Cynical Question

[katrina_33]

As I get to the age where my friends, and close friends of my boyfriend''s are getting engaged right and left (so I have more of an "insiders" perspective) it seems like in almost every situation that I have insider info about, there was some pretty intense pressure exerted by the girlfriend, if not an outright deadline / ultimatum presented. In your experience, what percentage of your friends / aquaintances do you think got engaged under these circumstances, vs. a total surprise or the guy initiating the whole process?

I think people tend to gloss over this part when talking about it to all but their closest friends, so before I had close friends get engaged this kind of situation seemed terrible and desparate, whereas now it''s starting to seem almost like the norm.

It seems to go on a lot more than people let on. (Except for on pricescope where we''re all in the same boat and talk about it pretty openly.)

thoughts?!?!?

Mind you, these aren''t the circumstances under which I want to get engaged (which is why I have waited a solid year and counting past when I first got urges to start with the pressure!!!), but I''m wondering: if women never put pressure on, would any guy ever propose? Will my boyfriend wait until I do get really distraught over it because otherwise he won''t quite be motivated enough?

It seems like a vast majority of men will wait until the woman initiates the conversation and starts getting kind of antsy - basically, until they feel like they kind of "have to" to do it.

Am I just cynical, or is this really how it is for the majority of couples getting engaged today? Is this changing, or has it always been this way?

 

[icekid]

as the first of my close friends to be getting engaged, i can only speak for myself. and i definitely think my engagement would not have been so soon in coming had i not been so "excited" about it

getting my bf to do much of anything that is not NECESSARY is a hassle. but i woudn''t say it required pressure by me, so much as he needed a shove and a little help. i think boys have too much inertia going. if they''re not in motion, they would just as soon remain that way. they lack motivation to do anything really. but my bf is sooooo excited now, so i definitely don''t feel that i am pushing him into a proposal. i did most of the leg work really as far as the ring is concerned, and now he gets to do the finishing touches.

my proposal and ring won''t be a TOTAL surprise. the actual proposal is supposed to be a surprise, but given my bf''s track record when it comes to keeping secrets from me... well, we''ll see! but i feel most proposals shouldn''t be a complete surprise as marriage should probably be discussed prior to an actual proposal.

i''m not sure if it''s this way for most people or not. we have a slightly skewed group here as PS obviously! i would guess it wasn''t always like this though, when people got married at younger ages. i don''t think guys feel compelled to be married by a certain age anymore.

 

[allycat0303]

Katrina,

Well the only person I know to have gotten married was my boyfriend''s sister and it was such a long, drawn out painful experience. My mom also said that she was talking to one of her friends, and her friend has a daughter (not married) and this friend said "The hardest part isn''t finding a man, it''s finding a man that wants to marry you"

. I don''t know if that''s true. My boyfriend is up for marriage, but I''m not. I''ve just heard of so many bad marriages can be that it makes me a bit cynical about the "marriage". I''ve heard of rampant cheating, and that makes me a little leery. That being said I think that being able to find the right time for BOTH people can be hard, especially with career, school, different rates of maturity can be difficult. I tend to believe once one person is ready then it can be hard to be patient! Hence the fact that some girls need to nudge their boyfriends in the right direction.

 

[jlc0604]

I wonder the same thing myself. When you watch someone else get engaged, it seems so easy and romantic. Usually your friend calls to say she''s engaged, everyone cheers, you talk about the ring, and then wedding plans. No one ever stops to think about what it took to get to that phase. Or at least I didn''t, until recently.

But now that I''m going through this myself, I have stopped to wonder what goes on behind closed doors with other couples. And as I don''t talk about the waiting to all my friends, when I get engaged I''m sure no one will know how long I''ve been waiting for it either! These anonymous forums are really the only place where it''s acceptable to talk about self-absorbed obsessions like waiting for the ring.

I had a few friends who got married a few years ago, in their mid-20s. I''m pretty sure that, while they knew they would marry their BFs one day, they were surprised at the actual proposal. I know at least a couple of them had nothing to do with the ring process. Now, a few years later, I have three friends recently engaged (late 20s) who knew it was coming, and looked at rings together with their BFs before the proposal. I''m not sure how much pressure there was from the girl though. I have another friend about to propose, and I''m pretty sure his GF has a LOT to say about the ring - I''ve heard she''s demanding at least 2 carats

Who knows? Maybe as a woman gets older, she takes a more pro-active role in moving the relationship along? That seems to be the case with my friends, at least. I know in my early or mid 20s, I never even thought about getting married. I never thought I''d be the type to really get excited or anxious about getting engaged. But now that I''m 28, and all the factors have fallen into place (the man!), I''m ready for the next phase of our relationship. I wouldn''t say it''s been an "intense pressure", and I''d never give an ultimatum. But I''m vocal about the fact that I''m ready and have initiated conversations about it.

 

[NoonersMom]

I think with the pool of my friends it is half and half. However, they weren''t ultimatums. They simply laid their time frame on the line when they started dating. Mind you, I am the youngest of 10 women at the age of 30. So the assertive factor may come in. There is one particular friend who didn''t pressure, wasn''t sure if she wanted to get married or have kids (very happy living together, with her SO) until *his* mom approached her & asked her why they were living in sin & if she wanted to go straight to hell. Talk about pressure. After getting over the initial shock of the conversation and giving it some serious consideration, she decided that yes, they were commited to each other in every other way. Why not make it official.

In my situation, I matter of factly stated that I wouldn''t date for longer than two years at this age. If one of us didn''t know by the two year mark then we needed to move on. We both knew, it was just a matter of waiting for a few things to fall in place. So I''ve missed the two year mark by almost 5 months now. No worries. We''ve picked out a stone & I''m waiting for pictures of the wax mold.

Overall, I think there are conversations that take place behind close doors that people don''t always discuss. Sometimes women don''t want to tell their friends as it places extra emphasis on the waiting.

 

[beautifuldisaster]

Good question...I think that with most of my friends, it has been the guy''s idea to get the ball rolling. However, I do have some friends who have imposed deadlines and it has come back to smack them in the face. They have ended up getting dumped and/or pushed away because the guy couldn''t or wouldn''t deal with it anymore.

With me, I have been with my boyfriend for over 6 1/2 years. I knew a few years into it that he was the one. At that time, I put the pressure on him to get married. It started with me casually dropping hints, then it started with the bridal magazines laying around by coincidence. One day I just flat out asked him who he was going to have as his groomsmen..talk about presumptious and stupid on my part HA! He flat out told me that he was only 21 and he was not ready to be married yet. I still remember that conversation and the hurt that I felt. The pain of finally finding the one that I wanted and having him not want to be married was alot for me to swallow. I flipped out sort of and pushed him away although we were still a couple. I got the idea out of my head and then 2 years later he had a ring made and asked me to marry him and i said no.

It''s funny...I guess we came full circle and now we are both waiting and both committed to this and both know that it is what we want.

I do feel that I was pressuring him into marriage before and not only did he not take it, he flat out refused to do it at that point and gave me no hope...there was no we will talk about it again in a year...there was no way to revisit until he was ready.

I am glad that he said no honestly and that my pressure didn''t work. At least this time around when we do get engaged I know it won''t be because I am pushing him to do it, I know in my heart he wants to be with me and he loves me. Simple as that.

I felt very pressured by all of my friends getting engaged and having babies. When I started to see people 5 and 6 years younger than me walking down the aisle and pushing strollers I freaked. That in turn coupled with my own insecurities caused me to pressure him.

More and more now though, I hear of couples getting married because it is "her idea" and I know what they mean by it. My friend was just invited to the wedding of a guy who feels he is being forced into marriage...somehow he is going along with it. The girl got pregnant, twice apparently and will be walking down the aisle 8 months pregnant. He admits that he pressured him into it. I personally think he is an idiot for going along with it. Marriage is a HUGE decision and more and more I see people caving under pressure and just going along with it.

Whew...I''ll shut up now

 

[AChiOAlumna]

Most of my friends knew they were getting engaged as they had the same goals and values as their respective SOs. I do remember one colleague in particular though...

She was on a tyrannt to get engaged after meeting her first "real" BF. She wanted to so desperately to be engaged by Christmas that we watched her get physically more excited as she was convinced he would propose as Christmas grew nearer. We all left for the holidays (we worked on a college campus) and when we returned, there was this dark cloud that could''ve rained buckets over her head alone (think of that Prozac commercial!!)...Anyway, we all tried to comfort her, but that was no help...

Within a week of returning to work and to us, she called me that Saturday to tell me she was engaged!!! Did her FI plan it that way? I''m not a fly on the wall, so I couldn''t say, but I do remember that she told me that his brother told her that he better propose especially since she looked so awful after New Years....

Sounds like a "push" to me?!

 

[njc]

I dont think i pushed/pressured FI. I did give a friendly nudge though.

After about 6-8 months of dating HE started talking about marriage. This was early our senior year at college, and while i hoped for a ring at graduation, i wasnt totally crushed when it didnt happen. There were lots of questions and some doubts running through both of our heads i think... I graduated and he still had a semester to go. I ended up back at school with him that fall (i was having trouble finding a job), he graduated and we went home... 3 states apart. A year passed and we got back in the same state. A couple months, and we''re in the same city again. After moving in together and going ring shopping a couple times over a span of 4 or 5 months, i finally ask, what are we waiting for? So that was my nudge and 8 months later, we were engaged. So i hope he doesnt think i pushed... i was just trying to be logical. He always talked about it, i was just trying to get the ball rolling. Everyone i know thinks he did it on his own and i was surprised...

One friend, im pretty sure told her bf she was ready and said he needed to get it NOW. They had been dating since HS and she picked her ring out senior year of HS!

Another friend had NO clue it was coming. Another friend knew it was coming, but i feel her and her FI talked about it mutually and that he probably brought it up first, but i dont know for sure.

I think its probably 50/50. Im sure there are plenty of girls out there that put on hard pressure, some that do and dont really mean to. Other have discussions or plans with their BF, or have no clue. I feel its been going on for ages and isnt something new. Over the course of history how many girls do you think got pregnant (or faked it) to try and get a boy?

 

[Blue824]

I''m only 22 so I''ve had 2 friends get engaged so far.

One girl was totally surprised! She knew that her bf had asked her parents'' permission, but she thought and they had discussed an engagement much later. They are the most adorable couple I know and have been together for so long that everyone was just waiting for it to happen.

The other one I shared the story of a long time ago back on the original LIW threads. This one was with a guy we all did not like, and she thought that every relationship she was in should lead to marriage. The past 2 broke up with her because of it, she always jumped into marriage. When this happened, with her we figured the same thing, it would end, not lead to engagement, and all her friends hoped for it too! Anyway, she convinced him to graduate early so that they could move onto the real world at the same time, and then after she did that, she told him that she wouldn''t continue dating him unless she had a ring on her finger by the end of the year. 5 months before graduation he proposed. He spent all of his money on the ring (2k) so that he was not able to buy books the following/last semester of school. She mentioned the ultimatum she gave him all the time before the engagement, but as soon as it happened, it was never brought up again. After it happened stories started being shared from his friends to her friends about how horrible the match was and all the things she forced him into through out the relationship. At their wedding people were taking bets on how long it would last.

Currently, I have 2 friends who are actually getting more pressure from their guys than they want...both of them want some time to develope their careers and get adjusted...in each situation there''s a somewhat significant age difference 21f-26m and 23f-29m. The guys are just in totally different places in their lives than the girls right now.

Anyway, I just have such a bad taste in my mouth about the ultimatum situations. Under no circumstances would I want to be in that situation, I want him to know it is right for him too and not rush into anything just in case he might lose me. If I was older, maybe I''d feel differently? He was actually the one who initiated the engagement talks, because I just avoided it thinking he''d percieve it as pressure. Now we''re open about it, joke about it. We both know for our ages there isnt a huge rush and he needs to be stable financially before this can go on. We''ve both accepted our situations and know that when the time is right, it will happen...I''m sure I''ll have to push him a little get start getting into the jewelry stores, but that''s not going to happen unless he''s told me he''s ready to start looking. We''ve only looked once, and that was more a for fun thing, and with all the sparklies here hopefully I can hold back until its my time!

 

[Layne]

My husband and I had talked a little about getting married the first time he flat out said "we should get married" was June/July 2001. I was shocked (and later learned I didn''t hide it very well). He wanted to get married in May 2002 and I said no way. I really felt like it was too soon. We discussed December 2002 as a possibility. When he proposed in Feb 2002 I was shocked again. I thought he would wait until after his brother''s summer wedding. I pushed back our date to May 2003- and even considered December 2003. I''m sure some of his being ready has to do with him being a little older but I don''t know what else to attribute it too. I only had wedding fever for a short time- right after his two brothers got engaged and I became jealous.

 

[JCJD]

I think a much more effective approach would be to get him thinking about his timeline, not an ultimatum. Ask him (if you know he wants to marry you - this is the first question otherwise!) if he has a date when he''d like to be married to you. [Example: by December 2006]. You say, OK, I like that, I agree with that plan (unless you don''t). Well, in order to plan the wedding, I would like XX months of engagement so I don''t go crazy with the stress, and drive you crazy in the process, and so that we''ll have time to save up the money, and by the way, weddings are running average $XX,XXX in our area. So, to give me/us sufficient planning time and to keep us on track with your marriage timing, I think it makes sense for us to be engaged by such-and-such date. What do you think? Do you have any concerns about this plan?

And you go from there! Good luck!! This approach worked for me, not this specific conversation, but really getting him to think about what he wants for the relationship - that way you''re putting the decision in his hands, not making the decision for him.

 

[elepri]

I''m also in that stage in life where proposals and weddings seem to be happening just about every week. In my experience, among all my engaged and married friends, the idea is always initiated by the woman but only in rare cases would it classify as pushing and pressuring. My boy was basically so content living together that the idea of getting engaged was only somewhere on the back of his mind. He was totally committed and knew he would eventually propose but he was in no rush to get into something "so conventional." So I had to make it clear that marriage was important to me. Since it was important to me and didn''t matter so much for him except that he wanted me to be happy, he proposed much sooner than he would''ve on his own (a couple of months after I brought up that I really wanted to be engaged soon). I have one friend who basically told her boyfriend that she was expecting a birthday proposal and even gave him a family ring to propose with (since he told her he could''t afford one). When the boy didn''t produce the ring on the birthday, she got hysterical and told him it was over. Well, he came back later that day with the ring. Very romantic. It''s been a year now and she regrets it and feels like she was never really proposed to. Plus they''ve made no actual plans to get married. So I would''t recommend this approach.

 

[lilyinct]

I just got engaged last week, so it''s kind of funny this topic came up- just last night, I asked my fiancee (we were best friends for two years, started dating a little over a year ago, moved in together in August, and are now getting married) what made him propose last week instead of later in the year (he promised me a few months ago that we would be engaged sometime in 2005). He explained that he was originally going to propose this summer, but since I was so excited about getting married, etc, he decided to do it earlier....though he was probably just sick of me talking about it.

In my case, I think a little heavy nudging and light pressure got him moving in the right direction....just my $.02.

 

[Erin]

I was once told the more I bring it up the longer I''ll have to wait.

Catch 22

 

[Bikergirl]

I was caught totally off-guard. In fact, I was so unprepared that when he asked if I would spend the rest of my life with him, my response was "Are you SERIOUS?!?" to which he stammered something and looked very uncertain.... We worked it out and were married last fall.

I knew he was the one, and I knew we would always be together. We dated for two years, then made some financial decisions that forced us to move in together (I bought a house for his ill mother, so I couldn''t afford my apartment rent anymore). We''ve supported each other through some tough times (emotionally, I mean) and had planned our future. The only discussion we ever had about marriage was on our second date, when I made it very clear that I was not ready for a serious relationship, that I didn''t want to settle down and get married, and that if he was looking to start a family, he needed to search somewhere else (he''s older than I am, and to be honest I was afraid he was searching for a "trophy wife"). He actually almost jumped up and down, and said he left his most recent serious relationship because he felt pressured to propose, and was glad I wasn''t going to be that way.

Anyway.....to me it really didn''t matter if we ever got married. Don''t get me wrong, I''m glad that we did...but once we were living together, had started travelling together, made financial decisions together, etc., then I just didn''t care anymore. The commitment was there, and that''s what is important to me.

Granted, not everyone agrees with my viewpoint, and I can sure understand and respect that.

But in the end, it was my security in him and in the relationship that made him comfortable enough to propose. I''m very independent, I love my time with my DH, but I also like time with my girlfriends, and the freedom to be myself. Once he realized that I am happy with myself and my own life, he also realized that I wouldn''t change my way of thinking once there was a ring on my finger. I wouldn''t suddenly declare that I am quitting my job and expect him to provide for me, feed me bon bons on the sofa, and cater to my every whim (although that does sound enticing

). Once he realized that I am who I am, and getting married wouldn''t change that, he couldn''t wait to propose and make it "official" that we''ll be together forever.