Am I close to getting what I want??

[mereduke]

Hi I am new and I'll give you the whole story as short as possible. Been with my bf for 3 years come December. He is 36, I am 23. We are both mature and I am almost done with school. We have had an ideal relationship and love each other VERY much (thats what makes this so hard). He was married before for 5 years and she cheated on him. Hes been divorced for around 5yrs now. The thing is, is I have been wanting to get married for a long time now and we have done this merry-go-round crap of he's not ready, he doesn't know if he'll ever want to get married, he doesn't know what his hang up is, etc. Well I took it a step farther this time and started casually seeing other people (I told him so we were clear on that). Well he did freak when he found out I actually was and to make a long story short we had a nice talk Tues. afternoon. He took off half a day at work (which he never does) and came over. Basically, I told him I wanted to get married and I couldn't continue this with him without knowing what he wanted, period! He said that he never thought he'd get married again and the fact that he was atleast considering is good. He said he didn't want to stop completely talking/seeing me. I told him that it can't be like that, there is no back and forth anymore. We left it at, he was going to do some thinking. Well Friday I broke down and texted him saying I don't know where we stand, is this over b/c we haven't talked. He sent one back (which in 3 yrs he has NEVER texted me-he dispises it) saying that he was confused about where we stood too and he thought I didn't want to talk to him right now. I sent one saying of course i wanted to talk to him, i missed him, and i thought he needed time to think. He replied back he has been thinking but that didn't mean he didn't want to talk to me..well I replied back then the ball is officially in your court. I didn't hear from here after that until this morning he sent me a text before he went to the game just saying rise and shine.hope you have fun today.glad you texted me last night.and then we texted back and forth just bsing until he went to the game. And thats it, in a long nutshell. Where do I go from here, what should I think, what does this mean, etc?? HELP I REALLY REALLY NEED IT. Thanks to all that respond!

[Sheba]

If you are eager to be married and start a family (I personally think 23 is a little young for that) then this man may not be right for you. He has had a bad experience and is understandably hesitant. You need to ask yourself how you would feel if he NEVER changed his mind, and declined to ever marry again - do you still want to be with him? If the answer is no, then move on now. Incidentally, I think the question of whether he or you want to have children may be more determinative of the whole situation. If you do or think you might, and he doesn't, then end the relationship now.