Living together to marriage
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Living together to marriage
| Sat, 08-07-2004 - 8:27pm |
I have been with my live in boyfriend for almost two and a half years. When he moved in over a year ago I told him that after a year of living together I expect us to make a decision about pursuing marriage and that if we decided not to go down that road then he would have to move out of my house. When the year was up I started talking about marriage a lot. I knew that I wanted to be with him. He gave me many reasons why he didn't want to get married (one being that he wasn't sure about me) and he wasn't sure when he would know if he wanted to but to please give him time. I decided to give him 3 months to think on it without any talk from me about it. During this time marriage was not brought up once. In July I went to Italy for a month with friends. I decided that when I got back that I would ask him to move out but that I still wanted to continue dating. A week after I got home I had the talk with my boyfriend. His reply was that he was going to ask me to marry him soon if I could have only waited. Now he is very angry with me for asking him to move out. I still feel like we should not live together right now. I question his reasons for telling me now that he wants to get married, even though I know that he loves me. We have both been divorced before, so I want to make absolutely sure that his desire to get married is real and not based on the inconvience of having to move out (he is financialy strapped so it is difficult for him to find a place to live.) I think that I also need some time to think. Am I being unfair? Is there a better approach to this?

::I think that I also need some time to think. Am I being unfair? Is there a better approach to this?
Ask yourself this, are you were you want to be (with him) with or without marriage? Do you feel this is where you are suppose to be in this moment?
Carrie
I had a similar experience. After living with SO's, I decided I would not do the live-in thing again, unless we were going to get married. I let my SO move in with me when he decided to go back to school to make a better life for us (he lives in the next city south, the university is very close by me in my city). It made sense, after all, he was doing it for us.
Four years pass, he gets his engineering degree in June 2003, but he is still unemployed (the economy is really bad here at the moment). I give it one year. When June 2004 rolled around, I told him he had to move out. Now he lives with his mom. In a way, we are both relieved a bit, as I don't have to swallow my resentment daily about being the main financial support (I'll bet you feel like that right now, eh?), and he doesn't have to feel "supported" by me.
Anyhow, ask yourself - do you really want to marry a guy that is financially strapped? Do you really want to marry a guy because you've talked him into it? It is disappointing, but it kind of sounds like he's using you a bit. I think by having him move out (and NO "staying over" so much he might as well have never left), things will be much clearer for you.
I think you know what to do!
MB