On New Year’s Day, this 27-year-old woman’s 33-year-old boyfriend proposed to her. Instead of this being an exciting milestone to bring them together, she’s convinced the proposal is going to tear them apart.
Now, throughout their entire four year relationship so far, they have had multiple discussions about getting married, and those conversations have been pleasant.
She also realized through talking to her boyfriend about marriage that they were completely on the same page about everything.
They both said that they wanted to marry one another at some point and would also like to go on and have kids.
So, on New Year’s Day, they had just completed an extremely fun weekend, and then her boyfriend proposed to her completely out of the blue and without a ring.
“It was a spur-of-the-moment, “I love you so much and want to do this right now” kind of proposal, and all night after he proposed, we were super giddy and excited,” she explained.
“He mentioned he wanted to wait to tell people until I had a ring to show off, and said he wanted me to pick out my ring so he knew I could get get exactly the one I wanted.”
“What’s been off is every time I’ve tried to bring up anything about the ring, he seems uncomfortable (not something he expressed, just something I picked up on).”
Three days ago, she said to her boyfriend that she really wanted to start letting their loved ones know about their engagement, even if she didn’t yet have a ring.
She then stated that she really could not wait to share such a special moment with everyone close to them.
Her boyfriend replied back that he wasn’t yet ready to let anyone know since it scared him. What specifically terrifies him is the idea of getting married, so he requested a few days to think about everything.
“I felt like my world shattered,” she said. “I got upset and expressed that if he felt this way, he shouldn’t have proposed to begin with because he’s clearly not ready for that step.”
“I expressed that it was hurtful for him to put me through the joy of feeling engaged to him, only to rip it away a couple of days later.”
She feels that if her boyfriend truly is the man for her, he should not second-guess asking for her hand in marriage. Speaking of marriage, she says they’re basically already acting like they’re married, as they live with one another and do things married couples do.
Her boyfriend added her to his health insurance, and she added him to his car insurance. They even share a phone bill, and they’re completely transparent about their respective finances.
She realizes being married entails far more than all of those things, but she figured he was showing he was committed to her by doing that.
She has also questioned her boyfriend about whether he regrets proposing, as she suspected that was behind him being so weird, but he insisted that he had no regrets.
“I’m still not sure where he stands on this,” she continued. “Every time I’ve tried to bring it up since, he’d shut down. I don’t know how to feel.”
“Am I being too harsh/critical of how he’s acting? Or am I getting my answer of whether or not we should be together based on his actions since the proposal?”
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
