mixed messages - hard to decipher!!!

[bzbee]

Some of the issues I’ve read on this forum are so similar to what my situation is. I'm 26 & have been with my fiance aged 29 for 5.5 years, living together for 5 of those. We bought a house together 18 months ago and a few months after that, we got engaged, I did have to hint that if he felt strongly enough to ask me to buy a house with him, why wouldn't he ask me to marry him, his excuse was $ to buy the ring. I actually deferred my travel plans & gave up all my savings for the trip as deposit for the house. Anyway, we've been saving up for the wedding, & now that we're there, I've been discussing dates with my family. A week ago, we decided on the date, take note, its nine months away, & when i came home after work I told him excitedly. His response was "thats not enough time for us both to get in shape". That was the last straw for me in a series of talking about marriage in a derogatory way. He’s a good guy in most other ways, helps out around the house, cooks occasionally, has his romantic moments, can be funny, tho a lil insensitive & politically incorrect at times, generous with helping people, has a stable job & is ambitious like me.

 

Bit of a description of our physique: I'm medically in the healthy weight range, I’m a size 12 (aussie), feel healthy & energetic, am happy with how my body is tho i do admit i could do some weights & situps to tone up for the wedding, which I sooo will, what bride wouldn’t? About a year after we were together, i put on a bit of weight & i took it all off the next year & am back to how i was when we first met & in the state he found me attaractive, I proved I am committed to meeting my goals. He is a lil on the skinny side & could definately buff up a bit & do a few situps himself, but I still love him! He’s always harping on about how he wants to buff up but never in our whole time together has he done anything serious about it.

 

Anyway, a couple of days after i brought up that i was hurt by his constant putting down of having a wedding. Why did he ask me if he didn't wanna marry me? Why buy the house together? Why not just call it off & break up with me? Answer, coz apparently he still loves me. It came up one of the reasons he was afraid of marriage was he had never had a long term relationship apart from with me – I found that so incredibly insulting, I hadn’t been compared to see if I was a good enough deal??!! It came up that despite the fact we get along so well, have some interests in common, that we have similar goals in life, I bring in pretty good money from my job into our relationship, I have helped him thru all his hardships like his mother passing away, have been so generous to his sister in taking her under my wing as a lil sister after their mother’s passing, I’m easygoing, I don’t nag, I do so many of the blokey tasks around the house, I am so romantic back to him, yet that’s only, in his words “HALF the story”, I have to be an absolute hottie as well for him to want to marry me. So I’m reading that we’ll be getting married for better (as long as I’m a hottie) & he’ll leave me in the bad times? I’m not one for dragging someone to the wedding altar so I said to him, if u think so lowly of me call it off, but no he doesn’t want to let me go coz he loves me & apparently respects me.

 

I’m from an eastern culture where its frowned upon to live with someone before marriage. People in my community have gossiped & pointed fingers & called me slut for going out with someone not of my nationality – someone western & so different in culture & values, but moving in pre-marriage with him, he’s someone I was sure of & I put up with it – but it was a hurt to me I tolerated, for what I was thought was love. I waited so long into the relationship to hint re marriage because before that I felt we were too young to know what we want for sure. Now I, for one, am sure. I want a marriage to make it official, to celebrate our love with our family & friends – that’s my reason for a wedding. It makes no difference to our day to day life otherwise. Its important to me that we’re married for when we have children in a few years, we’re planning for when I’m about 30. I don’t want a wedding when I’m knocked up.

 

I completely do not understand my fiance’s thinking & am so confused about whether to believe that he really does love me, he goes hot & cold. Why doesn’t he call it off if he’s so unsure? I’ll be so hurt about wasting my last 5.5 years & my family’s name being tainted in our community but at least I’ll know where the hell I stand.

[carmaenforcer]

Wow! A perfect example on how planing out a perfect life doesn't insure happiness.

-Man with a good income (Check)

-Dream House (Check)

-Waiting until we get our single stuff out of the way (Check)

 

It sucks, but there is no formula for a good relationship.

Some people with nothing sometimes seem happier than those with everything.

My Fiancée's Mom tried to discourage us from getting married too soon arguing that we need to wait until all of our finances are in order and are ready to buy a home, etc. Ok, makes sence but.... She did things the right way, waited to move out with her man until they were married, got married at 25 yo (an appropriate age to marry), made sure to marry a guy with a good job that had the means to support her and a family. But OMG something still went wrong and they ended up divorcing!!!

Hmmmm, how did that happen if everything was done according to the relationship handbook? Because there is no handbook, no guarantees, no perfect anything, all there is, is love, respect and honesty.

 

I didn't used to put too much importance into the belief that one should marry someone of the same or at least compatible family/cultural backgrounds, but you know what, I have found that there is a little something to that.

I was married once before and have been in another really long term relationship (10yrs) after that and before the one I am in now and those two first serious and long term relationships were with women of a different race and family backgrounds. Both those relationships obviously had problems we could not overcome that's why I'm currently in another relationship, right.

Now, for the first time I'm with a girl of the same race and very similar family background and we seem to be doing really good, obviously since we are getting married.

Like I said there is no guarantee or formula for a relationship working but I see that the fact that we come from the same place actually has given us a closeness I never had with the others and this closeness I think has in turn helped us know how to best deal with each other and how not to treat each other.

Think about how different races look at things, marriage, family, etc. Did your bf's parents divorce, where they loving, did they kick him to the curb when he became of age, etc.

 

You seem to be putting it on him to call off the relationship when it's you that has the issues. Why can't you dissolve it if you are so unhappy, could you be trying to strong arm him, like a lot of girls try to do? Be warned, strong arming/threatening, can work but it has the undesirable side affect of making him hate you.