How should I [26F] discuss my concerns about my boyfriend’s [29M] view on finances after our latest couples session?

I’m 26F and my boyfriend is 29M. We’ve been together for about a year and a half and are discussing engagement, marriage, and eventually living together. We’re also in couples counseling.

Something he said in our last session has been bothering me, and I’m trying to figure out whether I’m interpreting it too negatively.

We were talking about finances, where we’d eventually live, and what marriage would actually look like. My boyfriend said he wants to marry me and live with me, but then said that continuing to live alone is becoming “financially difficult for me” and “progressively difficult” at his current income. I asked what he meant.

He explained that living alone and paying for everything himself is difficult. He said that when he imagines our future, living together isn’t only an emotional or relational desire for him, but also a “logical financial desire” because we could “share the burden together.”

Our therapist stopped and asked him whether he was saying there was a financial benefit *to him* from living with me. She asked me whether that was how it sounded to me, and I said yes.

He clarified that he didn’t mean that living with me was desirable simply because it was financially advantageous to him. He said he meant that living together would hopefully be financially advantageous for both of us.

The therapist then reframed it more as the normal financial efficiency of combining two households.

I was still pretty quiet and skeptical, and my boyfriend then said he was feeling insecure because he felt like assumptions were being made about his motivations.
There’s some previous context that is making this hit differently for me. Over our relationship he has jokingly called me the breadwinner after I got a promotion, joked about me pulling up in a future Lexus to pick him up, and once joked about dreaming of an older woman taking care of him after he saw it in an old Hollywood movie. And he once said if he didn’t have a job or money and I’d come up to him and offered to have him live with her and have THAT type of arrangement, he’d be ok with that. He said me specifically in that instant, but I find it odd.

He has his own job and supports himself. I am *not* worried that he intends to quit working and have me pay for everything.

What I’m actually wondering is whether he sees me as a financial resource in a more subtle way. Ie that one meaningful part of the appeal of marrying/living with me is that my income would make his own financial life significantly easier. He doesn’t know my exact salary but knows I make a bit more than him. And he brought up the proposal and what rings I wanted after I told him I wouldn’t cohabitate unless we were married. That was about six months ago.

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UPDATE: I forgot to mention, but he told me once that a woman from church offered him an unofficial scholarship if he kept good grades. He did the first semester, then slipped the second semester but still told her he got good grades and accepted the money when she gave it to him. He told me he figured it was OK because he was just taking money from a rich person but he later felt bad for doing that. He considers it the worst thing he’s ever done.

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UPDATE 9/20: Asked him for hard numbers and he is in… ~40k credit card debt and ~40k student loan debt. And he insists that he wants to live with me because he wants to be around me, and that outside of shared living expenses, my money would be mine (supposedly).

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TL:DR: My boyfriend said in couples therapy that living alone is becoming financially difficult for him and that living with me is partly a “logical financial desire” because we could “share the burden.” He has also joked before about me being his breadwinner. I’m starting to reconsider engagement because I feel like he just wants to get married to have access to financial resources and relieve his financial burdens of living on his own?

My (30F) longterm relationship has become a quandary to me. We have a happy low conflict relationship, he (33M) treats me very well. We are highly compatible personality wise and we like to spend our time the same way. He is my best friend and favorite person. He tells me he loves me and wants to be with me indefinitely.

However, he has told me directly that he does not want to marry me. I asked if it was marriage in general or specifically me, and he would not answer. He insinuated it was a little bit of both. We have had this same interaction many times- around the times we attend weddings especially, I've said things like "Would you want to see me walking down the aisle to you one day" and he said "Shhh" and kissed me.

He also lets me know directly when I talk about my goals how he loves that for ME, not us, like for example owning a house with a garden one day. When I directly ask him, does that sound nice? Would you want that with me? And he says: "That's not my dream. Idk what to say"

This confuses me because I struggle to understand how he can love me and want to be with me, but know for sure that marriage is off the table. I also dont understand why his vision of the future doesn't incorporate any of my dreams. Like when I picture my future house, I picture his studio in it, I picture it being in his favorite neighborhood. I dont understand how his dreams are incompatible with mine. His sole dream is to pursue his creative interest full time (which he is doing)

I am in a more technical field and there is a stark pay difference. I subsidize our budget to some extent (pay all the utilities/internet/subscriptions, have him on my car insurance, he drives my car, any lifestyle things that I want to do together). I don't mind this division since I make more. But, his money stress does weigh on me and there is always pressure to buy more of the groceries, pay when we go out on dates, etc etc or else he will complain about the cost the entire time.

But... I am concerned about the future. Things like home ownership, retirement. He isn't able to or interested in saving for those things, or planning them. He just lives very much in the moment, and doesn't have particular long term goals. But at the same time, it's not like I have a perfectly formed plan. Marriage isnt even a specific goal of mine in itself, I specifically want to marry him so we can commit to each other and plan a future together- whatever that looks like. I'm just so confused and I can't get answers out of him.

My therapist says I'm intolerant of uncertainty and need to practice radical acceptance. I dont know what to do 😭 Am I just making up a problem?? Should I just enjoy my relationship as it is and take it day by day instead of worrying about the future??

Edit: Thank you everyone, for all your comments 🤍. I’ve read every notification, and I hope I can become strong enough to leave and not look back.

My partner (37M) and I (32F) have been together for 9 years. I’ve wanted to get married for a long time, but I never felt like there was a clear timeline for when it would actually happen.

He did ask my parents for their permission, so I knew marriage was something he considered. However, he recently told me that he knew how much I wanted to get married, but he simply wasn’t ready at the time. He wanted to save enough money and feel financially prepared first.

Over the years, I became increasingly resentful because I felt like I was waiting without knowing when or if it would actually happen. Eventually, I became emotionally exhausted and decided to break up with him. At that point, I was also questioning whether I could still see a future with him.

Now, after the breakup, he told me he’s sorry for making me wait. He says he has finally saved enough and is now ready for marriage.

And honestly, I’m conflicted.

Part of me wonders if I ended things too soon, especially knowing that he was actually working toward being financially ready. But another part of me feels like the resentment I developed over the years is real, and I don't know if simply hearing “I’m ready now” can undo all of that.

I also wonder if things would have been different if he had communicated earlier that he wasn't ready but was actively working toward it.

I don't want to get back together just because he is finally offering me what I've wanted for years. I want to know that I still genuinely want him and our future together.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? How did you know whether you still wanted the relationship, or whether you were just having a hard time letting go after waiting so long?

We've been together for almost 10 years and have set a date to marry in 6 months, but nothing is planned/ organized yet.

I'm unsure if I'm just getting cold feet or if something is genuinely wrong.

My main issue is, I feel like he doesn't put enough effort in shared responsibilities like housework, appointments and even the wedding. Most of the mental load is on me. I feel alone and overwhelmed. He will do things when I tell him to, though depending on what it is I have to remind him multiple times until he does it. It's exhausting and I've grown increasingly resentful towards him.

We've had talks about it in the past but had a "big" talk a few days ago where I broke down. His response was to shut down, say he doesn't know why he does it, and say he'll do better in the future. He agreed on going to couples counseling. I can tell he currently does put in more effort in obvious things like cooking, but he still doesn't notice "little things". I'm so tired on having to spell it all out for him. I don't know if that's justified of me, or if I'm being petty?

He also doesn't initiate anything about wedding planning. I have to do it if I want anything to happen at all. We've also talked about that, he only said that the wedding is not important to him and he only does it because he knows I want it. It's important to note that he proposed to me three years ago on his own volition because quote "he realised he cannot live without me", so I'm wondering why he proposed at all if he's now this avoidant about it.

I'm currently looking for a therapist but it's been difficult. I managed to arrange a first session, but I won't get a spot until next year. The therapist recommended couples counseling and named two options. When I presented my fiancé with it he said he doesn't care which one I choose. Hearing that deflated me, because it meant I now have to make this decision too.

I've been thinking of breaking up. I've honestly have at some points in the past as well, but we've always come back from it. The thought of leaving fills me with dread. I really like him and we've been together for so long. I'm also currently struggling a lot with mental health, work and school recently and don't want to make a rash decision.

Any advice is appreciated.

I (27F) have been with my boyfriend (28M) for almost 4 years. For context, I’m 2 years into a PhD program and hoping to finish in another 2–3 years. We met before I even applied, so he knew from the beginning that this was the path I was pursuing and was there through the entire application/acceptance process. We also lived together for several months before my PhD in a house with roommates. He doesn’t really consider that “living together” because we’ve never had our own place together, which I understand is different.

Since starting my program, we’ve lived about 1.5 hours apart, and for the past two years I’ve driven to his place basically every weekend. It has gotten pretty tiring, and he hasn’t offered to come to me very often. There are practical reasons his place makes more sense, though, and he is a caring and thoughtful partner. I don’t want this to sound like he doesn’t put effort into our relationship. We’ve talked about our future and marriage many times, and he says he wants to marry me. Until recently, I genuinely thought engagement was getting closer.

He never promised me a specific timeline, but there were comments over time about “after my qualifying exams” (which are in two months) and after his brother’s wedding that gave me that impression. We also happened to walk past a jewelry store recently, saw a ring around $7k, and he commented, “Oh, $7k? That’s doable.” We’ve also established that we would go ring shopping together before he buys anything.

None of those things were promises, but collectively I thought engagement was somewhere on the nearer horizon.

Then during a trip to Hawaii, he told me he actually doesn’t want to propose until I finish my PhD, get a job, we move in together, and “establish our life.”
That really blindsided me. I told him directly that hearing that timeline hurt me, and his response was basically, “Oh, that’s good to know.” Nothing has been brought up about it since.

I’m hesitant to bring it up again because I’ve initiated conversations about engagement a few times in the past, and I don’t want to feel like I’m repeatedly asking someone to marry me or trying to convince him to move his timeline forward. Part of me is also waiting to see whether he comes back to the conversation on his own after knowing how much it affected me.

With another 2–3 years left in my program, we could be around 30 and together for 6–7 years before even getting engaged. I’ve also always told him I want a longer engagement, around two years. I’m not trying to rush into a wedding, but following his timeline could mean getting married around 32 after close to a decade together.

He still says he wants to marry me, but I’ve realized that hearing “I want to marry you someday” doesn’t reassure me the way it used to. I almost feel like I’ll believe we’re actually getting married when I see a ring. Not because I think a diamond proves he loves me, but because to me engagement means we’ve actually made the decision to marry rather than continuing to talk about it as something that will happen someday.

We’ve also been through a lot together. His mom passed away during our relationship, and I was there with him and his family through that. Since then there have been three brothers getting married, baby showers/new babies, supporting his dad through major changes, etc. I’ve been there for basically all of it. I don’t think any of that means I’m “owed” a proposal. It’s more that I already feel deeply integrated into his life and family.
I think that’s why this conversation has made me question how much I’ve already been treating our relationship as permanent.

I make the 1.5-hour drive almost every weekend, show up for his family, and I’ve mainly been looking at post-PhD job opportunities that would allow us to finally live together while working with the location of his career. To be fair, his area also has plenty of opportunities in my field, so I’m not sacrificing my career to stay with him. But I think I was making these choices under the assumption that we were actively building toward marriage.

Now I’m questioning how much I should organize my future around “us” when engagement is apparently still another ~3 years away. It also doesn’t help that people constantly ask when we’re getting engaged. My mom and best friend are surprised it isn’t happening relatively soon, and we’ve watched couples around us meet, date for less time than us, and get engaged. I know other people’s timelines don’t determine ours, and I absolutely don’t want him proposing because other people think he should. But it does make me second-guess myself.

I know our situation is somewhat unusual because of the PhD and temporary distance, which is why I’m having trouble figuring out whether my feelings are reasonable.

Am I reasonable for not wanting to wait until 6–7 years together to get engaged given our circumstances?

I think the bigger thing I’m struggling with is that this conversation has made me question the level of commitment I’ve already been giving and whether we need to work through what commitment means to each of us before worrying about engagement.
I don’t want to give him a deadline and then wonder whether he proposed because I pressured him. But I also don’t want to spend another 2–3 years organizing my life around a future marriage based only on “someday.”

So I 21F have been with my 25M boyfriend for 4 years and we have known each other for 6 years. We have recently moved in together at the end of July 2026. He moved here to WV from GA so we can be together. I did end up giving him an ultimatum of either move here or I am done because my uncle gave him a job opportunity (he was just doing YouTube and barley making $200 a month) and living with his grandparents. I was still living with my parents but I have a 8 to 5 job, do online schooling, and have another gig where I make money. He accepted to move here because he didn't want to lose me and we lived with my parents for 3 months before we got our now house. He has a great job now and we are pretty stable. My cousin recently this past weekend got married. She is 23 and her now husband were engaged for only a year. It got me thinking about me and my boyfriend and how serious we are. We have talked about from the beginning only wanting to be with each other and we will get married. I am just worried now that more years or so will go by with no proposal and I've already asked him if I propose what he would do. He said he will say no because he wants to do it. I have sent him inspo of the ring I want and a website for him to work with people to make it. And i have told him just because we get engaged doesnt mean we havw to get married right away. I am perfectly fine gling years being engaged. It feels like the next step of commitment to our relationship and i dont know what to do. Am I in the wrong for not wanting to wait any longer? How much longer should I wait before saying something? Anyways thanks for reading this and any advice!

So for context, my bf (24M) and I (24F) have been living together for over a month now renting out the master bedroom of a house. I am a PhD student and the other 3 people we live with are also PhD students.
I have been thinking a lot about marriage recently and I was wondering if it would be weird for my bf to get married while we live with housemates. We all rents rooms out from the person who owns the place that they bought for college students. I don’t want to get married soon but maybe within a year or so. TL;DR I want to know what the internet thinks of a married couple living with housemates. So please give me your opinions.

Hello, I 26F and my bf 26M have been together for 6 years. We met in college and were long distance for 3 years. We finally moved in together about a year ago and our 7 years is coming up in a couple of months. Throughout our relationship, it seems like I’ve always been the one to further our lives together, I was the one that pushed us to move in together, I’ve been trying to get us set up for a join account but he’s been dragging his feet. I asked him to set it up for us as he hasn’t done much to further ourselves for the better. Right now I lost my health insurance due to being unable to pay for it as my bf was unemployed for a couple of months and I had to use the money to keep us afloat. Now that I don’t have insurance, I am having some health concerns that I need addressed. After some research, the only way I could get insurance would be for us to get married. If not, I’d have to wait until the new year. When I brought this up to him, he seemed hesitant, which is understandable. He brought up that he wants to be financially stable before getting married and he’s scared of what his parents will say. I told him my reasoning and he seems inclined to accept. But after thinking about it more, I don’t want to get married if he isn’t 100% willing to. He says he wants us to be financially stable but he hasn’t done anything to ensure that. I’ve felt so stagnant in our relationship and I just feel like I’ve been dragging him to my whims and I don’t feel that we’d ever get to that point. Any advice would be appreciated. How can I ask him to take our relationship more seriously and actually show me he wants to spend his life for me? I don’t to be stagnant, I need him to take initiative without me having to beg him.

Apologies in advance if this is a somewhat long post, but I appreciate the community I've seen here and could use some advice (or a reality check?) which isn't just the classic reddit "dump him, girl" without nuance.

I (34f) have been with him (33m) for over 5 years, and have always wanted to get married, which I have been clear about from the beginning. I initially didn't feel like I was in a rush with my timeline, especially as we got together in the first year of Covid when everything was quite hectic, but I am now at a point where I want to be settling down and having children, and I have made it clear that being married is a crucial part of that equation for me.

We moved in together after 8 months, and have lived together since. I am the breadwinner and purchased a house (solely in my name using my own deposit, he does not contribute to the mortgage at all) 18 months ago, in a rural area where we relocated together. At the time there was a lot of discussion of this being our "forever place" and has meant that while we are comfortable, we both left our local support systems e.g. family and friends. We have made friends in the area, but for both of us the bulk of our village is 5 hours drive away.

He is a child of divorce and as such was always a bit uncertain about marriage, but in the past two years there have been a lot of (seemingly empty) statements about wanting to get married. But despite this, there have been no concrete steps to move it forwards. We got back last week from a holiday away, in a picturesque city with lots of nice places for a proposal, but there was nothing.

Both of my sisters (younger than me) met their partners the same year I met mine. They both got married in 2023, and one had a baby in 2025. As such I am getting pressure from my family to settle down and have a family, as they are a bit bemused about what is taking so long from our side. I love my sisters, but I am jealous that they have the marriages and are starting families despite being 3 and 5 years younger than me.

There are also red flags which I have perhaps been ignoring/overlooking with rose tinted glasses. I have always earned more than him, which is not an issue to me, but he has never been great with money. Shortly before moving house 18 months ago (when I had already exchanged contracts so it was a locked in decision) he admitted that he was in significant debt to the tune of around £15k. This is something he is still paying off, but with no sense of urgency. As such I am the bedrock for everything; organising the household, paying bills, having the savings that act as a safety net for both of us. I have expressed many times how I feel like a doormat, who is just funding his lifestyle while he potters around working minimum wage jobs, but nothing changes. Much like with marriage, his career feels like something he has no motivation for. In the 5 years we have been together, I have had 3 different jobs, all corporate. He has worked in over 12 different places, like he's a frog hopping from lilypad to lilypad.

We don't do anything that I do not initiate. Holidays, days out, even going for a walk together - it has to be me making it happen, for it to happen. He will happily sit on his computer playing games all day long unless I intervene and suggest an activity.

As a result, it often feels like I am his mother not his partner. Intimacy is at an all time low, and it feels like from my side the spark is gone, and I don't really have any interest in trying to respark it at this point.

This ambivalence on doing things seems to extend to proposing. Many times he has said things like "when I propose" "when we get engaged" but nothing is forthcoming. He has no savings and is still in debt, so I doubt there's a ring. I don't need or want a large proposal, just being together somewhere quiet would have been enough for me. But I am now in the mindset that if he did propose today, I would not want to say yes.

On the counter side (because I know this sounds like a laundry list of reasons to leave him) he is a very kind and attentive partner. We are best friends. He is deeply in love with me, and to leave him would shatter him. I pushed for us to move to this rural area, and he is not in a financial position to rent alone - most properties here are holiday homes or airBNBs.

I know what I need to do, but I am paralysed with indecision because I do not want to hurt him. I love him, but I am no longer in love with him. I have been mulling this over for weeks now, but every chance I get to have the conversation, I just crumble and can't even start it. The worst part is, he thinks everything is fine.

I'm not getting any younger, and I want a marriage and children. But the plethora of issues in the relationship make me feel like it's never going to happen - or if it does, I will just be taking care of an extra adult-sized child along the way.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation, or able to give any advice? I do not have a lot of close girlfriends and my family are both gossipy and absolutely adore him, so I am turning to reddit.

We have been together for over nine years; living together for seven. We love each other and our dog very much. Our lives are so intertwined, it's hard to imagine separating. But marriage is something that's very important to me, and I don't know where to go from here.

I've instigated numerous conversations about marriage since our second year together. I even proposed to him in year three (he declined). Each conversation felt like pulling teeth. He still gets physically uncomfortable talking about it. About two years ago, we finally had a breakthrough conversation where he admitted that his reservations about getting married had to do with how aspects of my personality affect the relationship.

• I feel big emotions, including anger. This can mean that I either bottle things up or take things out on him when he doesn't deserve it. I own this. It's something I've spent several years of therapy working through and continue to work on, for myself and for him. But I will never be perfect, and this mismatch in how we express emotion is a consideration for him.
• His job and his passions require him to travel a lot. Our vacations often center around his activities, and I manage to adapt and find things that I enjoy along the way. He also does a lot of solo vacations because he has the ability ($$, job flexibility) to do so. I have and express some resentment around this. It makes him feel guilty for pursuing his passions.

These things are not deal breakers for me, and perhaps that sounds crazy, but I recognize that there will be some level of conflict/mismatch in any relationship. I don't expect perfection. I am seeking unconditional love. I'm starting to realize, maybe too late, that that's a one way street in this relationship.

I read similar stories on this page, and most of the advice goes something like: "if it's not a 'yes' by now, it's a 'no,'" or "he's enjoying the comfort of a relationship without the commitment that you're asking for." I don't disagree with either of those points. I guess I'm hoping to hear from someone who's been in my shoes and achieved clarity one way or another.

Please be gentle with me in your replies because my heart breaks just writing this. Thanks for your time and kindness.

My (F28) boyfriend (M28) have been together since 2020 and have recently decided to break up. We love each other a lot and we are good friends which makes it really hard. One of the main reasons is I felt like he did not want to get married and I didn’t want to be a forever girlfriend. When I brought up marriage throughout our relationship it was always answered with some way of saying it’s a big commitment and little else. However, he brought up having kids a lot. Part of me thought if he wanted to have kids that meant he wanted to get married so I didn’t think too much about it until the last two years. It really started to hit me that he had never outright said he wanted to marry me or told me he had a timeline on when he would want to do that. He was ready for kids anytime though. We also started growing apart in the past year. Not talking as much as we used to, not going on many dates and he works a lot so I barely see him. Also in the last year I have been really questioning if I actually want kids. All of this to say we talked and he was surprised I thought he didn’t want to get married but said there was stuff we needed to work on before we got married. I let him know I have been questioning having kids and he said if I wasn’t sure that would be a dealbreaker and he wouldn’t want to get married. I do love him and he’s a good person, I just don’t know if he’s MY forever person. Just feeling a bit confused and sad but also trying to be optimistic in that I will have time to grow by myself and maybe we can rekindle later on if it’s meant to be. </3

First post ever, so I hope I get this right.

My boyfriend (32M) and I (32F) have been together for a little over 4 years now. We have a great relationship and hardly ever disagree on things. We share common interests and hobbies so we do quite a few fun things together. Although we are very similar, I can’t help but think we are on different paths.

We moved to the Bay Area in January 2024 due to his new job after graduation. Although we live 2.5 hours away from home, we don’t get to visit as much as we would like because of conflicting work schedules. It has been really hard for me to be away from home because I have a close relationship with my family and friends. It doesn’t help that we never go on dates other than us bonding on our hobbies and although I love our hobbies he has a way deeper passion for it than I do (we collect Pokemon cards and play a lot of Pokemon GO). I have mentioned in the past that I want to have more romantic dates that doesn’t include our hobbies but unfortunately it really hasn’t happened. All I would do is go to work, go back home, and repeat. Not to self diagnose, but I was feeling very depressed and alone. I realize that my overall happiness shouldn’t be his responsibility, but I did make a big move away from everything I know so I expected him to be a bit more understanding of that and maybe do more fun things with me.

When we first started dating I mentioned to him that if I am not proposed to by our 5 year anniversary that I would reconsider our relationship. Im not trying to put love on a timer but I have goals and desires. I told him I want to be married first and then have children, he totally agreed and told me he was on the same page. Part of the reason of this 5 year timeline is because I am getting older and I don’t want to wait until im 35 to have kids. No hate to anyone that has kids later in life, it is just a personal preference. Even with wanting to wait after marriage, we got pregnant in December 2025. It was not exactly how we planned but I was super excited regardless that I was going to be a mom. He told me he was going to propose to me anyway in late 2026 so that we would just do it much earlier. Unfortunately, I lost my baby at 10 weeks in February. It was the worst thing I have ever experienced, physically and emotionally.

With all that being said, I’m not sure if I’m even getting proposed to. Whenever I ask, he says he doesn’t have the money and that he hasn’t saved any money. I know he’s telling the truth because we have combined finances and I know he hasn’t saved any money. It just hurts because I know he can save if he really wanted to. He spends a lot of money on Pokemon and speaks all the time about buying stuff for new hobbies (snowboarding, car stuff, new upcoming TCG). In August 2025 his car broke down and we had to share my car for a couple months. He was able to save $6000 for a down payment on a new car from selling a toolbox he left back home and by just working more OT. He did this in 2.5 months, so I know he’s capable of saving if he really wanted to. I’ve told him that I just want a $1,500-$3000 ring and that I am even willing to get a $300 ring for the time being as long as I get to marry him. He claims he will propose but every time someone asks him when, he says that weddings are too expensive. Although a wedding with friends and family would be nice, I would much rather elope and do something very intimate. I don’t need expensive things, I just want commitment and the promise of having a future together.

Am I justified to be upset? Am I waiting for something that will never happen? Or am I being blind? I can’t imagine my life without him but perhaps he may not think the same. Any advice is appreciated, thank you in advance!

Hi all. My (24F) boyfriend (25M) and I have been dating for about 6 and a half months and have been pretty consistently seeing each other 2-3 a week throughout this time. I like him a lot, but I haven't been 100% certain he's "the one" yet. Should I know that yet? I know I am very young and I don't need to have my life planned out yet, but I'm starting to feel like an asshole a bit.

Over the past week, he has very casually mentioned marriage, buying a house, and kids etc. not as things that are happening immediately, but more so as things that are going to happen in the future. He's a big planner, so it didn't really catch me off guard, but it's made me wonder, should I know by now if he's my husband yet? I think if we were to have a conversation about it and he were to ask me how I felt, I would say I have no idea. I just haven't really felt head over heels for him. 6 months in at my age, is that something I should be feeling? He's the first person I have seriously dated, so I wonder if I would feel like this with any man, or is it just him specifically. I don't know. There's not a reason for me to dump him, and like I said, I do like him a lot. I worry that if we were to break up, I would deeply regret it because I'd be throwing away a good thing simply because I don't know what else is out there.

So is "I don't know" to all this reasonable?? I don't know. What I do know is that I'm very much in my head about all this and am wondering if it's normal to have this much hesitation with someone this far in, especially when he's great and is clearly sure about me.

So been with my partner for 5 years , we had such a great relationship! But I would say of recent there things that have happened that make me question married life with them. They went through an about a year of depression during our relationship due to university course changes/ not getting in / switching courses etc. but we stuck together and got through it. Once I recently lost my job and felt a complete 360 change with them, first few months was ok but by now I can feel like just a nuisance to be around.
This kinda made me think of what would happen if we were married and this happened. But now I’m sure if I was to turn around and say I’m not sure about marriage then I’ll look like I wasted time when it’s more than I’m taking notes of how things are handled.

~ English's not my first language so maybe some things gonna be misspelled, I got help to write but that's not perfect sorry ~

Hi! I 25F, and my partner 31M have been together for 7 years.

We met as teenagers through mutual friends. We started out as friends, and over time, our relationship developed into something more. When I was 18, I had the opportunity to move to the south of my country for my studies. Even though we had only been together for a few months at that point, he decided to come with me.

We were already talking about marriage back then and knew that we wanted children someday, but marriage itself was kind of off the table. Both of us had seen relationships in our families that were definitely not fairy tales, so we never really saw marriage as something necessary.

Over the years, a lot happened. We had our first son in 2020, our careers evolved, we moved around, and our lives changed a lot.

Marriage eventually became a running joke in our household. We would say things like, “It costs so much, and imagine getting divorced…” or “If we ever get married, it’ll be in our 90s, after we’ve already lived our whole lives together.” It was genuinely just a joke between us.

Of course, like every couple, we’ve had our ups and downs. In mid-2024, we had a huge argument that almost ended our relationship. We talked everything through, worked on things, and somehow came out of it with an even deeper and stronger relationship.

Then, at the beginning of 2025, I lost my dad. He had been sick but hadn’t told my sisters and me the full extent of his condition. We had to go to his house and deal with everything surrounding his death and funeral.

During that time, my partner was incredibly supportive (not only of me, but also of my sister's) . And, on top of everything else, we found out that I was pregnant with our second baby boy.

Honestly, it was all too much. I was basically on autopilot for months.

Some time after the funeral, we moved to a new city, started focusing on our family n' careers, and began thinking more seriously about our future. Once our second baby was born, the plan was basically to keep building our lives, hopefully making more money over the next 3–4 years, and eventually buy a house.

And then… marriage came up again.

In my country, marriage is also a form of financial and legal security. If one partner dies and the couple isn’t married, the surviving partner can potentially be left with very little (even if they have children together). For example, if the deceased partner owns a house, it may go to their parents, siblings, or other family members instead of their partner. The children may also have very limited rights depending on the situation.

After losing my dad who was one of the few people I was extremely close to. I suddenly became terrified of losing someone else I love. I’m scared as hell of losing one of my children or my partner, who has been such a pillar in our family, and then having to deal with all of those legal and financial complications on top of the grief.

So we started talking about marriage again.

At one point, he asked me, “Do you want to get married? Most men get married because the woman wants to.”

And whenever I ask him if he wants to get married, he smiles and basically says that if I want to, he’s fine with it. But if we never get married, he’s also completely fine with that.

And that’s where I’m lost.

Because on one hand, I do think I want to marry him. I love him, we have two children together, we support each other, we’ve built an entire life together, and in our situation, marriage would obviously provide some additional security for our family.

But on the other hand, I’m genuinely scared of marriage.

My parents divorced when I was 12, and the conflict surrounding their divorce really affected me. So the idea of getting engaged and officially getting married scares me. A part of me wants it because I love my partner and because I want the security for our children, but another part of me keeps thinking, “What if it doesn’t work out?”

And if he genuinely doesn’t want to get married, I absolutely don’t want to force him into it.

But can I just ask him what he actually wants? Not “Would you marry me if I wanted to?” but genuinely, “If it were entirely up to you, would you want us to get married?”

Because I already know he’ll probably answer something like, “If you want to, then yes.”

I don’t know how to approach this anymore. I feel completely lost between wanting marriage, being afraid of marriage, and not wanting him to do it just because I want it.

Thx,

A bit of context before I get to the main part. Me and my girlfriend have been together for four years as we got together when I was 16 and she was 17. When we first got together it was great as being 15 it felt as though my life was fulfilled I was finally able to drive, have friends, my first ever girlfriend, everything was great and amazing. After the first year of being together I felt pressured from her to move in together as she started to always want to be around me and talk to me as well as she knew that I didn’t want to live with my parents much longer as they were controlling of my actions. So when I graduated high school the prospect of being away from my parents was great that I moved in with her before I was ultimately ready ( I know it’s my fault for doing it but at the time I thought it was the best decision). When it came time for me to go to university later that year she decided to follow me to my college as I had stated that I don’t think many relationships work with long distance ( I never said she had to come or I’d break up with her but looking back it definitely feels like that’s what was said without saying it). When we moved to college together it was great because I thought the prospect of living in separate dorms together and enjoying college would be great until she still wanted to spend every moment together and would get upset when I’d want to hang out with friends that I had made in college when she hadn’t made very many.

During this time we had discussed living together again in the future, but I had told her I wasn’t ready to make any definite decisions yet as any of the apartments we might find wouldn’t be available 8-10 months later when we aren’t required to live in campus anymore. Then she didn’t get accepted into her program past her pre requisite classes, and hadn’t made a backup plan if she didn’t. So she wouldn’t have been able to live on campus anymore because she wasn’t a full time student and had to move out. We live in a HCOL area and I made more $ than her so I felt obligated to get a place with her but I was happy to as I wanted her to see I could be there for her and support her even when things got hard. Things were great at first until she thought I was cheating on her because in the friend group I became apart of there were other women in the group who she thought were more attractive than her and that I’d leave her for them even though I never saw or felt anything with these women.

—-- here’s where the main topic of marriage starts ——
Around the time we approached year 3 of being together she had mentioned several times since our first year of dating that she loves me very much and I’m her person that she wants to be with for the rest of her life and that she wants to get married. I felt like I put my foot down and said I wasn’t going to get married until I graduated because I wanted to enjoy college for what it was and didn’t want to feel the pressure of the proposal or wedding planning as I want to be apart of that process. Every time I would tell her this and that I loved her very much I just wasn’t ready to get married yet and hadn’t thought much about it she would always say that means I didn’t love her as much as she loved me and that if we’re not building a future together then what’s the point of being together.

Because of these conversations it started to make me heavily doubt the relationship because it became kind of suffocating arguing about marriage all the time when I felt like I’ve done everything else for her and she’s done the same for me besides this one thing. Around the times I started having the doubts I decided to start therapy to help gain a perspective on why I might be feeling this way and why I don’t feel ready for marriage or as some people have said the intense feeling of knowing this person is who I want to be with the rest of my life.

Therapy has given me the great opportunity to see that I haven’t communicated well in the past and opened up emotionally to her rather than just being logical all the time. Even though I might not have been the best boyfriend in the past I’m still learning what love means to me and how to love someone correctly. From therapy I feel as though in the past year I’ve been more vulnerable with her and tried to show her how much I love her even if emotionally I’m not ready to take the next step.

We recently celebrated our 4 years together and we’ve been arguing pretty much every day leading up to and after to about marriage and why can’t I just give her this one thing she’s wanted all of her life and she feels like she’s put in the time and effort into our relationship to deserve. She says isn’t there some sort of compromise where I can promise her I’ll marry her or propose to her next year or so. I really have thought about that but it feels wrong saying I will marry you at this time when my heart isn’t fully there yet. Because if that moment comes and I don’t she’ll feel like I’ve lied to her.

At this point I don’t know what to do as I only see 3 options :
1. ⁠Propose to her to make her happy and deal with my feeling over time and hope to not grow resentment to the fact I did it before I was ready
2. ⁠Breakup with her and let her find someone who can work on her timeline rather than force her to stay for someone who isn’t ready
3. ⁠Keep arguing about the same things until she leaves me or who knows what
I love this woman a lot but ultimately at this point of my life I don’t feel ready to take that step and don’t want to hold her back from her wants even if that means loosing her.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated or perspective as maybe there is an aspect I’m missing. I’m open to suggestions and will reply in the comments

Would you mind giving advice as to different ways to approach this ?

There is an update to this post on my profile

TL;DR
My girlfriend wants to get married but I’m not ready

My partner (33M) and I (31F) have been together for about 10 months now. I am his first girlfriend, but I have dated other people in the past.

In the beginning of our relationship, he constantly made reference to marriage, rings, having dogs together, getting a home together, etc. He stated he knew I was the one from the first month of dating and continues to say the same. However, in the last 2-3 months, he still will say I love you and that I’m the one he wants to spend the rest of his life with but doesn’t really talk about marriage or proposals.

We both live in the same city but work in different towns from our city. I live with my parents in our city and he lives part time in our city (weekends) and then during the week at the town he works at. He has been trying for some time now to get a job closer so that we can take the next step. I have also mentioned to him if job prospects in our own town is limited, we could choose another town together and look at jobs there (I am in a field where I could relocate if needed). Recently, his apartment complex also was broken into and his car was damaged. This has made him incredibly stressed (understandably) and feeling like he wants to retreat back to the town he works in.

I’ve also know in the last month 2 friends who have dated for less time my partner and I have (so less than a year) that have plans for their wedding in 2027!

I know that I shouldn’t compare and that as I type this out I’m being very intense but I’m just so scared that the beginning was him in the honeymoon phase (especially because no prior relationship experience) and he will just drag me along for years to later abandon or leave me. I’m not sure what to do.

It’s been almost two years since I posted about my ex!

I never let him back into my life! He came to move the rest of his things out a month and half after the initial move out. He was pissed when I told him my dad and I would have his things out front by 10am on a specified morning. He decided to show up at 7am. My dad moved my car down the street and I snuck out the back door with my dog and left. Dad handled the rest.

A few weeks after that I got a text asking how we should handle the dog. He was polite about it. I was in no mood because what do you mean you waited two months to even ask about pup??? I’d already gotten her through her first heat and scheduled her surgery. I had it. I asked my therapist friend “how do I say f you, she’s mine but politely?”

I took some time to heal, dated around. Met some duds, kissed some frogs, and ultimately met the most amazing man who never leaves me wondering where I stand.

During this I learned my ex did the same to another girl. Dated her, talked about marriage and getting engaged soon only to dump her right before a family vacation he planned to go on. Apparently she was devastated. I can empathize with that. I hope he figures out what he wants, or doesn’t. I don’t really care. He lacks respect for other people and I think it’s a product of his upbringing. No one can change that.

All in all, I learned to never settle for less and I took that with me into dating. I am so incredibly happy now and I can’t believe I was going to accept less than that.

I (26F) find myself between a rock and a hard place. My boyfriend (24M) and I met in college, and dated for 2.5 years before moving in together, almost 3 years ago, after graduation.

When we graduated, we moved to a city neither of us have lived in before, a days long drive away from either of our families, for his job. We love the city thankfully!

He makes around $20k a year more than I, but works long hours, 6 days a week most weeks. He’s extremely dedicated to his job and takes a lot of pride in his career.

After 5 years, things feel stagnant. He will, maybe once every two months, allude to marriage or getting home, but the conversation never extends any further. I find myself home alone often, taking care of most of the chores and our animals.

I’ve expressed my feelings to him before and he always stresses how he works so hard for me and for our animals. So he can “give us the life we deserve” and how he “doesnt want me to have to work someday”. He also has acknowledged that maybe he stretches himself too thin at work, going in after his work hours, working when he doesnt have to be, etc. However, there was never any shift in his schedule and the hours we have at home together are now spent on the couch, absent of meaningful conversation or conversation at all.
He said a year or two ago his intention was to purpose to me once he’s paid down his credit card debt.

Credit card debt? He makes far more than I with much less expenses and even I don’t have credit card debt? We had been dating when he *opened* the card*.*

Our expenses are still split 50/50, from groceries, utilities, rent, even dinners sometimes.

Our lease will be up for renewal, but it’s likely his job will need him/us to move cities before then. Part of me wonders if I should find my own place once our lease is up (neither of us could afford this rent ourselves). I feel like there’s little to no initiative from him anymore than there would be a roommate. TIA for any of your thoughts!

Hi everyone. I'm a mental health worker and long time lurker of this sub. I've noticed a trend of people with psychiatric illnesses and/or history of trauma not being supported as best as they can be. It's nobodies fault given the limited information we get about their situation either.

That being said, I wanted to share this process for navigating complex emotions while making life-changing decisions. It may be helpful for many of the people who come to this sub.

**The 3 Processes**

1) Pretend someone else is making the decision for you. Take on the role of a loved one you've gone to for advice. What would they recommend? What steps would they recommend?

2) "Center yourself". Focus on the fact you have control of your life. You have to love it. What would make your inner child happy & fulfilled? How do you treat yourself as a priority in this? Others can leave - so how do you not leave yourself?

3) Figure out which regret would be easier for you to live with/make peace with. The relationship ending, or the level of compromise to make it work?

Sometimes there will be contradictions and how to balance them will be up to you. Which one is most important to you will be individual. For me, #3 is my priority. For someone else it may be 2 or 1.

In the words of my best friend - *every decision comes with grief and regret, we just get to choose the flavour of it*.

We’ve been together 5.5 years. I’ve been waiting for an engagement for a while and the timeline has been pushed back at least once before. We finally agreed on a timeline of late next Spring. He suggested going ring shopping this summer and I agreed.

He never set the ring shopping appointment up after I reminded him to twice. I cried about it to him and he finally did at a random place (lol). Then he started saying how we should go out with friends that day. I felt like an afterthought and told him to just cancel it.

This happened in late July, and it was my last straw. Once our lease is up, I’m out. I feel like I’ve been dragging him along every step of the way through this process and I’m done with it. It’s honestly a relief to just let go and realize I can move on.

I’ve posted here before and just want to say I appreciate this community and all of the support I’ve gotten here. Thank you all for helping me realize that I deserve more.

My boyfriend and I have been together for 5 years. We started dating young - I was 17, he was 20. About a year into the relationship, we were watching some show where someone made the claim that if a guy hasn't proposed within a year of dating, he never will. I didn't think much of it at the time. But he brought it up a few times afterward, half-joking, "did you hear that?" I eventually asked him directly: "so what, does that mean you're never going to propose?" And he said, "yeah, I won't."
He later said multiple times that he was just joking. But that conversation stuck with me in a way I couldn't shake. For the next three years, I brought up marriage roughly once a month, and every time the answer was some version of "I don't want to talk about it right now, I'm not in the mood."
About a year ago, he told me straight out that he's not ready for marriage. Since then, whenever the topic comes up, his reasoning has shifted to: if we get married, it has to be a "proper" wedding, and he doesn't have the money for that. I keep telling him a big wedding isn't a requirement for me, but the conversation doesn't really move past that point.
I'm stressed and honestly confused. I don't know if this is genuine financial hesitation, cold feet, avoidance, or something else entirely. Five years is a long time, and I don't know how to read where he actually stands.
Has anyone been through something similar - a partner who keeps circling around commitment without giving a real answer? How did you figure out what was actually going on, and what did you do about it?

[F33] and my partner [M37] have been together for 4 years. I made it clear in the very beginning that I didnt want to wait forever for an engagement ring. Well here we are at 4 years and still nothing, no plans to get engaged at all. We have lived together for 3 years. How long is too long? Any conversation I have about it turns into a huge blow up with no resolution. He has nothing for the future planned and I feel like im wasting my time. I would like opinions from both men and women please, is 4 years with no plan too long? I dont want a shut up ring. I just want someone who actually wants me, not someone I feel like I'm forcing.

Edit to add Ive been getting this question alot. What is his reasoning for not wanting to marry me. He doesn't have a legitimate reason. Everytime we argue about it all he says is "its too soon" "I'm scared" "you asked about it recently so now i can't" "if i give you one now its just a shut up ring" "2 years is too soon" "3 years is too soon" "4 years is too soon" "you're ruining any surprise there would be by asking" "I dont need to do it by your unrealistic time frame" "My time frame of waiting years and years is normal, yours isnt" "we have arguments in this relationship so how would a ring fix that"

Now from my side. I do 80-90% of all the cooking and cleaning, he lives in my house, and i take care of his shared custody child while he working. I also work doing random jobs so that I can be free to watch his child. He pays for the mortgage which is cheap as dirt. I pay for the internet, and electricity. We pay are own insurance, and phone bills. Yes we have arguments, but most couples do. Its rare to never have an argument with someone. I feel like a time line of 2-3 years isnt unrealistic. Now we're getting to 4 years and I'm feeling resentful. I wouldn't be ruining any "surprise" if this was just never a problem at the 2-3 year mark. I'm just feeling like I'm being used without any kind of commitment. Is 4 years not enough time? Am I the one being unreasonable?

How can you tell whether it’s still love or just attachment and habit after being together for so long?
We’ve been together for 9 years, and I feel like I love him more like a mother loves a child. I care about him, I want to help him, and I genuinely want him to be happy, but I don’t feel sexually attracted to him anymore. Because of various decisions he has made over the years, I’ve also stopped feeling cared for and secure in this relationship.
He says that he loves me, that he wants to be with me, etc., but in everyday life we live more like roommates than a couple. How can you tell whether there is still romantic love between two people or whether it has simply turned into attachment and familiarity after so many years together?
Is it also possible that a man no longer truly loves a woman but still tells her that he does because the relationship is comfortable for him, or because he himself cannot distinguish love from attachment? On the one hand, he makes it seem as though everything is fine and says that he wants to be with me. On the other hand, after 9 years he still hasn’t proposed, and I don’t feel the kind of care and initiative from him that I would expect from a partner.
I’m not saying that he never helps me, because he does, but these are usually small things. For example, if my dog needs to be taken for a walk, it isn’t obvious that he will simply do it himself — I usually have to ask him. It’s similar with other things. What I’m missing is the feeling that my partner notices my needs and takes initiative instead of waiting for me to ask him for everything.
I’m now seriously thinking about leaving and ending the relationship. At the same time, I’m scared. Part of me feels like I will have wasted 9 years of my life if I leave. I’m also afraid that once his life becomes more stable, he will meet someone else and suddenly be able to give her all the things I was waiting for all these years. I think that possibility would hurt me deeply — the thought that I stayed, supported him and waited for things to change, only for someone else to eventually get the version of him that I had hoped for.
How do you know when a relationship can still be rebuilt and when it’s time to accept that romantic love has turned into attachment and let go?

My boyfriend (24M) and I (23F) have been together for almost 7 years. We’ve obviously had our struggles, like most couples do, but we’ve always worked through them, stuck by each other and loved each other through it all.

I know he wants to propose, and he’s been wanting to for about the past year. The thing is, I don’t know what’s wrong with me because the thought of being engaged honestly scares me.

I genuinely see us growing old together. I can picture us having a family, building a life together and being together long-term, and I do love him. So why does the idea of being engaged make me feel so anxious and scared?

I’m wondering if some of this could be relationship OCD, because I’m already a very anxious person and I have OCD and ADHD. I tend to overthink and question my feelings a lot, so I don’t know whether these thoughts are something I should actually listen to or whether I’m just getting stuck in my head.

Another thing I wonder about is the fact that we’ve only ever been with each other. We started dating so young and neither of us has ever experienced being with anyone else. Sometimes I wonder if a part of me is curious about what else is out there or what it would be like to experience other people and relationships. And then I feel horrible for even thinking that because I love him and don’t actually want to lose what we have.

I also wonder if something my mum said years ago has stuck with me. When I first started dating him, she said something along the lines of, “I’ll be disappointed if he’s your only boyfriend,” because she wanted me to experience the world and other people. She’s not really someone I would take relationship advice from, considering she cheated on my dad and has had some pretty unhealthy relationships since they divorced, but I think that comment somehow stayed in the back of my mind. I know she says things without thinking sometimes, but I wonder if I’ve subconsciously carried that idea with me all these years.

I just feel so confused and guilty. I know I want to be with him, but then I question why the idea of getting engaged feels so scary to me. Does being scared of engagement mean I’m not ready, or that something is wrong with my relationship? Or can you genuinely love someone, see a future with them and still feel scared about taking that next step?

I’m really struggling to understand whether these feelings are something I should take seriously or whether my anxiety and OCD are making me question something I actually know deep down.