is going to string me along and never take us to the next step and then I will be out of time to restart this whole dang process with someone else. I do NOT want to do that, I love and adore this man with my whole heart, but I’m kind of feeling like ‘shi* or get off the pot’. Ya know? Value me or move on.
I cried. Then he goes into the other room and comes back with a small jewelry box… I froze and just stared at it like ‘omg please do NOT do it like this!!’. He caught on to that and quickly said ‘it’s not what you think’ and opened it to reveal a ‘My Future Wife’ necklace. He said he got it almost a year ago and was waiting for the right time to give it to me. I feel like this was the absolute worst time to give it to me. I can think of a million opportunities he would have had to romantically give it to me over the last year. We’ve gone on vacations, nice dinners, hunting on mountain tops, a plethora of instances where it would have been a time that I remembered fondly. It would have been such an exciting gift to give me when he first got it. Instead, giving it to me in the living on a random week night with mascara running down my face after trying to express how I’m feeling… It feels like a ‘shut up’ gift so I quit bringing the subject up. And why did he wait so long to give it to me? Is he unsure about even marrying me? He says he is sure, that he does want to. I’ve told him if he’s not then please just tell me.
Am I the a**hole? Am I being impatient? I’m just sad 😭😭😭