longtime lurker, first time poster, big dilemma

[Amazon B]

hello, good people. this is a pretty long but i have tried to break it down for you.

 

here's the situation: i became engaged last fall to the man i've been living with for four years, the father of my young child, a man i love deeply. we are raising both our baby and his child with an ex together. neither of us has ever been married: i am 31, and he is 37. he is a good man, we are both good people.

 

we are supposed to be married in three months and we have zero wedding planning done, all because of his foot-dragging.

 

we had some plans set up way back in december, i was excited and jumped right into it and set up something perfect, but my family got in the way (long story). SO, i asked him to help me figure out an alternative that we could both live with, something a tiny bit nicer and more romantic than just going to the courthouse in our jeans (his preference). i promised i would do all of the detail work, but i just wanted his input on venues, budget, where to honeymoon, the big stuff like that.

 

he never wants to deal with it, he's always complaining about being stressed from work or the kids or whatever, he needs to unwind. he blew me off for MONTHS about it and finally we started getting into huge fights, now he shuts me down totally every time i try to bring it up, rolls his eyes at me. he thinks it's totally unimportant.

 

at this point, i hate the wedding, i hate my engagement ring, i feel like it's eating away at me from the inside because i feel completely blown off and disrespected. i'm so frustrated i feel like my head is going to explode every day. i wasn't asking for a big white wedding, just some consideration and understanding that our wedding is an important event in both our lives.

 

i have tried to explain to thim that this takes time, that it willbe really hard to find a place at this late date, that i can't even shop for a dress because i don't know if we're going to be indoors or outdoors or what. i have told him that it's humiliating for me when my friends and family keep asking me about the wedding and i can't tell them anything.

 

he is a good man in most ways, a good father, he works hard, he shows me he loves me in other ways and i do know he loves me. at this point though i have serious doubts that he actually wants to marry me. i have asked him if he wants to postpone or call off the wedding and he says no, but i tell him he needs to just put in a little time towards it then and he blows it off. i have told him this is hurting me and hurting us, and he says he's sorry, but half an hour later it's like we never talked about it.

 

he uses this weird method about other things, too. we used to fight about his ex, who is a big problem with our schedule etc., and because he didn't want to hear it it was like he would pretend it didn't exist or something, like a child.

 

i'm not sure if i'm venting or really seeking advice. i'm fed up and i don't know what to do or think. some days i feel like giving up on the whole thing, but then i'm not sure how much longer we'd last as a couple, i would resent it so much. i don't want to resent him, and i don't want to feel like i'm good enough to have his baby butnot good enough to marry. i don't want to lose the father of my child, i don't want to lose my stepchild, but i don't want to feel like my wants and needs don't count. i need to feel like he's not just talking the talk, but he never seems to hear me, or else he doesn't care.

[subdued]

You say that you are supposed to be married in three months and have zero wedding planning done, all because of his foot-dragging.

 

Some men don't care about the wedding arrangements, whatever makes their finance happy is good with them. Deciding what to do may be very stressful for them, because they are afraid they won't make the choice that will make you happy.

 

Is there some reason why you can't make the arrangements? Will he have any objections if you do?

[Trialbyfire]

Just get a overall budget from him and if "something nicer" is important to you, do it on your own time. I'm not sure why he "has to" participate in something that he doesn't really want.

 

If I were you and you're not doing it to please family, who should be paying for it if they want it, just elope. The expense and headache for "something nicer", is a waste of money and many times, stresses the hell outta' relationships.

[Amazon B]

thanks for your responses. the thing is, he does want input. i have offered to pick the rings, to pick the honeymoon, etc., he said no: he doesn't want me to pick for him, but he just won't actually sit down and make the time to decide on a ring or a place.

 

also, the 'something nicer' i would like includes eloping. i actually think eloping is a great idea, there are places we can go to nearby that will pretty much do all the planning for you which are very beautiful and romantic and reasonably priced. he says that if we are going to have a wedding and not go to city hall, we should have not just our kids there, but at least our immediate families and best friends, and plan stuff ourselves, make it more personal than a bed and breakfast packaged elopement.

 

i know he doesn't care about wedding planning, neither do i really. i don't care about fancy centerpieces and i'm not bugging him about colors or favors or whatever. i want his input on the big things, yes, because i know he will be unhappy if i just pick what i want, or think i've spent too much money or whatever. but HE wants his input, too. if it was up to me, we would have eloped last winter with nobody but our kids and then honeymooned in thailand, and it would all be over with and we'd be back to our normal lives. the only thing i have said is that getting married at city hall in our everyday clothes is something i do not want; i don't think that makes me a bridezilla.

 

it's like afantasy or a game or something to him, where he will say he wants this and that, and doesn't want this other thing, but when it comes down to actually going to look at a venue or figure out a budget for the honeymoon, he blows me off, and has been blowing me off for eight months. and you seem to think my position of being extremely frustrated is unreasonable?

[Amazon B]

also about the venues, after he didn't like my elopement plan i came up with four different places that were intimate and interesting and he immediately found faults with two of them which i liked and thought he would have been fine with. so i asked him to go and see the other two with me so we could see if we liked them. if we liked one i would book it and take care of everything. that was four months ago and somehow he is always too stressed with other things and needs to unwind or has other plans when i suggest we go and look at them that day.

[subdued]

I don't think your being unreasonable. I think the idea of the wedding stresses your finance so much that he needs to unwind when you talk about the wedding.

 

I'm having similar issues with my boyfriend, who has never been married before and still hasn't proposed to me. In fact, he is so scared that he refuses to tell me that he loves me when it is obvious that he does. I'm his first live-in girlfriend. Anyway, the last time I asked about getting married, he said to me that I'm over at his house all the time. He needs time to unwind. Like what does that have to do with getting married? The hardest part is that he himself doesn't have a clue on why he is so scared of marriage.

 

My suggestion is to tell your boyfriend that you realize the idea of the wedding stresses him out and ask him what you can do, other than holding off the wedding, so that he won't be stressed out. Is the wedding so important to you that you wouldn't get married at city hall in your everyday clothes? If that's the only way my boyfriend would marry me, then I'd do it. You can always have a party and celebrate with friends and family afterwards.

[boldjack]

Amazon, what is more important to you, being his wife, or the procedure for making you his wife? When my wife and I decided to join our lives together, THAT MOMENT was, for me, the act of marriage. The "blessing of the church", or the approval of the government, was not, in the least, interesting to me. I only went through with the ceremony for her benefit, and the benefit of the families. My word to her and her word to me was all I needed. Maybe your fiance feels the same way.

[Amazon B]

thank you for your further responses. i feel like a slightly clearer picture of the situation is beginning to emerge the more of this i get worked out; my first post was like a rush of frustration.

 

boldjack and subdued, i think you might both have hit a point, i think he is somehow both afraid of getting married and yet feels we are already married, even though that seems contradictory. the thing is, i do not feel that we are already married. to me, the wedding is not a party, it is the transition. i don't care if anyone else is there (except the kids), i don't care about fancy cakes, i just want it to be simple and someplace beautiful because it is a memory i will cherish forever.

 

in the end, being his wife is the important part, so i will go to city hall in my everyday clothes and just get it done, but i will resent being forced into the one situation i didn't want by him being passive-aggressive and stubborn. i will feel like it takes something special away. he doesn't actually have any strong feelings one way or another about where it is or how it's done, he just doesn't care. so why are my feelings less important about this than his? it's not like i'm forcing him to marry me, or forcing him to suffer through some huge formal expensive event. i do plenty of things i'm not realy inclined to do for him, for his work or with his ex or whatever, because i care about him. i do them with good grace (well, most of the time! ).

 

if it's fear, i get that, but that is what makes me wonder if the underlying problem is that he really doesn't want this at all. he says that's not it, though.

[subdued]

If he says that it isn't that he doesn't want to get married, then it isn't that he doesn't want to get married. It could be that he is scared to get married.

 

I also don't know what to do. I've taken a few cake decorating classes so that I can make the wedding cake. My boyfriend was very supportive. He rushed to find the correct ingredients for my class when I forgot to stop by the store and buy them. I bought my wedding dress. It was a short white dress, because he doesn't want a formal wedding. He was happy when he saw it. I bought a chocolate fountain for the wedding. We both tried it out together at his parents house, and he really made an effort to get the chocolate fountain to work properly.

 

However, still no proposal. He's just too scared.

[mark982]

i think he's scared also. making that "leap" at his age,never being married.

[soserious1]

This man is communicating important info to you about who he is... you need to stop, cancel the wedding and really, really look over this situation. Do you want to deal with this same response every time an event or situation comes up in the future?

 

He blows you off and/or gets angry with you whenever you try to seek his imput

on any of the planning, he'll get angry with you if you go ahead and do the planning on your own?

 

This man either doesn't want to get married or he wants to do it exactly as he's said, in jeans at the courthouse, no party, no nothing.. but he won't just come out and directly say it, he's stone walling you.

[Trialbyfire]

also about the venues, after he didn't like my elopement plan i came up with four different places that were intimate and interesting and he immediately found faults with two of them which i liked and thought he would have been fine with. so i asked him to go and see the other two with me so we could see if we liked them. if we liked one i would book it and take care of everything. that was four months ago and somehow he is always too stressed with other things and needs to unwind or has other plans when i suggest we go and look at them that day.

Back off and do nothing and by nothing, stop all wedding planning. If he asks what's going on, tell him "nothing". If he starts to rant at you, suggest he be responsible for all the plans and you'll see if you can make time out of your busy, stressful life, to veto his choices...

[Amazon B]

subdued, mark, i agree that he is probably afraid to get married. to be honest, i am too, a little bit. before i met him i lived very freely, didn't like to get tied down, moved around a lot. now i'm committed to one man, i'm a mom and a stepmom, my life is completely different, and marriage will make that fixed. but i look at that as a good thing, whichis why i said yes when he asked me! isn't there a point where, if he's SO afraid that he can't talk about it oreven act like himself, that that means he's NOT READY? i guess not being ready is what i really mean when i say i think he doens't want it. he says he wants to get married and he considers us totally committed already. i asked him if he wanted me to sign a pre-nup and said i would if it was fair, and he said no, he trusts me and doesn't want to think negatively like that.

 

soserious, that is something i am afraid of, too. i go back and forth on this. i have wondered if i shouldcall the whole thing off. to be fair to him he IS stressed, he likes his job but he has a very responsible position and he works long hours, this economy hasdealt aharsh blow to our finances, and his ex-gf is a big pill. he has also never been very good at articulating emotional stuff and i have always known this about him. also, 'angry' might be a strong word...if i were to make a plan and book the venue and everything without him, he wouldn't shout with fury, but be disappointed and kind of annoyed. but hey i am stressed too, and he is making it worse. i feel like i am bending over backwards here. he is not acting like himself lately. when we were dating he was so intent on moving me in with him, when i was pregnant he was so solicitous, when we are together with the kids having family time he is always so happy and proud of us as a family...but you are right, on this issue he is being uncompromising, uncommunicative, and acting like an ass and it is worrying me somewhat about our communication and our future.

 

trialbyfire, i have actually been doing that! well, kind of, not so extreme as your post.that would surely be funny, but also petty and not constructive in any real way. at this point, i haven't looked at anything wedding-related in over a month, or talked to him at all about it, or anything. i got tired of the struggle and i was hoping it would help me distance myself from it, but instead it started building up this pressure of resentment until i felt like steam was coming out of my ears every second (why i ended up posting here). i feel like all my choices are being taken away through inaction as the date comes inexorably closer and nothing gets done, and it's making me totally crazypants .