How to handle marriage delay?

[basil67]

26 minutes ago, Gebidozo said:

I keep saying to myself (and to her) that I want to do it to express my commitment and solidify our relationship

You're doing it backwards.   When the relationship can already display these things for a significant amount of time, then it's the time think about marriage. 

Edited September 24 by basil67

[Gaeta]

1 minute ago, Gebidozo said:

Oh no, nothing like that. Just general talks and vague plans about getting married at some point in the future.

The preparation of documents and setting a specific date for marriage that we did was by far the farthest she has ever walked on this path.

So with him after 9 years they just got to *talking* about it....and she is torturing herself because her & him were *talking* about marriage, with no plans, no date, no nothing, not living in same country at the time.

You may think she got further with you, you got a wedding date out of her but she cancelled so you're not further ahead.

Marrying after 6 months is crazy but expecting you to wait a few more years....that's also a bit crazy. You've been together 2 years, l would understand her requesting to wait one more year maybe 2 but *a few* years!

I think you should take the wedding off the table for now. Is it a make it or break it issue for you?

 

[Gebidozo]

4 minutes ago, basil67 said:

You're doing it backwards.   When the relationship can already display these things for a significant amount of time, then it's the time think about marriage. 

I now understand how true it is. But I’ve only recently begun to realize this.

[Gebidozo]

6 minutes ago, Gaeta said:

Marrying after 6 months is crazy but expecting you to wait a few more years....that's also a bit crazy. You've been together 2 years, l would understand her requesting to wait one more year maybe 2 but *a few* years!

Yup, that’s pretty much my feeling as well now. 

I think the “few more years” is the upper limit, an absolute deadline. We’d had this conversation about having kids, and agreed on 5 years as the deadline. So yesterday I mentioned that to her and said, “Ok, but you do realize that we should better get married before we have kids, right?”. So she said, “of course”, and I said, “then you’ll be ready in 5 years at most, right?”, and she said, “I don’t think it will take that long”.

 

 

Edited September 24 by Gebidozo

[Gebidozo]

8 minutes ago, Gaeta said:

I think you should take the wedding off the table for now. Is it a make it or break it issue for you?

If you asked me this a couple of years ago, I would say it’s definitely a dealbreaker. But today I think I can live with this. I’m disappointed and feel a bit like a kid whose birthday party was canceled, ready to burst into self-pitying tears. My ego is bruised because I feel I’ve been stood up, and a promise to me was broken, but she implores me not to see it that way. She said, “You still have me fully, I’m yours, nothing’s changed. And I will marry you, just please give me more time”. 

[Gaeta]

7 minutes ago, Gebidozo said:

She said, “You still have me fully, I’m yours, nothing’s changed. And I will marry you, just please give me more time”. 

Maybe it's a blessing in disguise. With your history and your new understanding of things it cannot hurt you to wait longer for this marriage.  If l were you l would ask her how she feels about marriage next year same time. See if there is progress on how she feels and also how you feel about this in a year.

[Gebidozo]

Just now, Gaeta said:

Maybe it's a blessing in disguise. With your history and your new understanding of things it cannot hurt you to wait longer for this marriage.  If l were you l would ask her how she feels about marriage next year same time. See if there is progress on how she feels and also how you feel about this in a year.

I think I’ll do just that. Thank you so much, Gaeta!

[Els]

14 hours ago, Gebidozo said:

Just as I don’t understand why it took so many years for them to talk about marriage, she doesn’t understand why it sometimes took me 6 months to get married and why I got married and divorced several times in the first place within a short time span (I was 23 when I got married for the first time and 38 when I had my third divorce).

Wow, I wasn't aware that you were divorced 3 times.

Honestly, I won't lie... that's a pretty big red flag for many people. Add that to the fact that you used to be "very pushy" in the past, and I think you can understand why she's hesitant. Is she much of a people-pleaser in general? It sounds to me like she only agreed early on to please you, but she's had concerns and reservations all along. And she's only just learning to get over the pleaser part of herself and to assert her boundaries (30 is right around the time many women start learning this).

IMO you need to slow way down. If you genuinely want to spend the rest of your life with someone, it doesn't make sense to rush into it. It's good that she's thinking about this now rather than AFTER getting married.

[Els]

13 hours ago, Gebidozo said:

We’d had this conversation about having kids, and agreed on 5 years as the deadline.

Which one of you specifically came up with this deadline?

[Gebidozo]

2 hours ago, Els said:

Wow, I wasn't aware that you were divorced 3 times.

Yeah. I was crazy and at times just plain evil. I want to believe that I’m a different person now.

 

2 hours ago, Els said:

Honestly, I won't lie... that's a pretty big red flag for many people. Add that to the fact that you used to be "very pushy" in the past, and I think you can understand why she's hesitant.

I totally realize that. She denies that, of course, but I think she does it because she doesn’t want to hurt me. I told her today that perhaps at least part of the reason is my past and my pushiness during the early phases of our relationship, and she sort of reluctantly acknowledged that, as though she was ashamed of feeling that way. She seemed to be really relieved that I said that, too.

 

2 hours ago, Els said:

Is she much of a people-pleaser in general? It sounds to me like she only agreed early on to please you, but she's had concerns and reservations all along. And she's only just learning to get over the pleaser part of herself and to assert her boundaries (30 is right around the time many women start learning this).

Spot on, Els. Very astute. She is a total people-pleaser. How should I behave to make sure that if she marries me she does it because she truly wants it, and not because she wants to please me?

 

2 hours ago, Els said:

IMO you need to slow way down. If you genuinely want to spend the rest of your life with someone, it doesn't make sense to rush into it. It's good that she's thinking about this now rather than AFTER getting married.

Very true, and I’ve only recently begun to understand that.

[Gebidozo]

2 hours ago, Els said:

Which one of you specifically came up with this deadline?

Well, I said, “They say it’s better to give birth before you’re 35”, and she said, “Yeah, that sounds about right, I wouldn’t want to miss my biological deadline”.

[stillafool]

40 minutes ago, Gebidozo said:

Well, I said, “They say it’s better to give birth before you’re 35”, and she said, “Yeah, that sounds about right, I wouldn’t want to miss my biological deadline”.

I forgot your age but is this timeline okay with you, to wait another 5 years before starting a family?

Edited September 24 by stillafool

[Gaeta]

55 minutes ago, Gebidozo said:

Well, I said, “They say it’s better to give birth before you’re 35”, and she said, “Yeah, that sounds about right, I wouldn’t want to miss my biological deadline”.

She doesn't sound very motivated to become a mother. 

If you'd give her the lead in this relationship, do you think there would be any marriage and any children?

[Gebidozo]

6 hours ago, Gaeta said:

She doesn't sound very motivated to become a mother. 

If you'd give her the lead in this relationship, do you think there would be any marriage and any children?

When we met, she was sure she’ll never have kids because she was considering herself unfit to be a good mother and she had this grim philosophy thinking that we shouldn’t bring children into this world. So the mere fact that is she is now open to the possibility of having children is a huge progress.

I, on the other hand, had a kid because I thought it would be cool, and then bolted out of that marriage half a year later  because things got difficult. I used to think that every couple must have children eventually, otherwise they’re “incomplete”. I used to believe that women’s main “job” is to give birth and that if a woman doesn’t want to have children in general or even temporarily,  then something is wrong with her, she doesn’t love her partner enough, and so on.

I’ve begun to accept other viewpoints about these matters only recently and I’m currently re-viewing many of my old convictions, discovering that many of them were built on pre-conceived notions and gross generalizing, and, most importantly, didn’t even reflect what I truly felt. So I’m in the middle of a serious re-evaluation process now and I feel that rushing to have children soon wouldn’t be right.

 

[Gebidozo]

6 hours ago, stillafool said:

I forgot your age but is this timeline okay with you, to wait another 5 years before starting a family?

I’m 48.

Yes, I’d be absolutely okay with that, the only thing I’m worrying about is that the kid is going to have an old Dad…

[Gaeta]

She is open to having children because you want children?  Like she ok'd the wedding to make you happy.

I don't want to rain on your parade but... if you have a child at 55, it's not that your child will have an old father but it's that this child will lose his/her dad at aound 25 if you get to live to passed 80.

My daughters lost their dad at 26 yo & 9 yo. We're not suppose to lose a parent at that age. We're suppose to have our parents with us when we graduate, get married, become parents. The one that suffers the most is the eldest that lost her dad at 26. 

[basil67]

2 hours ago, Gebidozo said:

So the mere fact that is she is now open to the possibility of having children is a huge progress.

"Open to the possibility" is a far cry from "Would love to have children"   Have you been encouraging her, or did she come to this conclusion independently? 

Because what I'm seeing is a young woman who doesn't want kids and doesn't care to marry but who has trouble saying 'No'   

[Gebidozo]

3 hours ago, basil67 said:

"Open to the possibility" is a far cry from "Would love to have children"   Have you been encouraging her, or did she come to this conclusion independently? 

Because what I'm seeing is a young woman who doesn't want kids and doesn't care to marry but who has trouble saying 'No'   

I haven’t encouraged her. We had this talk a couple of years ago, I asked her whether she wanted to have children and she said, “Yes, I do, but I need more time to be ready for that, the thought still scares me but much less so than before”.

She never cared for marriage and never wanted kids before. I used to be the opposite, but now I’m not quite sure what I really want anymore. I mean, I’m sure I want her. Beyond that, I’ve become hesitant as well.

[Gebidozo]

4 hours ago, Gaeta said:

She is open to having children because you want children?  Like she ok'd the wedding to make you happy.

I’m sure there is an element of that here, yes. But she also said that she’s gradually changing her previous “I don’t want to have kids at all” stance towards “I do want to have kids in the future, when I’m ready for that” kind of thinking.

In retrospect, I think I came on too strong and probably stressed her out when I suggested to get married within a year and have kids after 2 years when we first got together. I don’t even understand now why I was so impatient with that back then.

 

[ExpatInItaly]

3 hours ago, basil67 said:

Because what I'm seeing is a young woman who doesn't want kids and doesn't care to marry but who has trouble saying 'No' 

Exactly what I see. 

She is putting things off because it's not what she genuinely wants but doesn't have the courage to come out and say so. 

[Gebidozo]

2 minutes ago, ExpatInItaly said:

Exactly what I see. 

She is putting things off because it's not what she genuinely wants but doesn't have the courage to come out and say so. 

Well, I don’t think she really wants to stay unmarried forever and never have kids. Otherwise she’d break up with me already and find someone who’d feel the same way as she.

She had plenty of opportunities to do so, I was frankly quite awful during our first year together, I struggled with some serious mental issues and put a lot of pressure on her by rushing things.

 

[ExpatInItaly]

2 minutes ago, Gebidozo said:

Otherwise she’d break up with me already and find someone who’d feel the same way as she.

Not necessarily. 

Plenty of people coast along and stick with the status quo until they're really read to move on. I don't think she is sure that she wants to commit to you forever. 

[Gebidozo]

Just now, ExpatInItaly said:

Not necessarily. 

Plenty of people coast along and stick with the status quo until they're really read to move on. I don't think she is sure that she wants to commit to you forever. 

Well, I asked her that question exactly, she says she is sure she wants to commit to me forever.

I need to trust her on this. I can’t keep suspecting that every marriage delay or fear of having children is a sign of her not wanting to commit to me forever.

I can’t just tell her, “marry me now and have kids with me now so that I stop thinking that you aren’t committed enough to me”, right?

If she keeps promising me that she will eventually marry me and will have kids, what options do I have?

[Gebidozo]

17 minutes ago, ExpatInItaly said:

She is putting things off because it's not what she genuinely wants but doesn't have the courage to come out and say so. 

Another thing is that people change, and she knows that. She hasn’t sworn to never have kids or decided forever to never get married. She says that the older she gets the more open to those things she becomes.

So I do believe that she is in the middle of the process. What I want to know is how to accelerate it. How I need to behave so that she’ll be ready sooner. 

[ExpatInItaly]

1 minute ago, Gebidozo said:

I asked her that question exactly, she says she is sure she wants to commit to me forever.

Sure, maybe she says that. 

I am not convinced that she means it, in her heart of hearts.  Stop talking about marriage, in any case. It is clear she is not ready for that or kids. Give yourself a mental timeline of how long you will wait if you don't see any steps in that direction. That's all you can do.