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So I just read this from corgitales and completley agree
"Isn't it all a bit silly? It's 2009 and women are supposedly liberated and no longer relegated to their once-inferior roles, yet even the most independent women (myself included!) feel the need to wait around without too much discussion and hope that our guy pops the question! I have seriously considered just sitting him down to have a talk along the lines of: i know you want to get married, and i want to get married.... so can we be engaged now"
this is exactly the way i feel, i am all for him being a romantic guy and having a sweet and endearing surprising proposal, but seriously at my age (29) i expect to be getting engaged, there is no more surprise in it. i suppose if he would have proposed within our first year i would have been surprised, but we've been together about 15 months now and known each other nearly 2 years, trust me the surprise element is gone and i'm beginning to get the f' you for making me wait syndrome. why must my entire future rely on one question, why can we not just friggin' decide a la sarah jessica parker and mr. big (well, perhaps not, we see how that turned out lol) but still. i mean seriously this is stupid and i am getting very angry. i even wonder to myself although i love him to death when he finally asks if i won't just smack him and say what took you so long screw you. (i mean i doubt if i will do this but um yeah it's getting to that point). he says i have no patience, i say um if we want to have another kid the clock is kind of winding down here, i want my suv paid off (2011) which is the same year the mirena is taken out and i don't want my son and his daughter (both 8) to be terribly older than their sibling. i'm glad i have this board.
but seriously does or did anyone else feel they had absolutely no control over the situation?
Without too much discussion? Who said there shouldn't be discussion? FI and I discussed it to death, and when I told him I was ready for a ring, he started saving. It was all very much in the open, which is the way I like it: I don't need to be surprised about my future.
Awww, I was there, I know how it feels. A lot of time during my "wait" (FI had the ring 3+ months before giving it to me!) I'd take a break from wedding related sites (like this one even though I ADORE WB). It'll happen, I can't wait to read about it!
Sigh. Sucks to be women sometimes eh? Although I'm sure when he does finally do it you will NOT slap him. :) Honestly if you're so upset at this point that you think the proposal will be ruined then maybe you should just tell him all this. I have the same feelings obviously, but time is not such an issue (I am 24 and I don't want to even think about the k-word until I'm 30), and I feel like I can handle the waiting/venting on wb to let my guy do his thing. It's your engagement too, though, and if the waiting is that upsetting maybe its just best to get it out there!
(hugs)
i TOTALLY agree!!! that was my main argument when i was waiting...I mean, I was a freakin women's studies major in college and here I am, sitting here WAITING for him to propose with no say in the decision! We have been brought up with the idea that we are strong, independent women who can do anything we want and to not have any control in this pretty major life-decision was awful! personally, i think it's a stupid tradition and would have much preferred to help FH pick out the ring together and decide when to get engaged together but he felt very strongly about the surprise element of getting engaged and that this was "his thing"....It caused a lot of tension between us for several months bc i am used to being in control of my own life and having to wait for HIS timeline was so frustrating to this liberated chica!
Does he have the ring and he's making you "wait" until he has the perfect proposal? Have you already discussed getting married, etc? Have you talked about your internal timeline for the way you thought/want things to happen? If he has no clue this is how you feel, tell him.
Also... why do you have to wait for HIM to propose? Propose to him, instead.
Yes i love control - it makes me a nervous wreck to not know yet here I am wondering and waiting with no freaking say. And the ring is in the house but still can't see it or have it or talk about it. I waited over 6 years and I consider myself a liberated women but it infuriates me that this is his thing and I can't participate.
@marigold I made that comment in response to another post in which the girl was talking about "hinting" to her boyfriend that she is ready to be engaged by leaving open web browsers with rings, etc. I know that some women do/are able to have open conversations about "I'm ready to get married now." but still, I think that a lot of women have that fear when they are dating a guy that marriage talk will scare him away or make him feel pressured or something. There is also some notion that having an open discussion about it all makes it somehow less romantic. In my situation, we have not had a clear discussion about it all but we've been able to each let each other know where we stand. I was just talking about the overall vibe women get that we're supposed to just plod through our relationships without pushing the m-word and one day be totally surprised with a big rock. :)
For all this talk about being liberated, I get the feeling that you don't really believe it. A fully liberated person would just ask the guy in question, 'are we going to get married, or aren't we'. I don't want to sound like I'm mocking anyone's beliefs, but truly, the whole notion of having the perfect proposal and the perfect surprise and the perfect 'oh my god yes' moment is kind of overrated. I blame TV and movies. You don't even need a ring. If you and your guy want to be engaged, be engaged. What worries me is, if you haven't had this discussion yet, you may not even know if he's willing to do this or not. And honestly, some people don't believe in marriage, so unless you know this about him....you might be waiting in vain.
@marigold: oh he knows... lol we've discussed it etc, he says that i have already planned our wedding, um not so much. i have ideas (i'm a friggin' event designer of course i do). the ideas range from a castle wedding to an english garden afternoon hor dvoures reception to a friggin' NYE soiree. i mean COME ON!! he goes you've already picked the favorite dress, not so much i change my mind EVERY DAY! i haven't tried on a dress in YEARS (i've been engaged before). he goes oh you already know which ring you want. dude. i have sent him pictures of about 60 or so rings that i wanted, i love vintage halo settings with blue stones. that's not picking out my ring that's a friggin' preference.
@SanDiegoAli: i would stop coming to the boards, but it serves no purpose for me to not think about anything wedding related since it's what i do for a living and well, i love the girls on here lol and can't wait until you-all get engaged (dorky i know).
@corgitales: i think he feels that the proposal is ruined more than me, but seriously what does he expect, he's 32 (33 in October). um yeah at our age we sure as heck better be thinking about marriage especially if we want to be married, or else we're wasting each others time and should be dating other people and having fun. i adore him to death, but the only thing wrong with our relationship is that i feel we're stuck in a holding pattern. wait wait wait wait wait then get engaged but seriously it's pissing me off that i am waiting or that i have to wait. it's not about a ring, give me a rubberband and a promise or a sheet of paper or string, i don't give a crap about a ring or a dress or any of that stuff, i just want to spend the rest of my life with him and begin our lives together as a family.
I know that this isn't going to be a popular answer, but honestly I think one thing that makes the waiting worse is all the wedding planning that all the "waiting" women seem to do. When my husband and I were talking about marriage, I flipped through a magazine or two, but I never went dress shopping, I didn't spend a ton of time on the blogs {there weren't any anyway!} I wasn't doing research or booking things early. It made the process a whole lot more enjoyable and it wasn't the focus of my life that it seems to be for a lot of "waiting" women. Just take it day by day!
@Corgitales: I see what you're saying and I understand that this is the more common school of thought--that to discuss engagement prior to being engaged takes away the romance. I just reject the starting premise. :)
I'm with you Crebre80.
But I feel I have the power. For if I feel he's waited too long I can take matters into my own hands and move forward without him if I so choose but I know he's gonna ask.
I am just not going shopping or putting any $$ down at all on anything big..but I do have my shoes though!
He knows what has to happen and within what timeframe that is acceptable to me. It is as simple as that.
@runrgurl10: glad i'm not the only one who feels this way!!!
@starburst: i have no idea if he has the ring or has gone to look or any of those things. we have talked about the timelines etc and he agrees with me on all of them. and he is a true southern gentlemen, i can attempt to propose and be met with, baby i'm a man, and this is my job so just sit back and let me do it which oddly enough is one of the things i like about him, the way he takes charge to protect me, for example there was this huge pit bull PUPPY that ran towards us while we were walking and i thought he was going to bear wrestle it!!)i mean it's so cute but right now, not so much.
@life: EXACTLY!!
@noelle-a-belle:we've had the talk, yep we're going to get married and he says we'll be married within 18 months. we've discussed marriage, our plans for the future, etc. it's just the friggin' waiting that's getting to me.
this is a pretty personal thing, but at this point if you're very upset maybe you could talk to him about it? there may be a very valid reason that he's waiting (to save up money, until he moves, waiting for winter holidays, whatever). hearing his side may take away a lot of the anxiety.
i once in a while joked to my guy about setting a date and that i "decided" that we were engaged without a ring, but honestly i knew it would come in time. i knew we were going to spend our lives together, and recognized that part of the reason i wanted to get engaged was to start planning our wedding (shallow, i know), so it wasn't too big a deal. he had the ring for over a year before he proposed. a friggin year. oh, and we had picked it out 2 years prior. lazy man.
So....I don't understand what he's waiting for then....If you plan on being married in 18 months, and he says you WILL be married within 18 months, are you sure he doesn't consider yourselves to be 'engaged' already? I think you need to clarify with him. Especially because honestly, you need to know asap, because you'll need time to acutally plan the thing.
@noelle- Point taken. I think the thing is, though, (at least for me)... I do not need the perfect proposal or the perfect romantic thing or even a ring right now. I would be 100% okay with a discussion leading to marriage and worry about the rest later. But I honestly feel like it is important to my bf. I know that he feels like a wedding is mostly the bride's deal (his preference is to elope, but he understands that a ceremony is important to me and is happy to go along with that), but the engagement is his deal. So, I guess I don't feel un-liberated (a word? lol) because I'm waiting for him in particular to propose because I'm doing that to make him happy... not because I don't think I could initiate the discussion. I am just annoyed that the custom is for guys to pop the question in such a surprise/romantic way (because THAT is why he wants to be the one to do it this way.)
@katemw: i agree with you about seeing the beautiful things etc. but what choice do i have? lol i plan other people's weddings and help them pick out things for their weddings and design innovative ways to incorporate personal touches. i'm just sol on that aspect of it. yes day by day is a good way to take it perhaps i'm flipping out because i have two bridal shows this weekend and i get to have fun with all of the brides and explain to them all the cool things they could do and inevitably: oh are you married, how was your wedding" comes up. yeah not married no wedding failed engagements thx.
@bellenga: i have nothing! i don't even have a folder on my computer of things i like. that's so not me, i do have inspiration folders for brides of different color schemes etc but most of the pix i post here are just really cool and fun things that i like and have found for other couples. i teased him yesterday and told him he could just propose with a great pair of christian's and i'd be THRILLED! i don't think he found that too exciting. lmbo! i do have the power to walk away but um yeah my family is beginning to think there may be something wrong with me i'm sure. all of the women were married by 25 in my family except 3 of us. THREE!! now some of them are divorced and they say that i am just waiting for the perfect one and i'm not making any mistakes, but still. we have a timeline, the timeline was we both agreed to be engaged by december 31, 2011. a full three and a half years into our relationship. i guess i renigged on it because we made that agreement early this year or late last year so that he wouldn't feel pressured and i wouldn't have to worry about it and then it feels like something hit me! i don't know if it's a biological clock or the fact that i will be 30 in july but i swear i hear the friggin' ticking.
@lavenderpug: i'm pretty sure he's saving up money and trying to surprise me because i've been engaged before but not a special proposal or anything like that, i know he wants everything to be perfect for me and wants to make me happy because that's just the man he is (okay so i'm starting to feel like a selfish bitch right now after thinking about that)
@noelle-a-belle:nope we aren't engaged yet. when he told me about the 18 months, i told him, well remember i need 6-8 months or more to plan and decide and make sure our budget is workable. i think he likes to see me squirm. he "doesn't understand what the big deal is" and i know he's trying to make everything perfect and special for me because this is important to me.
My FI and I sat down and decided we loved each other and that we wanted to get married. We then discussed it with our parents, who gave us their blessings, and then we logged on to Blue Nile and picked out my ring. It was delivered four days later; I guess our "proposal" was when I ripped open the box and FI put the ring on my finger, LOL. We later went out to a nice dinner with our families as an official engagement date. I wouldn't have had it any other way, and I am proud that our engagement story reflects the gender equality that we have in our relationship.
It's interesting, other girls are can't really hide their disappointment at how "unromantic" the engagement story was, while all the guys we've told are like "that's so cool!". As much as us girls bemoan the arcane traditions of proposals, i.e. it the guys decision when, I think women sort of subconsciously project that they want the fairytale proposal, and I think it overwhelms guys to the point where they feel like its almost a burden to plan a proposal and are scared that it won't be up to your standards. Have any of you spoken to your SO and told him (or her) straight up that you want a mellow no-stress engagement?
***Hugs*** for everyone waiting! Trust me we are in the same boat! I am frustrated, tired, moody and grouchy all because I am waiting! Waiting to start my life with the man I love oh so dearly! So I understand your pain 1000% percent! I just want to scream, I do feel a bit at ease because I am not thed only one! However, I did tell my guy why I have been so moody late--yes, I blamed him! He says it's my hormones but I said nope, not this week--it's all you! So ladies forget that 2 week challenge! Sit down with your guy and let him know that you are (SCREAMING) READY..........................................................
@peanutlovespumpkin: when we spoke about it he says that i shouldn't know what the ring looks like because he should pick it out for me (including the wedding ring). i think that is the dumbest thing in the world, i told him that i feel that marriage should be an agreement between parties. i honestly haven't even thought about the proposal!! i don't care about it at all, i'm just ready for him to be my husband and to start our lives together. i don't care about the wedding, the dress, any of that stuff, i want something lowkey and us, that's all i think about when i think of us getting married. i originally wanted a bird cage veil etc, but i was showing pix to him of things that some of my other brides chose and he doesn't like bird cage or bird veils, he only like the really romantic drop veils or the others that cover the face. it surprises me at how traditional he is about these types of things. and i think he feels like i am stealing his thunder so to speak.
@peanutlovespumpkin- I love that!! Really, to me, that sounds perfect. But, my BF has been engaged once before and I know he really hated how that all went down (his gf/fiance basically wouldn't let it drop, gave him a choice of 3 rings she wanted, etc). He said even though he wanted to marry her it really took the wind out of his sails because he couldn't do it his way. Ultimately their engagement failed (lucky me!) and I know that this time around he wants to do the big romantic gesture. Sometimes I just need to let him be him. Even if it's driving me nuts and I want to just get it out there already!
@chaoticbliss:my hormones have been out of whack since i got the mirena. he and i actually had a talk about me perhaps taking it out because well either it's the mirena or i'm pregnant. he wants me to go to the doc because i have hot flashes, and dizzy irritable (no one would have guessed that right!) etc. and the closer to the holidays that it's getting the worse it will be.
I dunno ... my SO and I CONSTANTLY talk about getting married. CONSTANTLY. I know he'll propose ... just I'm not sure when. And I can wait a while ... I'll get to this point eventually I'm sure.
What about proposing to him?
@alishaneva:not going to work, he's very traditional and would feel that i insulted him and that i didn't let him do the proposal that he wanted. but a good idea!
Ah I see so the guy is the one who has bought into the myth of the perfect proposal. Yes I can see how that is frustrating for you. But, if you're willing to let him have it his way and design an event for your propsal, I say just breathe, wait, and hope. If you haven't gotten it in 6 months though.....sit his @$$ down and tell him 'look, you really need to make this happen' Unromantic but.....if you really want to work your timeline for getting hitched, there's no way you can wait indefinitely.
Ya, I should clarify that FH and I had been talking about getting married pretty much a few months after we started dating....Fast forward 4 years later and we were still talking about it, planning on it and it was GOING to happen, I just didn't know when and THAT was the hard part...
@ noellea belle- I did want to be engaged, as did he but it wasn't as simple as we both wanted it so we were engaged, he felt very strongly that he wanted to propose in a traditional manner with a ring he had picked out...So YES, in fact, I DO consider myself a very liberated woman but I respected my FH's wishes enough to go along with what he wanted...Not very happily, but I did go along with it...Sometimes it's not so simple "if you want to be engaged, be engaged..."
@rungurl10: sorry if you were offended, but I actually wasn't responding to you....was responding to something stated by someone else in the post.
@noelle-a-belle: btw, the breathing and waiting i'm okay with the hoping pisses me off, it's like oh i hope you'll propose, screw that!!! that's where the loss of control comes in. i feel like i'm basing my entire future on the prospect of him asking a question that i believe he will ask, just who knows when... but you did make me laugh my butt off, say look it's time to PP or get off the pot (Propose and Plan) in six months, huh.... yes i want him to have his way, he's never been engaged, he was close but still never there, he's never lived with a woman, etc (we didn't intend on living together it just made sense). i suppose i will revert to my by dec 31, 2011 plan. but dang that's a LONG time! gosh nearly two more years. and my son will be so old, we spoke yesterday and i told him i didn't want a huge gap between our oldest kids (he has two from a previous relationship and i have one) because i just wanted them to be close. he didn't agree at all, but of course he is way younger than his older siblings and i am only 5 years younger than my sister, although i hear that my stepmom is finally pregnant (her daughter was stillborn :( ) which means i will be 29 years older than my new sibling, but i'm so incredibly happy for my stepmom that it is ridiculous!!
We definitely had discussion. FI brought up marriage very early in our relationship, so by the time I caught up and way ready, I got pushy. I basically finally told him that since he had planted the seed in my brain so early and it had been quite some time and I was very ready at that point that I would be happy with a rubber band on my finger - I was just definitely ready to be engaged to him. That rubber band comment got him to act - he proposed just a few weeks later. :)
Oh I was totally there!!!!!
I HATED the lack of control - HATED IT!!!!!!!!!!
But we did talk about it A LOT and I am glad I got to start planning the wedding before I got the ring! It made me feel like I was still in control of my future!!!!!!!
However, I still wanted to ring very much and the anticipation of him doing it almost killed me! I thought about it a million times why don't I propose to him but being a girl I wanted him to do it!! How is that for conflicting - I wanted him to propose but I wanted to control everything and there is ME in a nutshell- I wish I could just get in his head and tell him to do the things I want him to do but don't want to tell him do it!!!!!
LOL - I am laughing at how ridiculous my thoughts sound when I finally write them down!!!!!
@runrgurl10: we're here. i feel like i'm being dragged to the dentist or something. i know it sucks going there but at least there's a fun sticker at the end or some crazy crap i dunno. at least i see this is a sore subject with others.
btw did i mention that i have a show today at alfred angelos where one of my fave dresses is... hmmmm could this be what sparked the vent? (probably)
I agree with Marigold. My FI was ready to get engaged waaaaay before I was, so we discussed it for months. When I was finally ready, I started saying things like "Oh my finger (left ring finger) is sooo cold....". He knew what I meant. It became a joke for us until a couple of months later, he found the opportunity to propose. Point being, we discussed the engagement for a long time before it actually happened.
Good luck!
@melodicsighs1:i wished the rubber band got him to act, i don't believe he believes me, well until i made the shoe comment yesterday. i think that surprised him, perhaps he is now seeing that i don't want a perfect "flashy" ring as he puts it, i only want his last name.... sigh
@futuremrsmartin: exactly in my past relationships we sort of decided or i pushed and prodded and showed the ring and said buy this one please and they did and i had total control, i mean my ex fiancee had the ring for about a week and gave it to me, but i saw it in his glove box and knew it was there, but um yeah he was a jerk and politely changed his mind 20 minutes after the proposal. so i'm sort of glad that m is taking control over this but not glad at how long it's taking. we were going to go on a cruise to his cousin's wedding in november, but we decided that we couldn't go, that would have been perfect though.
oh well, at least it's my favorite time of year soon the holidays!! and we'll get to go home and visit my family!!! he's so cute when i told him about visiting all of my family's homes, he was like um baby we are driving over five hours, we're sitting in one house for dinner so that i can digest... i laughed, suuuureee we will!
@crebre80: LOL I guess 'hope' wasn't really the appropriate word, in context. I am sure he will and does plan on proposing. But yes....guys can be dense about weddings, and may not realize it's not as simple as proposing, and then just magically being at a wedding and getting married.
I totally understand about not wanting big gaps between your kids. Not only is it more fun to have them closer in age because they'll bond more, but also, you 'finish' with them faster, instead of dragging it out.....also, people always seem to assume that a kid who is a lot younger than the other siblings was a 'surprise'.
@gabriellesolome: thanks! i wish he bought it up first, but i doubt if my nature would have allowed that lol!!!
@noelle: lmbo perhaps i took it a bit out of context too!! i didn't think you meant anything wrong by it at all, i knew what you meant but... sigh you understand! i was 20 when i got pregnant with and had my son so he was a surprise, they would think this baby was planned. lol!!! but can you imagine having a 15 year old and an infant? that just seems sooo crazy to me.... sigh.
::hugs:: crebre80! we're all there. lol. i'm not so frustrated as life is making us wait but it doesn't make things easier. especially with traditionally-minded men there's nothing we can do but wait. sigh. but as a bit of solace, the boy and i are both frustrated about not being married yet.
for all intents and purposes, we are engaged [or as he likes to call it "pre-engaged"] as we both know we're going to marry each other and have been discussing it for a few years now. but we've got to focus on the now and get him moved out here before we can go further and get that ring. but that hasn't stopped the planner in me for peeking a little further in the future!
@kate, speaking solely for myself, looking through blogs and planning before an engagement hasn't made me any more anxious to get married. i'm anxious because this is the man i want to spend my life with but we've got some other things to straighten out before we can move towards marriage. and in the immortal words of harry from "when harry met sally," "when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."
that said, while i have been putting my little binder of ideas together, i haven't gone dress shopping or booked anything. i do know that the boy's ideal and preferred timeline from engagement to marriage is rather short and since i want to be as hands on with the details as possible, i am in need of a clear game plan of projects and what can be done in that time. mine is out of necessity for remaining sane later down the road. lol.
but to each their own, you know.
I gave my FH a timeframe within 6 months of us being together of 1.5 years before I would leave him if no engagement. He skwaked a lot and didn't want to think about getting engaged, if it were completely up to him we would not be engaged right now. At our 1 year anniversary he asked if he could move in to which I replied "Yes, only if we are engaged BEFORE my original timeframe of 1.5 years". When i realized after he lived with me for 2 months he STILL wasn't buying the ring or thinking seriously about it - I asked him to move out. Plain and simple. I wasn't playing games or 'chicken' I was dead serious, we're through. He finally woke up, went out and bought me the most gorgeous ring I've ever seen and gave me the most beautiful proposal I've ever heard of. We are now the happiest engaged couple I know and he thanks me for pushing him. He agrees with me NOW that he likes our situation better than if we were still dating and living together, he feels more grown up and very excited for our future.
So my long story translates to I don't agree with that quote above - I think that we have been liberated, we no longer rely on the guy for our future. Yes, we still wait for him to propose and HOPE it's a surprise, but I reserve the right to kick him out of my life if it's taking too long.
@noelle- "If you haven't gotten it in 6 months though.....sit his @$$ down and tell him 'look, you really need to make this happen'" -- seriously, LOL. :)
@crebre80- I know what you mean about people assuming the later baby was an accident. In my case, I'm 8 years younger than my brother so everyone just assumes (myself included until I was about 20) that I was a whoops baby. Turns out that my mom got pregnant w/ my brother at 17 (had him at 18) and it just took 8 years before they could afford to support another kid and I was the one who was planned! :)
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