Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email [email protected]
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
pushy to get the ring!? oh boy.
long story short: One of my best friends' cousin just got engaged to a guy she had been dating for 5+ years. Said best friend has been dating her boyfriend also for approx 5+ years. Best friend gets the call from her cousin about the engagement...hangs up the phone after being "happy for her" and calls her boyfriend to tell him, thanks alot for making me look so dumb since you haven't proposed yet.
(no word on whether he has taken action, although he was spotted at a jewelers not too long after that fight)I'm disappointed in my friend for her actions/pushy behavior...and this isn't the first "pushy" incident I've heard about.. but that isn't what I'm writing about...any of you nesties out there "push" for marriage, get your way and it worked out FINE!? or maybe you girls had a friend like mine and gave her some advice that she actually listened to!? it's her life, but I truly want the best for both of them!
Re: pushy to get the ring!? oh boy.
Nope... because I didn't want to force someone into a lifelong commitment with me.
I would just ask her how exciting it will be to get that ring when she knows he felt FORCED into it and that he didn't actually want to do it. Wont it suck all the fun out of it? And how well does she think a marriage is going to go that was built on the foundation of an ultimatum?
Currently Reading: Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes
Nope, didn't push my H to propose... if he'd had it his way he would've proposed much earlier but I wanted to graduate from college first and six weeks after I got my diploma I got a ring.
My twin sister has been dating the same guy for 8 years now, living with him for I think 3 years and still no ring. Before I started dating my H I was telling her to give him an ultimatum, but I get it now. She wants him to want to propose.
agreed. she is very headstrong...and so probably needs tough love?! I dunno, part of me feels like I have no place to say anything, the other part of me is screaming "red flag, red flag!"
the crazy part is, i kinda think they should go their separate ways. they have been on/off for those 5 years and my other friends and I feel that it is possible he really just doesn't want to get married...which is fine. but what is not fine is pushing something that isn't there, for the sake that others around her are married and starting families. she has tunnel vision and is not seeing the big picture. sigh.
thanks imoan
What she needs to do:
Sit him down and have a frank and open talk -- she has full right to ask him if an engagement is iminent.
If he can't give her an answer, he hedges or he says no, she should cut her losses and move on.
The people in this scenario are rather young; I am willing to bet that they're all young 20s.
yes mid 20's. i think they have sort of had these kinds of talks, but i don't think they have been honest with themselves. pretty sure HE is choosing to say what she may want to hear, and I don't think she wants to face reality so she remains with him non-the-less.
Then this is a mess in itself.
I know somebody who was well into her 30s when she started to date this guy; when it came to marriage, every year for 7 years he'd tell her "next year"...finally he cleared out in Year 7. He left her a Dear Jane letter and that was the last she heard from him.
At no point did she ever bother to sit down with him for a come to Jesus talk. She took him on blind faith. Some women sure are nuts. Or desparate.
Well, I told DH after a year together, "Hey honey, I got into graduate school across the country, and I'd love for you to go with me, but I'd like to be married first." He said, "Ok. That sounds good." We picked out a ring the next month, and he proposed 2 months later.
Not very romantic, but 8 years later it's worked quite well.
Here's the thing, though: I really was going to grad school---with him, or without him. If he had said, "Well, I'm not really ready, but I'd still like to go" I think we would have compromised and decided to revisit the issue in a year or something, but after that I would have cut my losses and moved on. I have too much going for me to be with someone who isn't excited about a permanent future with me.
I wasn't pushy. But I was honest. I told my DH, back when we were dating, that I wanted to get married at some point. I didn't want to date forever. And I wouldn't stay in a dating relationship forever. I felt that at our ages, 28/30, we should have it figured out within a year whether we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together or not.
DH, I believe, would have been happy either way. He wants to spend the rest of his life with me, but he might have been fine to remain unmarried while doing so.
But I made it known that marriage was paramount to me. So he did what he needed to do to.
I was pushy in as much as I made it clear that marriage was very important to me.
We bought a house together before we were oficially engaged ie he hadn't actually taken the time to say to me, "i want to marry you, will you be my wife" but we had talked about it and had an understanding.
However, I made it clear that I wasn't the girl that was going to sit around hoping and wishing for a ring for 10years and that houses got bought and sold everyday.
In my mind I had given him a year to propose, but I didn't tell him this. I was ready to walk out the door if he wouldn't commit and honestly if I'd gotten as far as, "you haven't proposed I"m moving out next weekend" and then he proposed I would have thought long and hard before I said yes.
As it is he proposed after about 5 months of us living together.
In hindsight I think he needed for us to live together first for his own piece of mind.
Elizabeth 3yrs old Jane 1yr old
Oh and our 7th wedding anniversary is in two weeks and we've just had our first daughter.
We've had our ups and downs but yes I would say we have worked out well.
Elizabeth 3yrs old Jane 1yr old
I wouldn't call her "pushy" if they've been dating for FIVE YEARS. I'm not sure why you think it's 100% up to the male in the relationship to decide when they are going to get engaged/married. After all, a proposal (that the man usually makes) is an ultimatium of sorts.
DH and I got engaged after a year of dating, but I don't think it's wrong to sit your boyfrien down and say "hey, what are your intentions here? because if you don't have the same long term goals for this relationship, I'll find someone whos goals are more alligned with mine."
No, I didn't pressure him. We had one conversation about it then he proposed about a year later. But we were 24/25ish and I wasn't feeling like I was no longer a spring hen, as my lovely aunt would say. I felt we had plenty of time. I knew he wanted to marry me and would as soon as he had plenty of money to buy rings for me.
I know a handful of girls who put a lot of pressure on their guys to propose. I don't get it myself, but everyone around them gives them the major side eye for it, trust me.
Wahoo brings up a good point. She should be able to TALK to him about their relationship, where does he see it going, etc. Then figure out if she wants to stay w/ him or not.
But - I think her approach of yelling at him for making her look dumb.... that's not good, and it screams of a woman not happy in where her relationship is. If she isn't happy, then she needs to TALK to him about it. Not yell.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
Sounds to me like she is more concerned about "keeping up with the Jones'" than a true relationship with a committed partner. There is a big difference there between someone who truly wants to be married to someone and spend their life with them, who sits down and discusses it with their significant other, and someone who is pushing their partner into getting married because "everyone else is".
I have only seen this one time, and it was with a couple who was already married, however the wife desperately wanted to have a child, because she wanted to be the first one in the family to have a baby. Needless to say, it didn't work out and they are now arguing over custody and visitation of said child.
Personally, I would have too much pride to try and force someone into committing to me. If you don't want me, there's other fish in the sea.
I did not issue an ultimatum but I was pushy, I so admit it. The marriage is working out fine (6 months so far, lol) and we were already living together when we got engaged.
We dated for two months, then lived together for two months, got engaged and got married 6.5 months later. All in all, we had been together for 11 months when we got married - what can I say, we move fast.
I will say that the proposal was obviously not romantic at all or surprising. I wouldn't trade for MH for anything in the world but I would also give anything to go back and not push and be pleasantly surprised by the proposal and the ring.
Tell her that she will want to cherish that memory and if she forces the proposal, the memory is just not the same at all. GL! :-)
Uh-oh, did I do that?!
<a href="http://www.TickerFactory.com/">
<img border="0" src="http://tickers.TickerFactory.com/ezt/d/4;10742;3/st/20140814/e/Master%27s+Graduation%21/k/d4ae/event.png"></a>
DH always talked about marrying me someday, but he never proposed. He even set a date in his head, yet that day came and went. Finally I sat him down and told him I was graduating college and if we wanted me in his life he was going to have to propose before I graduated or it was over. I was up front I wasn't going to wait forever.
After 3.5 years of dating DH proposed 8 weeks before I graduated college. I needed a commitment and I think he saw that. I think it worked out well for us, but then again we haven't been married that long.
We would talk about getting married and so when we went to weddings I'd sigh and say "I wish I was the pretty bride" and he'd laugh at me. I don't think it was pushy, but I guess some may disagree. We were also engaged for 2 years
I agree with everyone else, there's nothing wrong with asking where the relationship is headed, if marriage is on the horizon, saying you want to be married or engaged within a certain time frame.
What's pushy to me is saying "you'd better be buying me a ring soon." Even if he had one and was waiting for the right moment to propose I think it would just kind of diminish the proposal. Also, I find nothing wrong with a scenerio the one poster described (suggesting let's get married and then going to get the ring), just because I don't think it's the same. And I doubt someone demanding a ring NOW would be okay with a casual engagement story like that. She probably also wants him to do the perfect roses and dinner and ring in the wine or whatever Hollywood perfect romance scene fits.