I'm ready for more - 09/11/08 08:21 PM
I'm looking for some opinions from other folks on my current situation.
My BF and I have been dating for almost 4 years, he's 25 and I'm 28. We've got a good relationship with open communication and we share many activities. There have been rough patches because I've had to learn to be a little less independent and he's learning to be more independent. We pretty much do everything together. We do have conflicts once in awhile, but we always manage to work through it.
My issue is I wish to get married and he does too, but our timelines are years apart. I wish to get engaged now and plan for a wedding within a year or two (our families live in different states and with a few other factors it is going to take a fair amount of pre-planning to get everyone together). He on the other hand, wishes to get engaged followed with a quick wedding. However, he wants to hold off on the engagement for an undetermined amount of time.
His reasoning behind waiting is he wants to be financially set and be ready to buy a house right away. I counter that we are pretty well off financially (less than $15K for both of us between cars and student loans - no CC debt) and we are doing well budgeting and saving. I should point out that my BF & I do not live together and don't really have any plans of moving in together without being married.
I also have told my BF several times that we may not be able to get a house right away until he is committed to a career and employer. It wouldn't make sense financially right now to get into a house and then find out that he will have to commute an hour or more for work. An apartment in the interim will do just fine as far as I am concerned. I've been living on my own for over 10 years solo or with roommates. He still lives with his parents; he never even moved out for college.
My big question is how long should I keep hanging on if I'm not getting the commitment I want from my BF? I wish to be married to someone that I can have a partnership with. I don't know if I'm being irrational about this or not. I want that marriage commitment. I've been through this type of thing before where I get really involved with a guy and he starts talking marriage and making a life together, only to later find myself sitting on the other end of the phone getting dumped because "something better" came along. I'm not going to let that happen again, even if it means that I have to walk away to find someone that actually wants to be married to me instead of just talking about it.
Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thank you!
My BF and I have been dating for almost 4 years, he's 25 and I'm 28. We've got a good relationship with open communication and we share many activities. There have been rough patches because I've had to learn to be a little less independent and he's learning to be more independent. We pretty much do everything together. We do have conflicts once in awhile, but we always manage to work through it.
My issue is I wish to get married and he does too, but our timelines are years apart. I wish to get engaged now and plan for a wedding within a year or two (our families live in different states and with a few other factors it is going to take a fair amount of pre-planning to get everyone together). He on the other hand, wishes to get engaged followed with a quick wedding. However, he wants to hold off on the engagement for an undetermined amount of time.
His reasoning behind waiting is he wants to be financially set and be ready to buy a house right away. I counter that we are pretty well off financially (less than $15K for both of us between cars and student loans - no CC debt) and we are doing well budgeting and saving. I should point out that my BF & I do not live together and don't really have any plans of moving in together without being married.
I also have told my BF several times that we may not be able to get a house right away until he is committed to a career and employer. It wouldn't make sense financially right now to get into a house and then find out that he will have to commute an hour or more for work. An apartment in the interim will do just fine as far as I am concerned. I've been living on my own for over 10 years solo or with roommates. He still lives with his parents; he never even moved out for college.
My big question is how long should I keep hanging on if I'm not getting the commitment I want from my BF? I wish to be married to someone that I can have a partnership with. I don't know if I'm being irrational about this or not. I want that marriage commitment. I've been through this type of thing before where I get really involved with a guy and he starts talking marriage and making a life together, only to later find myself sitting on the other end of the phone getting dumped because "something better" came along. I'm not going to let that happen again, even if it means that I have to walk away to find someone that actually wants to be married to me instead of just talking about it.
Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thank you!