How long into a relationship before the proposal just isn't coming?

[norajane]

Living together is a major compatibility issue just like sex and, well other things, and you cant wait until you cross the altar to find out your new wife nags you for every little thing in the house, or she wont negotiate in terms of whos stuff should go where.

 

Isn't that just adjusting to being roommates, though? You have to do those negotiations with any roommate. As long as you are committed to the lease, you work to make it work. If you are committed to a marriage license, you work even harder to make living together work presumably because you love each other and want this person in your life forever (that's why you married).

 

Married, you go into living together already committed to making the living together adjustment work. Unmarried, you go into living together as a test or audition. Two very different scenarios.

[Eeyore79]

Married, you go into living together already committed to making the living together adjustment work. Unmarried, you go into living together as a test or audition. Two very different scenarios.

I think this hits the nail on the head.

 

I don't think this is necessarily true across the board. My now fiancé and I didn't treat each other like temporary fixtures, and we've always thought of 'us' rather than 'me.'

Good for you. However the statistics show that the majority of people have less happy marriages if they lived together first. You may be the exception to the rule - I hope you're one of the minority of couples who will have a happy marriage after living together Statistically speaking though, it seems better to avoid living together before marriage.

 

You HAVE to live together first before getting married.

Well... no, actually I don't have to live with someone before marriage. It's a personal choice, and I choose not to.

 

Eeyeore, youre so willing to walk away from a guy that hesitates to marry you, what makes you think a guy isnt willing to walk away from you after youre married, living together, and finds out you could be a horrible nag hiding in a nice girls package?

I don't think there's any way to be 100% sure that someone will never leave you. However, I hope that we'd have dated long enough to be sure about each other's personality, and that we'd be committed and willing to work through any issues and compromise where necessary.

 

You have to know how a woman will be living together, to know if you can stand living with her.

I disagree. I think you can learn the essential things about someone by dating. The stuff you learn by living with someone generally isn't stuff that will make or break your relationship. I need to know that a man is kind, decent, supportive, hard working, loving - I don't need to know where he keeps his socks, or how often he poops, or what he watches on tv.

 

Living together is a major compatibility issue just like sex and, well other things, and you cant wait until you cross the altar to find out your new wife nags you for every little thing in the house, or she wont negotiate in terms of whos stuff should go where.

I'd expect that you'd know your future spouse well enough to know if they'll nag you, or be bossy or annoying, or refuse to compromise on unimportant little things, etc. You don't need to live with someone to find out that they're kind, accommodating, helpful, etc. If your new wife nags you or refuses to compromise, she must always have been a difficult person, even before the wedding - surely you'd pick up on her bad personality long before you walked down the aisle?

Edited November 13, 2011 by Eeyore79

[allina]

I disagree. I don't think living together is a good test of what it will be like being married, because you're not married. You treat each other differently when you live together - you're aware that the person might walk away so you don't invest fully in the relationship, you essentially keep your lives and finances and life plans separate, you think of yourself as an individual, and while you care about each other you're still just two people who happen to live together.

 

When you get married, everything changes. You accept that this person is with you for better or worse, you become less selfish and make more effort to make the relationship work and make your spouse happy. You think less like an individual and more like a couple, you think about what's best for US rather than ME. Your relationship becomes deeper and closer, and you give an awful lot more than you'd be prepared to give to someone you were just dating.

 

 

I strongly disagree, so I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree

 

Maybe I'm basing this on my own experience as I moved in with my now husband after 6 months of dating some 5 years ago. Back then, at 23 marriage wasn't something I thought about, but we knew we wanted to be together and made each other a priority. Years later we have a very happy marriage, some history together and we couldn't be happier.

 

Come to think of it, I cannot think of one married couple among my peers that did not live together prior to marriage.

 

I think that living together actually helps a couple establish an US. I believe that by living together you build a deeper understanding of each other and work together on common goals.

[Eeyore79]

Maybe I'm basing this on my own experience as I moved in with my now husband after 6 months of dating some 5 years ago. Back then, at 23 marriage wasn't something I thought about, but we knew we wanted to be together and made each other a priority.

 

I think it has a lot to do with age. Very young couples (under 25) don't think about marriage - it isn't even on their radar - so they move in together. If you have years to wait before you'll be anywhere near ready for marriage, then maybe moving in together makes sense. You're young and there's no urgency about finding the right person - you can afford to waste half a decade in a fruitless relationship and still have time to meet and marry someone else afterwards.

 

However, once you hit your late twenties and are ready for marriage, moving in with someone is a bad thing. You can't afford to get involved in a long term "living together" arrangement that goes nowhere - you don't have years to waste on someone who won't marry you. You need to assess someone and walk away if marriage isn't on the cards; sometimes you have to allow a year or two, but in some cases I ended relationships within a few months, as soon as it became clear that we would never marry.

 

When you're 30-ish, time is rapidly running out - your aim is to eliminate the people who aren't marriage prospects asap, in order to allow more time to find the right person. You don't have the luxury of wasting time in a live-in relationship. Living with someone reduces your freedom to walk away if commitment isn't forthcoming, and makes it more likely that the other person will get comfy with living together and drag their heels about marrying.

[allina]

You're young and there's no urgency about finding the right person - you can afford to waste half a decade in a fruitless relationship and still have time to meet and marry someone else afterwards.

 

However, once you hit your late twenties and are ready for marriage, moving in with someone is a bad thing. You can't afford to get involved in a long term "living together" arrangement that goes nowhere - you don't have years to waste on someone who won't marry you.

 

your aim is to eliminate the people who aren't marriage prospects asap, in order to allow more time to find the right person. You don't have the luxury of wasting time in a live-in relationship.

 

Right, this is where we disagree.

 

In my opinion living together is not a waste and does not eliminate those who are not marriage prospects. If anything, it allows the couple to build a life together and work towards marriage. I'm not sure where the part about "wasting half a decade in a fruitless relationship" comes from. I just don't think that's an accurate picture.

 

Further, I think that relationships are about finding a happy, long lasting bond for both partners, not about sorting through people as quickly as possible in order to get a ring asap.

[Eddie Edirol]

I'd expect that you'd know your future spouse well enough to know if they'll nag you, or be bossy or annoying, or refuse to compromise on unimportant little things, etc. You don't need to live with someone to find out that they're kind, accommodating, helpful, etc. If your new wife nags you or refuses to compromise, she must always have been a difficult person, even before the wedding - surely you'd pick up on her bad personality long before you walked down the aisle?

 

You dont know someone fully until you live with them, Its a fact. When youre living separately, youre not negotiating belongings, living designs, whatever. You need to know if everything about these negotiations is breable, with no resentments whatsoever. Pushing through with that with resentment starts off a marriage completely wrong. Living together is a compatibility issue just like everything else. And if the issues are brushed to the side just because theres a ring involved, it will rear its ugly head up again at another point. Some people can work through it, but based on the divorce rate, most people cant.

 

Married, you go into living together already committed to making the living together adjustment work. Unmarried, you go into living together as a test or audition. Two very different scenarios.

Dating is a test and audition too, testing for compatibility. Living together is the same thing. You gotta test the waters first. But I am the type of guy that doesnt move in with a woman unless I intend on marrying her, maybe Im one of a few.

[Eeyore79]

In my opinion living together is not a waste and does not eliminate those who are not marriage prospects. If anything, it allows the couple to build a life together and work towards marriage. I'm not sure where the part about "wasting half a decade in a fruitless relationship" comes from. I just don't think that's an accurate picture.

 

My point is this: Aged 20, you can afford to live with someone for 5 years, find out they're never going to marry you, dump them and move on aged 25, and still have time to meet and marry someone else. However if a woman of 35 did that, she'd have wasted her last chance to find a suitable partner for marriage and kids, because she'd be 40 by the time the relationship ended.

 

Once you approach 30, it becomes too risky to spend years with someone without a ring. You're staking everything on the chance that he will eventually marry you, because you're not leaving yourself any time to find someone else if he doesn't. At that age, you need to eliminate unsuitable men fairly quickly in order not to waste all of your remaining reproductive years waiting around for someone who will never marry you.

 

When youre living separately, youre not negotiating belongings, living designs, whatever. You need to know if everything about these negotiations is breable, with no resentments whatsoever.

If someone is going to kick up a fuss about something so minor as how we decorate our house, they're really not the type of person I'd even date. That sort of pedantic, inflexible, selfish nature is something which would be apparent in their personality from the beginning; I don't need to live with someone to find out that they're a pain in the ass.

[allina]

My point is this: Aged 20, you can afford to live with someone for 5 years, find out they're never going to marry you, dump them and move on aged 25, and still have time to meet and marry someone else. However if a woman of 35 did that, she'd have wasted her last chance to find a suitable partner for marriage and kids, because she'd be 40 by the time the relationship ended.

 

Once you approach 30, it becomes too risky to spend years with someone without a ring. You're staking everything on the chance that he will eventually marry you, because you're not leaving yourself any time to find someone else if he doesn't. At that age, you need to eliminate unsuitable men fairly quickly in order not to waste all of your remaining reproductive years waiting around for someone who will never marry you.

 

 

Right, but we're talking about moving in with a man you're in love with and one that is in love with you. We are talking about a situation where a future is desired by both partners, at least I assumed we were.

 

No one is suggesting wasting 5 years on a dead end relationship. Again, living together does not equate to years wasted. You would know if a man is a potential husband before moving in with him, and by living together you aren't obligated to stay any more than you are while not living together.

[Eeyore79]

Right, but we're talking about moving in with a man you're in love with and one that is in love with you. We are talking about a situation where a future is desired by both partners, at least I assumed we were.

I think it's been mentioned before that women often see living together as a step towards marriage, while men often see it as a way of postponing marriage. Men often move in with women even though they have no intention of marrying them within an acceptable time frame, and the woman ends up waiting around for a proposal for years on end. If she wasn't living with the guy, it would be much easier for her to simply walk away and find a more commitment minded man.

 

You would know if a man is a potential husband before moving in with him, and by living together you aren't obligated to stay any more than you are while not living together.

You aren't obligated to stay, but I think a live-in relationship can drag on a lot longer than it should do and can also be harder to end, simply because you live together and breaking up is a huge upheaval. I know a number of people who would have left unsatisfactory relationships much earlier if it wasn't for the fact that they lived together and it was a big hassle to break up.

 

Sometimes people who live together eventually drift into marriage, not because "we want to get married", but because "we don't want to break up so we might as well get married". So marriage becomes the default rather than something that the couple specifically desired. If they hadn't lived together and drifted into marriage, they might have split up and married more suitable partners.

[RiverRunning]

I disagree. We cannot negotiate someone's will to marry us. Relationships aren't guaranteed to end in marriage if you "play your cards right." Sometimes things just don't work out.

 

Further, I believe that living together is extremely helpful in determining if a couple is truly a great fit for the long run. I know that there are many women who come through LS saying that after years of living together their bf still hasn't proposed, but I'm willing to bet that had they not moved in with these bfs there would still be no proposal/marriage.

 

 

I'm not suggesting negotiating in that sense - I'm not saying, "Hey, I want to marry in one year and you want to marry in three. How about two?" "Well, ok."

 

What I am saying is that you need to sit down and have a discussion. "I want this to lead to marriage. Do you?" "Yes." "When were you thinking?" That's what I mean by 'negotiations' - I apologize for the lack of clarity. I mean 'negotiating' in the sense that you put all of your cards out on the table, see where they fit together, and yes, see if either or both of you would be willing to compromise on your current thoughts and approaches to it.

 

I'm totally disregarding one of the earlier poster's obviously 1950's approach to "why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free." If I had gotten this far and thought that was the -only- thing keeping him from marrying me, obviously I have chosen the wrong partner. Proposing has been coming up more often (from him) and I understand he's got some stressful things happening in his life. But I feel that April is a good 3 1/2 year deadline.

 

It's not a 'deadline' in the traditional sense - he doesn't know about it. I don't feel that I have 'made a mistake' even though lots of fundies would like to believe that anyone who lives together before marriage has. So, what resentment is there? Either he's proposed in that timeframe, in which everything's great, or he hasn't and I've moved on.

 

Eeyore's making excellent points about living together before marriage. The approach someone takes to living together with someone before marriage MUST change when they get to the engagement and marriage phase. I think a lot of peoples' perspective doesn't change. Statistics do indicate that people who cohabit are more likely to move on when the going gets tough than people who marry first.

 

But let's be real here - a lot of these are blanket generalizations about a great number of people and not specific couples. I have met cohabiting couples who are far more devoted than many married couples I've seen. I've seen couples who married first who both cheat on each other and are ready to run at the drop of a hat. Lots of things determine who gets married and who doesn't, and it doesn't always boil down to "They didn't marry first, so they don't take it as seriously/they're ready to run."

 

In my situation, I've put up with a lot of crap in this relationship. I mean, a LOT of crap. I know what I'm getting into and I've stuck around through all of it. It's been rather difficult at times, for him as well as for me. But I know of married couples who would've scattered for far less.

 

Since I've started this thread, I've gotten a lot more clarification about the state of my own relationship. Like I've mentioned previously in this thread, the big indicators are if his friends are all single/young, if he has a good career, etc.

 

My S/O is talking about buying a house (although he is dragging his feet on it by not going to get pre-approved, but he says he wants to do that in the spring x.x) and he frequently brings up the future. It's not uncommon for him to talk about 'our kids' or to make comments about how he wants me to be his wife.

 

Several of his friends and co-workers are married and have children, and if they've been talking about the kids or their wives that day at lunch, he'll come home and act upset. He claims it's because 'that's all they talk about,' but I really think there is jealousy at play there.

 

So I don't think my situation is the stereotypical, "You moved in without a ring, now you're DOOMED to NEVER get married." He's not avoiding the topic, although I think it's stressful at the moment with all that's going on with grad school right now. Just yesterday he was asking me what I'd like in a ring and he's told me he would "not be happy" to still be in the just-living-together-situation 2 years from now.

 

Just like I think it's a blanket statement to suggest that a couple who marries first will wind up being more devoted to one another, and a man will drag his feet less if she won't move in until after marriage.

 

I am happy because everything that's surfacing now is of his own volition. I think he might be more interested in marrying than I am. I get that that doesn't always necessarily equal action. But as I've said, I've come to peace with my internal deadline. If it happens, great! If it doesn't, I am strong and stable enough on my own to make a go of my life in a different path.

[Eeyore79]

Women have a tendency to sit around and speculate about why their man hasn't proposed, and analyze his every word. But the bottom line is this: If he hasn't proposed, he doesn't want to marry you (at least not yet).

 

Think about it. The power is in his hands; he could propose to you right now if he wanted to. Why hasn't he? Because he doesn't want to. Period.

 

If you're waiting for a proposal, then you're obviously ready for marriage. The fact that he hasn't proposed tells you loud and clear that he isn't ready. Either he doesn't want to marry you at all, or he may want to marry you in the future but, for whatever reason, now isn't the right time. Maybe he wants to get to know you better. Maybe he wants to get a promotion first. Maybe he isn't in love with you. Maybe he has absolutely no intention of ever marrying you. Maybe he's just waiting to make sure he can't do any better, and if he hits 35 and you're the best offer he's had, then he'll marry you.

 

It seems reasonable to allow a few years for him to propose... enough time to rule out the acceptable excuses for not proposing. But when a few years have passed and you're financially stable, he (supposedly) loves you, he knows you as well as he's ever going to, it's pretty clear that you're compatible, his mom even buys you a Christmas present, and he still hasn't proposed... the only reason left is that he doesn't want to marry you. This is why a deadline is a good idea... when there are no reasonable excuses left for him not marrying you, it's time to walk away because he's obviously stringing you along.

 

The danger with living together is that he may see it as sort of a pseudo-commitment which pacifies you and buys him more time until he has to propose. Some men can string this out for several years, and the woman in question just waits patiently because a) It's easier than dumping him (live-in relationships are more difficult to end), b) She doesn't want to walk away because she's invested too much in the relationship, and c) The false commitment of living together makes her think he's halfway towards a real commitment so she better not spoil things at the last minute. A relationship which might have ended after a couple of years can drag on for most of a decade because they live together and the woman thinks they're so close to marriage that she'll just wait a little longer...

 

I'm totally against living with someone. Why would he want to live with me instead of marrying me? The answer is: So he can walk away if he later decides he doesn't want me. Why would I allow someone to share my home and my life on those terms? How can I justify opening myself up fully to someone when he insists on maintaining an easy exit in case he feels like walking out? I don't want to invest too deeply in a relationship unless I'm sure it's going to end in marriage.

[norajane]

But I feel that April is a good 3 1/2 year deadline.

 

Either he's proposed in that timeframe, in which everything's great, or he hasn't and I've moved on.

 

he's told me he would "not be happy" to still be in the just-living-together-situation 2 years from now.

 

Next April, and 2 years from now, are not in the same ballpark as far as timelines go. His statement of "not being happy" also does not mean you two won't still be non-engaged.

 

Did you ask him, if 2 years is too long, then when do you have in mind? And what is stopping you now?

[Eternal Sunshine]

I can tell you this: living together made me and my boyfriend learn so much more about each other than we ever could when dating. When dating, you still have few days a week to yourself and are still able to be on your best behavior when you see your man (and him you). Living together intensifies EVERYTHING. It shows you how they act when they are super stressed, lack sleep, ill etc etc. It shows you how lazy they are, how much energy they really have in day to day life, how much sleep they need on regular basis. I simply fail to see how you can get that sort of insight if you didn't live with someone.

 

Mostly, it's about spending as much time together as possible because you are in love. There is no sinister motive involved.

 

I would rather not marry ever, than have a man not being able to walk away from me because divorce is too much of a hassle.

[allina]

I can tell you this: living together made me and my boyfriend learn so much more about each other than we ever could when dating. When dating, you still have few days a week to yourself and are still able to be on your best behavior when you see your man (and him you). Living together intensifies EVERYTHING. It shows you how they act when they are super stressed, lack sleep, ill etc etc. It shows you how lazy they are, how much energy they really have in day to day life, how much sleep they need on regular basis. I simply fail to see how you can get that sort of insight if you didn't live with someone.

 

Mostly, it's about spending as much time together as possible because you are in love. There is no sinister motive involved.

 

I would rather not marry ever, than have a man not being able to walk away from me because divorce is too much of a hassle.

 

I'll second this.

[Lauriebell82]

Not ALL men are in a huge rush down the aisle (as much as it annoys their gfs!) I don't agree with the theory that if a man is ready to propose he will just do it. It's not that simple I have come to realize. Maybe he is ready but just waiting for the right moment? Maybe he wants to surprise you? You've already made it clear to him that you are ready to get married, the rest is up to him. You don't know, he may have something up his sleeve!

 

Whatever you do, don't pressure him. He knows how you feel, continuing to bug him about it is just going to be annoying.

[sLiPpeTh]

I think a lot of men feel like marriage is a bum deal. People are waiting longer, many are completely opting out. Single households are now in the national majority.

 

Especially, among men who are in the top 25 percentile as to education and income.

 

Maybe people should have an early conversation. Say like after three to six months. Is marriage one of your life plans? For most men I can tell you it IS NOT.

 

But women give us "deadlines."

 

So if you really want for him to "commit"...give him a blow job while he's riding down the road. Then one in the shower the following week.

 

That should adequately scramble his brains enough to say yes.