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My fiance tells people it's going to be a long time before we get married?
Hello! My (now) fiance proposed to me on Sunday, which of course I'm very happy about, but now he's telling people it's going to be a long time before we get married.
While I understand that we're young (24 and 26) and we've only been together 6 months I feel like it's kind of mean to say that. We both seem to have agreed on 2 years, but in all honestly I'd like to plan it for about a year out maybe a year and a half. I feel like 2 years is too long and leaves too much room for a potential break up while it's easy.
Am I overthinking it? Doesn't it kind of sound like he doesn't want to marry me when he says that? I tried to tell him to just tell people to say we'll do it when I graduate from college (in about a year and a half to two years), but he keeps saying "a looooonnnng time" to people and always emphasizes the long part.
It also seems kind of silly to me because in 6 months (when his lease ends) he wants us to buy a house together and I feel like that's something married couples do.
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Alright, we'll take this from the top as you mentioned things. You say that it's mean of him to say that he wants to wait a long time. No, it's not mean and if the two of you can learn to really share whats on your minds without blaming the other for how things make you feel, that's a good start because simply saying you want to wait a looong time does not explain why. The why may be reasonable. One good example of a reasonable explanation would be if he wanted to buy you a custom made wedding band, something expensive, be able to pay for whatever you want for the wedding or be able to afford to take you to Paris or the Bahamas for a honeymoon and will need to save up for that. Back to you using the word, "feel'. What you feel is rules by how your mind perceives things, not on what others do. My example, when I had social anxiety as a child, I assumed when people laughed that they were laughing because I did something stupid and I am only now realizing I have a unique way of verbalizing things that don't quite make sense in such a comedic way that what was actually a good thing, their laughter, I was seeing as a bad thing. You have to learn to own your feelings. They come up from inside of you and are not conjured into existence but the words or acts of others. So it is possible you have a rigid way of thinking, that there is only one way and no other. If not that, something close to it.
You contradict yourself with the next bit: We both seem to have agreed on 2 years. But then you say to be honest, you want 1 to 1 1/2 years. I don't think you used the right word or you don't understand what 'agree' means. Is there something you are leaving out, not telling? Because to be in agreement means both are at peace with the decision and have no want to make any changes to it. Yet it sounds like you somehow got him to say and agree to the idea of 2 years because he would not go for anything sooner. And you were not in agreement but you were pretending it was okay with you when it's really not. Even it you were okay with it even though you wished for a shorter time, that would be called a compromise, a meeting in the middle when both people have difference wishes, both give up something and settle for something in the middle. If you were only pretending to be okay with this, I worry about your relationship in the long run. It takes honesty, which isn't the case here, sharing the why's of any statement, which he isn't doing, and communicating great which neither of you are doing.
Your next sentence supports my next thought really well. You said: I feel like 2 years is too long and leaves too much room for a potential break up while it's easy. Two years is not too long depending on circumstances like finishing college and then working for a while to get money into savings to be able to spend on a wedding. Any more than two years is not normal. He should not be using the engagement time as a time to get to know you better. Some guys do this and the years go by and they feel like married cus of living together all that time and feel no need to spend a lot of money on a wedding. So you might want to discuss true commitment as well. Here's the part that stood out to me, you feeling that in two years time that leaves too much room for a potential break up. Six months is not usually enough time to learn to build trust in each other unless you spent good amounts of time every day together. If you knew he was your soul mate and he knew you were his, then nothing in the world could get either of you to be unfaithful to the other or break things off. Besides, a marriage license is no guarantee against those things happening anyways. There is cheating in marriage or separations and divorces which are the same thing as a break up hon.
Are you over thinking this? I wouldn't say it is so much a case of overthinking as the impression I get that there is some distorted thinking, which is when your minds final belief of the original, true and natural state of things, acts, of people , etc. are twisted or altered from the truth because the person doesn't have all the facts or all the knowledge to come to a correct belief. With distorted thinking comes assumptions. Assumptions can not be a truth until you have clear facts and knowledge of everything and it sure sounds like the two of you don't.
No, it does not sound like he doesn't want to marry you. It sounds like he has reasons for wanting to put it off. Until you know all the facts, that is just an assumption, not proven fact.
Next is 'I tried to tell him to just tell people to say..." and this makes me wonder just exactly how you went about trying to tell him. If you were trying to bully him into caving to your wish, pushing at him verbally, he will only resist harder. If your trying was making some subtle phrases to get him to turn to your ideas, subtle doesn't work, subtle is like hinting instead of spelling it out. I don't know what he says, I'd have to hear from him but from just you expressing your thoughts, I know you could greatly benefit from checking out a book on learning how to have great communication, a book that includes something about working out differences which you have here, comprising, and how to fight fair...yes there is such a thing. Instead of a battle to kill the other, the battle is using words of facts and examples to present to the other so they can either moderate what they want or believe which would be a compromise, or either you or he giving up your defense on what you wanted because with the new information, their idea now makes more sense and sounds better. If he were trying to controll what you told others instead, drilling into you what he wants you to say, would you go for it? Personally, if a guy was doing this all the time with me, I'd probably take off running to never see him again. That could be an indication of a controlling personality, and that is a treatable disorder having to do with the mind but needing a psychologist to work with the patient. I am not saying you are doing this, just letting you know to watch yourself and pay attention to how you treat him, and whether you act controlling in any way at all because if one mate in a relationship or marriage is controlling and doesn't improve with Dr. help, then the relationship is doomed to fail. Call it overthinking on my part, but what I am actually doing is trying to interpret the full reality of what the situation here is, hearing only your side of it shared with just your thoughts, wishes and perceptions. So I feel i need to think of all possibilities and the end results to each. YOu say you graduate in 1 and half to two years. What about him. You did not say. I think its an important factor because if he were in school after you graduated, money will still be tight for him being in school unless he is independently wealthy. I really do not see how he believes at his age of 28 he will have enough money to put down on a house and be able to make the payments without relying on your money for it. A mortgage will be the biggest chunk out of your budget.
What also doesn't make sense is buying a house together which is what married couples do, not two singles. Yes, there are a few unmarried people who do buy a house together. there were two in my neighborhood, common law marriage because they had been together for many years but did not like the idea of a marriage contract. They knew a contract doesn't equal a commitment to. What also sounds crazy is that his lease ends in 6 months and he wants to buy a house when the lease ends? In that case, he kinda needs to be looking into all of the cost right now, finding a realtor you like, letting them know when to start showing you places, knowing what you can afford which has to do with total incomes versus expenses aside from living place expense. There are closing costs and down payments to consider as well. He may not have the money to buy a house while going to school yet if he is not finished until you are, or later.
It sounds like you are listening to and hearing the words he says and then not thinking any further, nothing about how to reach the wanted end result. I know you said it was silly but based only on what you shared, without any important info you may have left out, my reaction is that this is way more serious than just silly and something to laugh at, its absolutely freaking crazy. What he should be doing is looking for another place to rent short term, where he can rent year by year and maybe you could live with him there as soon as you can get out of where you are out to join him. Two years is not enough time to work and earn money for up front costs of getting into a house, it only covers finishing his school. He may have no idea what will be earning and how long until he has a reasonable amount saved up to get into a house. Do you happen to have ten grand in your savings, does he right now? If so, there is no way without that, he can squeak into a house purchase. I see on the internet that a benchmark figure of percent of down payment on a house is 20% of the homes total value. For an example on prices, I live in a big city, or right at its border so I am in the suburbs of it often. I looked up different suburbs and found the median home prices ranged not in city but suburbs from $400,000. to $575,000. That's just my city and my state which I won't reveal but other than little towns with a long commute in to work in other states, I don't think the prices will be much cheaper. Do the research yourself with a search online with ' (your city name) median home prices' and that should give you some idea what you are shooting for and if this is even realistic. Maybe owning a house may be more important to him than marriage. Would you be okay putting your name on the mortgage if it ends up he doesn't want to go through the legal process and expensive ceremony and rather just live together as if married and if a baby is accidentally on the way cus birth control didn't work on this one time, then you will also be tied down with child costs and rearing them, and still not married. That was the case of one non married couple in the neighbor I mentioned.Remember, you can be married, think all is well, buy a house putting your name on the mortgage only to find that he and you are a a bad match and that only did okay in your first couple years together but went downhill after that. Now you have to divorce and a house to sell and split the money between you. Most people I know in my area going to school, can barely afford housing and usually go in with two other roommates to afford one small to average size apartment near the college. That's what my husbands daughter had to do. There is no guarantee how anything will work out with him dating, engaged or whether you will even marry or if you do, if he is the right one for you. In six months, without any plan for what it is you want in a man and what you will not tolerate, without being each others best friend and not a good sexual match and having poor communication, then it's like playing Russian roulette, the game with a revolver where you pull the trigger and all chambers were empty except one having a bullet. How do you know that just because he seems nice and is interested in you that he is a good marriage candidate. I find it odd that he asked after only 6 months. Most people take more time. After a divorce, I made my list of what I was looking for in a man to keep me on track, not distracted by a pretty face, and since I knew what I was looking for, I saw most of that already in the first couple weeks. Of course we both had life experience already and knew that picking apart each others minds, talking about our pasts, telling stories of child hood, sharing our pet peeves, what we gravitate towards,hobbies and talents our strengths and weaknesses, what we stand for as in moral beliefs, spiritual beliefs, philosophy, psychology as we use it to interact with all types of people and on and on, and we did that every day by phone if not in person. So after a while, we decided this looked very promising so the next thing to do was live together. This is important to see the things that can be kept hidden while dating but living separately. Also it makes it easier to gauge whether the actions of the person are daily backing up what they said about themselves and who they presented themselves to be. You can't have full trust in a person until you have seen them consistently act exactly as they said they do. For example, I sounded too good to be true so he never wrote me in the dating site at first. He'd tried and dated other women who said they were pretty much as I described myself, only to end up as fake as possible. He showed me an email response from a woman who said he was just trying to make himself sound good on paper but he was full of BS , (never having met him) and that no guy is like he says he is. She said he was way too intense, scary and seemingly chancy or risky. In living with him, apartment, not in buying a house together, I got to see he was truly what most women all want but failed to see in him or appreciate. He is more like a renaissance man in that he talks like one, calling women with respect using my Lady, he treats me as a equal but loves to lavish time together, doing things for me I could do myself, buying little gifts to let me know he really does listen and knows what I have seen that I mentioned liking, and so on. He is very good at talking things out, intelligent and values my opinion on things. There is more but what he is, there are few men I have ever come across, married or not who even come close to being like that. When I married at 20, I knew nothing about relationships. I am only sharing what I learned the hard way of experiencing the mostly bad and ugly with a little good. I learned. What I heard in prayer when praying for God to send a 2nd husband, is that I needed to make a list of what I saw in other men that I liked, qualities, and what I didn't like or would not tolerate. I had a column of must haves, and wants but not needed. A must have is something like talking already a few dates into seeing each other if you both said you were looking to date to find a marriage partner. If both are dating for the same reason, then early on you find out if they want kids, some don't and if he doesnt and you do, that is a deal breaker. It doesn't matter that almost everything else about him is great, it just won't happen. I met such a guy, he didn't agree with one of my must haves, but looked great, was a Doctor, even was able to read my thoughts, but one of the most important things to me, I knew would eventually grate on me if I did marry him and I'd grow to resent him and the relationship fall apart after that. Maybe since my first marriage was so bad, abusive... I already knew I'd done the worst, so why settle for less and just get a lesser bad version of the first? I wanted someone pretty much the total opposite and I was finding some close possibilities but not exactly what I wanted. I think you should do the same, even though you feel he is the one. Either the list making will confirm it for you or you will begin to dig deeper in conversation with him and find enough off, that makes you reconsider marrying him. If there is something you don't like but think you can put up with, you aren't looking far enough into the future. It works when you only look at it on a day by day basis as in 'can I handle this behavior or personality quirk one more day?" Sure we all can. But that is a mental trick we play on ourselves, a coping mechanism. When I asked myself if I could take the same thing I'd been putting up with daily for almost 30 years, and take it for another 10 years, 20 years or til the day I die, I broke down crying, knowing that I really couln't stand it. I had to get out. I am not saying your guy is that bad. Based on how you wrote this, He doesn't seen the typical man. NOt many propose after only 6 months but take a lot longer to decide. I am not worried about the age being too young, this is a very typical age bracket for young couples getting married, 22 to 28. My girls got married in that range. But I think he may be a dreamer, lots of wishful thinking, looking at only a small point rather than the greater picture of reality, naive, poor at making extensive plans for the future. He may have those qualities but nothing you said about him supports that. Proposing so early and wanting to jump into a house purchase with a woman he's not married to before he finishes school, simply because his rent lease ended, is not the actions of a man who is level headed and makes good decisions 95 % of the time. I think you better get to know him better. Ask why a lot. Remember little kids always asking why. Example: A parent tells child, Don't run into the street. The kid doesn't agree in his mind to just obey that without knowing why the parent asked that. So they ask why. Mom says because the driver might not see you and end up hitting you. to which they ask why would the driver hit them with their car, and Mom has to say because you are too short for them to see you or if you come out behind between parked cars, they can't see you coming and have no time to stop the car. And sometimes you get another why and have to ask what they are now asking why about. I've met kids like that. It is truly exhausting trying to explain to a young mind like that. But we tend to stop doing this once we are teens and older. We stop doing this when we start dating and simply try to guess what something said really meant. You can't know, just like the little child, unless you ask. What one person says, may mean something to them, a common phrase, a way of wording something that could have several meanings but the speaker assumes you will know which one without voluntarily explaining for one example. You need to ask him to reword what he is saying or simply ask why if the words were clear but he didn't volunteer a reason. Men typically don't, they just make statements and thats it. Their reasoning for not giving all the details, half the times are sound thinking but then again, were assumptions, just guessing how I would handle or react to hearing the whole deal, explanations and all. That joke about men not asking for directions when lost is actually fairly typical, not about just being lost, but men don't tend to ask for help. My husband, as great a man as he is, is still ruled by the basic manly mind. So when he is searching for something, tearing the place apart looking for something and I have asked several times what he is looking for and he doesn't answer but I hear him grumble and get more agitated at himself, it isn't until he gives up and finally tells me he was looking for such and such. I point and say, It was right there, inches from you all that time, if you had asked, you could have avoided wasting so much time and getting upset. I ask why he didn't just ask and the answer is usually the same, because I wanted to save time, in not having to stop and explain to me what he is looking for. When I mention that it would've only taken seconds if a minute at worst case to explain to me, and he wasted 5 minutes hunting, what was he thinking? He admits he feels he is intelligent enough to find what he wants in a few seconds. So why do men not ask for help after not finding something in a short time frame? Because then it makes them look bad probably when compared to some image in their mind of how a man is supposed to be. Like a person with a natural GPS in his DNA or some extra sensory perception where he can zone in on lost items like a super hero, and that brings us down to what is the main issue, men want to be the hero of the woman he is crazy about, he wants her to think of he as being able to offer her the best of everything. That may be what is making him say he wants to wait to marry. He then would need to know that you are okay with marrying him sooner, before he reaches all these goals he has. Once he has the house, what other goal will he have to journey towards before he wills he is a fit candidate as a husband who can provide for you. It should be stuff you both work together toward attaining. So I hope you understand why I stress good communication of which asking why and for explanations is a part of it.
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