Um I find it a little odd that people join a site dedicated to weddings before they are planning one; it barely occured to me to even look for one until I was faced with the prospect of organizing the big day. But you find a few – a sizeable few – who are dedicating their lives to all things wedding despite either being in dead-end relationships, no relationship at all or – playing a waiting game with their prospective spouses.
Now I may not have been as blatent about it as some women but I have played the waiting game. I was involved with someone years ago whom I thought I loved. I was “mad about him” and we were together a long time. As time went on I wanted to believe we had a future so I thought we should get married. now I knew his problems, knew he would never be a good husband and knew above all we had a terrible relationship but - I still felt that I was waiting to be asked.
If I had married him my life would have been miserable. As it was I used his reluctance to get married as a springboard for releasing myself from the relationship. He is an alcoholic so the guilt I felt at leaving was suffocating. The argument “but he keeps saying we have no future ie we won’t get married” was a crutch for me, it gave me something, anything, with which to counter the dreadful feeling that I had abandoned him and therefore was a Bad Person (TM)
We do know, whether we admit it or not if our relationships are good or bad, flawed or functioning. A man who resists asking his girlfriend of 7 years to marry him also probably knows in his heart of hearts, that she is not “the one.” He knows he is too young, not really in love, not mature enough; he knows whether or not he wants to get married.
He also knows, if he is honest whether he is asking because he is afraid of being alone, or of confronting the fact that a long term relationship has failed. We all know. Women know that reluctance to get married often means reluctance to marry them; the same man will marry a girlfriend after six months if he really loves her.
If I could go back I would have been honest with myself and walked away a lot sooner; i would ahve minimized the damage done to my life by a bad relationship. If there was one piece of advice I itch to give on the innumerable threads on all these relationship/wedding oriented sites – “Does he love me?” “Why won’t he ask me?” – it’s this -
You should be asking whether this relationship is good for you. Does it fulfill you, do you feel wanted, needed, loved, valued? Are you happy? Does he make you feel secure in this relationship? do you trust him? Don’t listen to the women telling you “Hang on in there all men are reluctant, he’ll change if you just manage him correctly.” Be honest with yourself. Examine your own motives.
And then ask if you want to marry him!
And above all, stop thinking of it as the prize at the end of the rainbow. Live today, as well as you can and don’t wish away your present on a future you may not even want!
