Most couples date for at least two years before getting engaged, and it makes sense why. Two years is usually enough time to understand your partner’s habits, strengths, and weaknesses, as well as tackle challenges together. So, by the end, you should have a pretty good idea about whether you both could last in the long term.
So how would you feel if your boyfriend of three years laughed at your own “deadline” for popping the question? Would that be a big enough red flag for you to walk away?
This 25-year-old woman is currently in the same confusing situation. Despite already spending three years with her boyfriend, he still gets uncomfortable and antsy whenever she broaches the topic of commitment.
“He said it is ‘scary.’ Sometimes he gets angry at me for bringing it up, and he almost always walks away,” she detailed.
Nonetheless, her boyfriend did give her one condition he had for marriage: he wanted to live with her first. This directly went against her religious and family expectations, but because she loves him, she caved and ended up living with him anyway.
For her, the decision was a sacrifice in and of itself. It was extremely tough telling her family that she was moving in with her boyfriend, and it’s still awkward to this day.
However, she thought making the move would help them elevate their relationship to the next level, since her boyfriend claimed that, if things were still going well after two to three months, he’d consider “looking at things seriously.”
Spoiler alert: he kind of lied. They’ve been living together for three months now, and absolutely nothing has changed in terms of her boyfriend’s commitment. That’s why she tried to make her standards crystal clear.
“I told him a couple of times that I would need to know before the end of our lease, but it felt like my words weren’t being digested. And I texted him my timeline explicitly,” she recalled.
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In response, her boyfriend got upset and accused her of trying to “cage” him. She, on the other hand, believes her marital expectations had always been laid out on the table from the start.
But the real kicker? After she gave her boyfriend a 9-month “warning,” he claimed that he’d intentionally wait to propose until after her deadline, purely out of spite.
Moreover, he accused her of giving up on their relationship by thinking that way and said she might as well leave and start packing up her things now.
I’m sure that plenty of women in this situation would just cut their losses and move on. She truly loves her boyfriend, though, and doesn’t want to lose him, even if it feels like their relationship is causing her to lose herself.
“Everything I do is either ‘wife material’ or ‘not wife material,’ as if he’s always measuring me up,” she explained.
“It’s exhausting aiming to be a better version of myself, giving ‘wife’ benefits, but having no deeper discussions than we did three years ago.”
On top of that, she’s only 25 years old and realizes that she’s still young, good-looking, and thriving in her career. And she’d prefer to settle down and start a family now at a leisurely pace, not under the pressure of her biological clock as she grows older.
Regardless, her boyfriend thinks she’s acting unreasonably and argues that, while he “already wants” her, he needs to be 99% certain about tying the knot with her before he buys a ring.
“I feel silly for being the one chasing. I’ve been questioning my own value a lot,” she vented.
“I’m trying to be perfect because if I show any ‘attitude,’ it sets us two steps back again. Conversations, ultimatums, none of it is working.”
Now, she’s at a complete loss and is seeking advice about what to do next.
If her boyfriend laughed at her and literally told her to pack up her stuff and leave, should she listen? Does it sound like he’s going to change anytime soon? What would you do in her shoes?
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By Katharina Buczek
Katharina Buczek graduated from Stony Brook University with a degree in Journalism and a minor in Digital Arts. Specializing in... More about Katharina Buczek
