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godiva33
Joined: 19 Aug 2008
Posts: 2
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 Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 7:06 pm Post subject: Will he ever marry me? |
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| My boyfriend and I have been together for 7 years already, 3 living together. HE was doing his phd and whenever I brought the subject of marriage to the conversation he always said that he first had to finish his phd and then we would talk about it. Now it's been 3 months after he had his exam and we havent talked about marriage anymore. He is in the transition from being a student to finding a job, which keeps him very anxious and a bit depressed. I am trying to support him on this transition but somethimes I find myself wandering if I should be patient and don't tell anything or if I have the right to know what he's thinking, or if we should remain unmarried. I think we both love each other, but then again, I don't know where we are going. He is 38 and I am 33. Thanks for all the wisdom you can share with me!! |
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chris artist
Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 14
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| Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 9:56 pm Post subject: is marriage all that important? |
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These may not be the words you want to hear but why is it important to be married?
Presuming you are living together and have been together this long, what does this contract mean for you? If it is for financial security or because you want to have children? There are many other, much better ways, to create a binding agreement for these 2 issues as well as myriad others. In fact, depending on the lawyer, these agreements can be far superior to anything a marriage contract (MC) will provide. Take a look at the most recent statistics and you will see that marriage has been steadily declining amongst the 20-40 year age groups, while "living together" and "couple" contracts are on the rise.
Marriage just isn't what it used to be. Ask yourself if you really care about this person and want to spend the rest of your life with them with or without the MC. If the answer is yes then find a good lawyer to create a "couples" contract that way if you helped finance that PHd or anything else you are also being "paid back" equitably. If your amor balks at the contract then you may have to be asking yourself some other questions.
Basically, you are asking for security in one way or the other and if he balks thinking his word is good enough ask him how he would feel if they just told him he had a PHd and wouldn't send him a copy of his credentials. He would just have to accept his degree on faith! If he loves you and wants to stay with you he should put up or shut up. So shut him up or ship him out. Time is awastin'! |
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godiva33
Joined: 19 Aug 2008
Posts: 2
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| Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 11:57 pm Post subject: Re: is marriage all that important? |
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Dear Christ-artist:
Thank you very much for your words. What you say is absolutely sensible and gives me light. Anyway I will give here a little bit of background to try to explain why marriage is somewhat important to me.
a) I come from a presbiterian family, which means they don't accept free union. My mother, who is really kind and nice, had a hard time accepting me moving with my boyfriend, and kept telling me that he was not respecting me or loving me enough. Now she realizes that he is nice and loves him very much. BUT would not let anybody else in the family or among friends of hers find out that I am living with him, so I cannot tell them anything abut my life. I don't mind, but they do try to make me feel like I am worthless for not having a husband at my age. I don't mind that either, but still it's aukward somethimes.
b) We live in Mexico. I am mexican but he is european. My boyfriend and I decided to get together because we think life is beautiful and we are very happy together. But he knows that sometimes people treat me as a cheap woman because we are not married. I used to be very upset because of this, but now I don't care anymore about what people say. Nevertheless, there are other difficult situations, ie. The other day I had to go to the hospital and they said a relative of mine had to be there. There he was, but since he is not my husband, we had to call my mother. ie.2: He's having a hard time with the emigration laws. everything would be easier if we were married, but...
c) in Mexico there are not couple agreements, so either it is marriage or it is nothing.
Having said all this, I still think your considerations are right. Love is the real bond between two people and not a contract.
Thank you again! |
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Orion23
Joined: 11 Apr 2008
Posts: 22
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| Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 12:11 am Post subject: Re: Will he ever marry me? |
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| godiva33 wrote: | | My boyfriend and I have been together for 7 years already, 3 living together. HE was doing his phd and whenever I brought the subject of marriage to the conversation he always said that he first had to finish his phd and then we would talk about it. Now it's been 3 months after he had his exam and we havent talked about marriage anymore. He is in the transition from being a student to finding a job, which keeps him very anxious and a bit depressed. I am trying to support him on this transition but somethimes I find myself wandering if I should be patient and don't tell anything or if I have the right to know what he's thinking, or if we should remain unmarried. I think we both love each other, but then again, I don't know where we are going. He is 38 and I am 33. Thanks for all the wisdom you can share with me!! |
You need to listen to the voice inside of you. No one here can tell you if he will ever marry you. However, the fact that you are 7 years into the relationship and you "don't know where we are going" speaks volumes. He could be depressed about not being able to find a job (which is probably debilitating after working so hard for the Ph.D.). However, I do not think that a job is a prerequisite for marriage. My instinct tells me that he's using the Ph.D. as a smoke-screen but I don't know nearly enough about your situation to give that as a hard reason for his actions.
My advice is that you talk to him about his depression and try to solve that problem first. Counseling may be an option in this case. After that is solved, you will have a better idea about his true feelings about marriage. I do not feel that you should give him an ultimatum because if that's what it takes to get a guy to marry you, it's not real anyway. I do advocate that after you have talked about it and been open and honest with him, that you give yourself a timetable. If he does not act like he's looking to marry you after, say, a year, you end it and move on. Again, you should not have to pressure him into manning up and this way, you won't. It will be difficult to do if it comes to that but it can be done. And, if marriage is important to you, why should you settle for anything less? |
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courtneyiscool
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
Posts: 130
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| Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 7:47 pm Post subject: I agree with Orion23. Don't settle. You deserve to be happy |
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| in life and that includes being with a guy who's right for you! Let us know how it goes.... |
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