am i wrong for feeling this way?

[happywithu]

I have been with my partner for almost 6 years, living together for 3. we have never had any real problems, very early on in our realtionship he told me he would never get married,and i was (and still am) fine with that.

He explained about his past, and how his ex girlfriend left him for his best friend one day when he was at work,when he got home that night there was a note from her saying she had gone to be with the "better" man.

as you can imagine it hurt him as they were together for 2 years. so when we first met he had trouble with trust etc. it has been hard but i helped him through it all,and slowly he has opened up to me,talked about is feelings etc. as an example it took him almost 2 years to tell me he loved me.

anyway, the other month we were talking about marriage, as one of our friends just got engaged, he told me he still felt the same about never wanting marriage, he said he had never had that WOW feeling where he knew inside that he wanted to marry someone.

however, over the last few weeks, he has made a few comments to me which indicate he might be changing his mind and i dont want to read to much into something that might not be the case lol.

for instance instead of saying "if we" he will now say, "when we" as in, when we get married i want it to be this way, most of the time it is in a jokey way, this is going to sound bad, but i feel ready myself now, i have never been the kind of woman to dream about which dress i will wear etc, marriage had never been a big deal, i dont know what it is, maybe its my age and the fact that i am getting more mature, (im 26), or maybe i have never had a realtionship like this one before, all my past relationships were bad, as in they hit me, treated me like dirt, he is the only guy never to hit me, hurt me,and he treats me like gold.....i dont want to feel like this, i am very happy with our relationship, i guess what i am trying to say is, im confused as to if i should talk to him about it all? im not expecting a proposal, i guess im just feeling maternal and dont know what to do about it...

[TiredMan]

My advice would be if you like this relationship, take it for what it is. Don't "expect" marriage since he told you what he felt about that before and you said you were ok with it. If he changes his mind, then he does. If not, at least you both are together and you said he treats you well which is the most important thing.

 

I don't blame him for trust issues. The best friend thing wow. That is a double stab in the back from two people he thought he could trust. Do you know if his parents got divorced? And did they/do they fight a lot?

[anggrace]

Well, I know this is just a temporary fix, but dogs are really good for relieving some of those maternal feelings. I know thats not what you really want, but if it could help you get out some of those urges, mabey it wouldn't feel so urgent. It worked for me!

 

6 years has been a long time. I hope he is able to come to some conclusion soon and not feel so torn over it. But thats definatly not something you want to push him in too. How long are you willing to wait?

[happywithu]

in reply to tiredman, his parents are in their 70`s and are still madly in love and together, its really sweet to see them..and to annggrace, i am willing to wait for as long as it takes, i would never force it with him, i am very happy to just enjoy what we have right now, i dont expect to get married any time soon, if at all, it just hit me that i may never marry the guy i love and it scared me a little bit.

[melrich]

You are not wrong for feeling that way. It is how you feel.

 

To be honest, whislt I can understand his being upset by the situation with his previous g/f, I can't really see what it has to do with marriage.

 

I think if you are feeling like this you should talk to him about it. He seems to have been upfront with you about his feelings about marriage but people do change over time. He may still be dead against it and then I guess you have to consider how important it is to you.

 

But you never know, maybe he is starting to feel like marriage would be the good thing to do.

[DragonofChaos]

Good god happywithu if you were in my state I'd have to swear to you that you were my long lost twin!!! I'm going through the EXACT SAME THING. I too don't usually mind the fact that my bf had a bad past and is afraid to marry but lately he's bringing up buying a house together and always references our future and it's got me thinking about it too! For the past year I've been driving myself nuts about our relationship as it progresses.

 

I really feel for you and I wish I had a permanent solution for you, all I've been doing is pampering our kitty, and giving our new kitty more toys then you could imagine >.>

[shikashika]

I guess my problem with someone saying"I will never get married"

sounds like they are walking around with a chip on their shoulder harbouring some bitterness to someone else..

 

And... if his reason is because some girl broke his heart 6 years ago.. whats that got to do with you?

 

Marriage is about commitment...and plenty of people are in long term relationships aren't married... but i guess I'd have to ask... in your situation... why is he so against marriage?

 

Is he really saying..I want to love you and commit to you forever but won't get the piece of paper.. or is he saying" I don't want to commit to you forever'

 

What is is that you are feeling confused about? The fact that he is now sort of changing his mind?

[DragonofChaos]

I guess my problem with someone saying"I will never get married"

sounds like they are walking around with a chip on their shoulder harbouring some bitterness to someone else..

 

And... if his reason is because some girl broke his heart 6 years ago.. whats that got to do with you?

 

Marriage is about commitment...and plenty of people are in long term relationships aren't married... but i guess I'd have to ask... in your situation... why is he so against marriage?

 

Is he really saying..I want to love you and commit to you forever but won't get the piece of paper.. or is he saying" I don't want to commit to you forever'

 

What is is that you are feeling confused about? The fact that he is now sort of changing his mind?

 

Since this is your thread happywithu I'm going to leave it to you to try to explain what it's like, and what goes on in the mind lol. It's really hard for those who aren't experiencing it to try to understand, which is fine. I think you and I, happywithu probably have the exact same thought regarding this subject

[TiredMan]

But if he has been saying this the whole time, it would be unfair to expect someone to change.

 

It's like marrying a cop and then later on, asking him to quit because you dont like he is a cop.

 

I asked about the parents to try to see why he might not want marriage ever. It might just be a personal choice. He might later change his mind. Who knows. Enjoy what you have though.