tomato soup

Juliana - I guess perhaps I should view marriage as a goal along the same lines as other people view having children as a goal (I've never wanted children and don't expect to change my mind anytime soon so it isn't a natural comparison for me) I guess me "wanting" to get married is like how most people want to have kids - definitely at some point in the future, but not nessesarily NOWNOWNOW. And sometimes, watching friends and family get pregnant kicks up those feelings even though having kids now is definitely not the best course of action. Personally I do feel like having "get married" be a goal is such a Disney princess waiting for a prince of an aspiration. I want it to be the means to the end, not the end goal itself and every time I get jealous I worry if it is becoming the singular goal in my mind. I think if I was a few years older, or graduating this semester instead of in a year and a half, things would be very different regarding when I "felt ready" to be engaged since my boyfriend has said on multiple occasion the only thing holding him back is wanting to go through counseling together first which I think is something everyone ought to do. The questions are just kind of a prelude to that, to try and find hot spots we didn't really consider yet before going to a counselor and to discuss things that do need to be worked out ahead of time and any potentially non-negotionables. The fact that I've seen people break up before the wedding due to not discussing things like children or attitudes towards money beforehand completely boggles the mind. BeStrongBeHappy - I see how engagement still is a trial period, I was referring more to people who don't even discuss things such as children or career goals and things like that that are deeper than the wedding colors before getting engaged. That I think is just asking for trouble since there's that many more things that could be conflicting to the point where the marriage just couldn't work. I do worry that alot of my hesitation is all in my head since I don't have any "good" reasons to not be looking towards engagement in my life short of my age and uncertainty towards grad school. My parents were engaged at 19 and got married straight out of college and are still together, pretty much my entire extended family was engaged/married by age 25 so I don't think age in of itself is the problem it's the ability to actually commit. I don't question staying with him for the long run, he's my best friend and I can't imagine losing him but since the rest of my future is uncertain I think it bleeds into this regard, unlike my friends who get engaged and THEN worry about the details of the rest of life (or don't if they wind up breaking up!) I know it'll all work itself out, either with time or counseling to find the root of my insecurities with myself, the problem is just lasting that long without making myself crazy.

anydaynow - I knew I couldn't have been the only one! Yeah, it's the fact that this DOES bother me and I feel so ashamed to admit it makes me always second guess if I'm getting worked up for "sensible" reasons or becoming what I hate - a girl who's singular goal is a ring on her finger. And yeah, we both want to avoid having engagement mean Dating Plus. Of my friends that got engaged in 2006, only one even has a month range set. The others either say it'll be years and years down the road or conviently don't answer when anyone asks. I feel that for those girls it was more "We've been together X many years / graduating / wanting to move out of my parents' house so yay engagement time" than too much past the "relationship insurance" an engagement ring supposedly is. Then again, I also have a friend who got married last year at age 24 who went through a broken engagement to her "soul mate" at age 20. I wonder how many of the "engagement rookies" will have a similar tale. The e-book was in a set of other romance/marriage books, I searched for "1000 Questions for Couples" at link removed and torrented it. If you don't know how to use that, there should be instructions on the website. assumeLove - You know, when my boyfriend and I were going through our first set of questions he mentioned the exact same thing. I know many people in the 18-25 age range (and beyond!) really don't have a picture perfect game plan, myself included. Again it's one of the reasons I am hesitant to start down the engagement path - I honestly don't know where I will be in a few years, I don't know if/when my boyfriend will be able to follow me if I go to grad school out of state, there are way too many unknowns to know when our future together will start. Watching my friends who are bouncing aimlessly from retail dead-end job to retail dead-end job, who can't get their act together in school or who do all but admit to Dating Plus but can still be 100% of one thing in their lives even if it's only for a little while, I wonder what exactly is wrong with me that I can't say for certain we will be together at XYZ point and we will live happily ever after when I know damn well I CAN'T say that until the next level of schooling is more certain lest I want to be perpetually in engaged limbo... I don't know if it's because I percieve myself as "too young" or what, but I am jealous I cannot have any certainty in my life like that.

I don’t know how to do multiple quotes so I am just going to reply to everyone at once. Juliana – I thought I was going to be ok with a promise ring when it was first mentioned last summer since at that point I really did feel as if I was too young and not together long enough to consider “the real thing.” I did try putting it on my right hand after I freaked out over the weekend, but I use a computer a lot for school work and constantly smacking it into the mouse and the click-click sound it made drove me crazy so I switched it back this morning. It’s a simple silver or white gold band with an inset little square shaped aquamarine so it doesn’t even look like an engagement ring. I’m tempted to start just calling it a pre-engagement ring since that is true, and just leave it at that to let people assume the only delay is for him to save up money for the main event. Batya33 – Probably not! A number of my friends would talk about how they were hoping he’d propose, or how there was “competition” in the family and the like so I have a funny feeling a number of them were to shut the girl up or they’ve been dating too short to move beyond the honeymoon stage when the issues beside what you’re first dance will be to or who’s going to be the maid of honor come up. Some I’m pretty certain have their priorities straight (and I don’t think it’s a coincedence it’s the ones that are either older, have solid school/career plans or have been together for more than 18 months?) and those I’m happy for. It’s the girls who to me seem to rush into this to validate their relationship, move out of their parents house and “show off” that make me jealous for some reason. BeStrongBeHappy – I don’t know if I mentioned this, but in the time between first bringing up the promise ring idea and when I got it, my boyfriend actually asked me on more than one occasion if I’d prefer for him to skip it and get an engagement ring and propose for real instead, and I was the one who said no, 20 is too young and we haven’t been dating long enough and I didn’t want to be in a sort of “Dating Plus” relationship for the next 2-3 years with no concrete plans. Since I don’t know exactly when or where I will be going to grad school or if he can follow me immediately if it’s not local, we both agree it doesn’t make sense to start planning for the future like that. Sometime after that, when watching everyone with “less qualified stats” get engaged, I guess is when emotionally I did feel ready to make the commitment, but my head is still screaming no I am too young and it’s too soon. I would say thereforeeee the problem is less about him not committing and me getting to the point where I do feel as if I have all the “pre-requisites” for being engaged (age, time together, solid academic plans, pre-pre-marital counseling completed (that is a requirement for him as well) etc) all there. I turn 21 and hit the 3 year mark within the next 6 weeks, so maybe that will be enough mentally to make me feel I’m not rushing even though rationally what difference will 6 weeks really make. I also don’t believe in engagement being the trial period, I feel as though you should be coming into engagement with all that stuff figured out and not running into those potential red flags and non-negotiables once you “decide” to get married , especially once you start throwing money around for wedding preparations. I think just flat out exclusive dating is how you find out if that’s the route you want to go, since if you’re going to break an engagement down the road how is that much different than breaking up from regular dating in the long run other than it is that much more painful and messy? MissyM – Two of my cousins are in the same boat you are in, one has been cohabiting for 3 years, the other 6 and both are light years away from getting engaged, and the girls involved are not thrilled about it. My boyfriend knows I absolutely refuse to live together until marriage/engagement, it’s not even practical until I graduate with my BS because I just couldn’t afford it anyway. Batya33 – I don’t know if you were replying to me or MissyM, but right now I don’t feel the need to put a deadline since I’m fairly certain he will propose before too far into 2008, if not this year (after we finish pre-pre-marital counseling of course) And rationally, that’s fine with me. Emotionally, my dumb girl side I think does want it to come sooner because the commitment is already there, but realistically I just can’t rationalize doing it so soon when there’s over a year window of when we’d actually wind up married. That and I’m still on the young side and part of me thinks it's crazy to decide that because 3 years is a drop in the bucket compared to "the rest of your life."

I want to get married eventually (in '09-'10 not anytime soon of course!) because I really don't like the idea of living together before marriage or more than a few months beforehand (I'm not religious but I still don't like the idea of only partially committing to a common future like that, having an apartment/house/everything together but not getting any of the legal benefits) The next of kin medical stuff is very important to me, because heaven forbid something happen I would rather not have my ultra-religious family decide things for me. Right now though, I enjoy just being a college student without the weight of it all on me, and honestly I don't think we are marriage ready - probably by my friends' standards but not mine. I downloaded an e-book of 1000 questions to ask each other and we're going to start on that tonight, since there are so many things I want to be on the same page about before getting engaged. But I guess the main thing is, I know that if I intend on going away to another city for grad school, either we will be LDR which is something neither one of us wants, we live in different places in the same city due to me refusing to shack up beforehand which is silly for dating for 5-6 years at that point, or we start down the marriage road either then or beforehand. So watching friend after friend get engaged, it makes me question why I am the odd one out and the only one who seems to really understand the gravity of the situation and how serious "forever" really is. I have work now so I'll reply to everyone else later tonight.

I think you may have just hit the nail on the head. I think it's more about feeling like this is what I should be doing than what I really want to be doing. I also hate to admit, but the whole idea of getting engaged now really scares me. That's completely silly of me, I don't even want to worry about any of this until I absolutely have to but I think your right, it's starting to become the standard in my circle so the fact that I don't feel like I'm ready but I feel like I HAVE to be ready at this stage of my life/relationship is stressing me out. I agree, I think it's just excessive to be engaged for so long. It makes it seem like they're going for Dating Plus and Wedding Planning instead of Preparation For Marriage, which I know is horrible of me to think is the case among a few of my friends... but from knowing them I don't think I'm too far from the truth. I think that's another reason why I'm freaking out, I'm still "too far out" by my own personal standards so I shouldn't even think about this beyond starting to go to pre-marital counseling in the next few months. Heck, maybe I should try and do it sooner than later, I bet a lot of my subconscious fears of maturing, commitment and the like I'm obviously supressing if they're coming out violently like this would get addressed during that. Oh yeah, I know my time will come eventually. I think I honestly wish I could skip all the formalities and just be done with it all. I guess I just got affected by "peer pressure" a lot more than I care to admit to

Maybe I came accross wrong by text, but the ONLY times it has ever bothered me were the specific events I wrote about. Beyond those times and me venting right now (it was just last night I freaked out, and I just read an article on why people should be getting premarital counciling before engagement when I got home that prompted this post) I don't feel as if I dwell on it consistantly. We've already discussed most of this, but all of a sudden I slipped into random irrational jealousy mode and it drives me insane. And again, in of itself having a promise ring is not a problem but that hasn't stopped my mom, family friends and heck even my orthodontist from seeing the promise ring asking about when he proposed and when I respond in the negative, when the "real thing" is coming. And I'm not going to lie, it is really akward for me to explain what's up without feeling as if I'm coming accross as a 14 year old who's "like totally engaged!!!11" to marry her boyfriend of 3 months after they graduate college. It's like I'd almost rather be "just dating" than feeling like I'm stuck in some sort of limbo I don't feel comfortable in. Maybe the problem is I feel pressured from everyone else, either from directly asking or indirectly by getting engaged themselves, that I need to be engaged by now and I don't feel ready, I'm too immature and young for all this but there must be something wrong with me if I'm the only college girl I know who's not itching to be engaged nownownow. Beyond all this, I'd say my relationship is not unhealthy or with serious red flags. Communication otherwise is not a problem, again it probably didn't seem that way just from a few paragraphs but that's not the problem. The only major doubts either one of us has on marriage is the timeline and when we'll fit it in with grad school - of course I say this without having gone through counceling together, but I am honest in saying I don't think there is anything majorly incompatible going on.

I feel so embarrassed to even be posting this, and this is going to be beyond long... ok, so I have never been one of the girls who was hounding her boyfriend to pop the question since becoming exclusive or had planned their Barbie dream wedding since age 10, in fact I dread having to deal with all the crap that goes along with having a wedding. However, that hasn't stopped me from feeling like my heart is ripped in half whenever one of my or my boyfriend's friends gets engaged. There tends to be a surge every 6 months (summer and Christmas) and during the '06 summer surge and two more of his friends jumped onto the engagement train my boyfriend decided he wanted to get me a promise ring. We had been dating for about 2 1/2 years at that point, I'm 20 and he was almost 24 so I figured it wasn't a bad idea since while everyone getting engaged was in our age range (and in most cases dating less time than we had been) I still felt like it was too soon. Fast forward to the end of the year. As he's asking me to start scout out ring styles, like literally as I am loading up sites I find out one of my friends my age who had only been dating her boyfriend 10 months had already gotten her engagement ring setting. I just broke down crying, and I really couldn't figure out why. I know my friend was still clearly in the "honeymoon" stage but it still crushed me and I felt so horrible and embarrassed when I had to explain why I couldn't bring myself to look up promise rings. This wasn't like me, I'm not supposed to care about this. He said he wouldn't give me one if it was going to make me unhappy but I said no it was fine, I thought it was. Christmas comes and no surprise, I get a promise ring from my boyfriend. I think the fact that it came in the wrong size and way too big to wear helped set the stage of me being uncomfortable with it. I wear it on my left ring finger (since it was also going to double as a "please don't hit on me I'm taken" signal) Christmas goes and two more friends are engaged, and one of his friends who had only been dating her boyfriend for a few months got a promise ring too. Again, this hurt me so much for no good reason. I don't even know if I want my friends to notice I got one because I know it's going to lead to wondering why I'm not engaged, and I don't think I could really handle having to admit to everyone I'm just too immature to be engaged if this is how I am reacting to everyone else's. This weekend. I was spending the night at my boyfriend's house and definitely three sheets to the wind after more booze than I probably should have had. Checked my Myspace and the friend from two paragraphs prior just got engaged. I completely break down crying. I don't quite remember everything since I was fairly drunk at this point, but I had no choice but to have to explain to my boyfriend what was bothering me. And I felt so embarrassed, so stupid and like this little immature girl who can't feel anything but jealous. I couldn't understand why I, the rational scientific one was breaking down and crying like a baby over something so petty. And I started wondering, what do all our friends have that we don't? Why am I the only one who is too immature to be engaged by the 3 year mark? With one exception of a couple that's a less than functional LDR with no end in sight, we don't know ANYONE in our circle of friends who dated for as long as we did before a proposal. And for some stupid reason, it hurts. I should also add that talking about marriage and all that jazz isn't a complete surprise to my boyfriend. I have already made it quite clear I refuse to move in together until I am engaged because I watched my cousins get into that trap and 6 years later and it's still just "getting the milk for free." I am going to start grad school in either Jan or Sept '09 (did I mention that a few of our engaged friends are looking at dates LATER THAN THAT to get married? that also just stabs me in the heart!) and if that's the route we're going to go down I'd like to be married either shortly before or within a semester of starting grad school so I can get on his insurance and honestly, maybe I'm just old fashioned like that and don't see a need to go out of my way to not get married when I go to grad school because I "need the experience of the single life" or whatever. My boyfriend and I decided we're going to start premarital counseling soon because it seems silly to me to start that AFTER you already set a date and start throwing money around before being 115% certain it's going to stick, and also agreed to order some books online - does anyone have any recommendations for books either as a couple or of the "yes you are not the only girl who isn't all smiles and gumdrops about getting engaged/married." I'm so lucky that he's accepting of my stupid girl jealousy, but I wish I knew how I could just shut that part of me off until it's my turn. I wish I knew how to not be mentally calculating how long they've been together and ages and deciding whether or not I "measure up." I wish I could not be ashamed of getting a promise ring when everyone else is getting the real thing, which is something I've always associated with high schoolers and people who still measure their relationship in months. I just wish I was mature enough to be engaged and not freak out about it. I know I'm not mature enough otherwise I wouldn't be getting so unhappy, and I hope I can find a way to get past that so I'm not a miserable wreck every time I watch someone pass me by and get engaged younger than us after dating less time than us... If anyone read all that, wow. If it wasn't the internet I'd give you a cookie.