I agree with GreyFuzzy and Chewiekiki. If you're looking to be married NOW, then this is not the guy for you. At least he had the balls to admit he's not ready. If, however, you're certain that this is the guy, then you have to decide whether you're willing to wait. I can say that at 28, I'm a much different person than I was at 20 or 22. I will also say that I've been married for almost 3 years, and marriage is different than just living with someone.
I was engaged to my high school sweetheart when I was 20, and we ended it when I was 22 (never married) - and I don't regret it for an instant, even though we were together 7 years. We definitely wouldn't have grown old together.
I married my husband after only 8 months of dating, and 5 months of living together. It's the experiences I had in my 20s that made me confident he was "the one". He's also considerably older than I am - my stepkids are 18 and 19, closer to your age than I am (and they are far from ready to be married to anyone). I firmly believe age CAN be nothing more than a number...but experiences are what give us wisdom, and at 20 you haven't had much experience as an adult.
LOLA926 4/14/07 7:33 A
I had to wait 5 1/2 yrs!!!! I just got engaged last weekend, and we have lived together for 3 1/2 yrs(I am 24 and he is 27). If you are really that concerned about it talk to him. DONT PUSH!!! I have been told by MANY men, that they are scared, getting married brings ALOT of pressure for them(to take care of you, kids, money, house, etc).
D finally opened up and told me he was scared that we would get divorced(his parents did after 24 yrs of marriage). I told him that the only way we would end, was if HE walked out on me. I also told him to get out of his own way, and be happy.
If you love him, wait. AND believe me when I say...IT WILL BE WORTH ALL THE WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!
SHELL12367 4/13/07 10:33 A
I don't know if this will help you, but let me give you my story. My boyfriend and I just got engaged after 7 years! (yes, I said 7) We have been together since I was 19 and he was 23. We have lived together for 5 or 6 years. I have wanted to marry him since we were together for about 2 years. He just wasn't ready (his family divorces, etc) I was really getting myself upset over it all the time. Now that we are ebgaged and planning our wedding, I can honestly say that I am glad we waited. We were so young, and if we would have gotten married then, we probably would be divorced by now. We have grown so much together as seperate people and a couple. A lot of our friends were getting married and I was just getting upset, like "what is wrong with me why won't he marry me" but a lot of them now, are having problems in their marriage. I can honestly say that I am so ready now to marry him. Sorry this is so long, but I just wanted to tell you a little background. Guys do take longer in wanting a commitment.
ROSIET33 3/13/07 9:42 A
I don't think it matters how old you are, and if you're ready, that's fine (I'm 30 and getting married for the first time, so...). But I don't think it's fair to pressure your boyfriend. This is a huge step, and if he's not ready, then fine. Good for him for being honest with you. He's 22 - he gets to not be ready.
If this is something you want to end your relationship over, that's up to you, but it's not fair to push him.
Personally, I wouldn't buy or build a house with my boyfriend until we were at least engaged - that is a huge amount of money, and I would want to know that "we" officially owned it. A close friend just moved in with her boyfriend after 5 years of dating, and they are talking about buying a house, and she made it clear that it was not happeninng until there was a ring.
JOYFULSERENITY 3/5/07 1:50 P
in my opinion, you are too young... but it's just my opinion. I started dating my finace when I was 22 (I turn 27 this year) He asked me 2.5 years into our relationship... I am SO glad that we waited this long to get married because a couple years ago would have been way too soon.
As far as him not asking, don't push it. If he isn't ready to ask you, then it's not the right time. You can't bully your way into a marriage. When the time is right, then it's right. And then you can enjoy everything that goes along with it!
In the meantime, enjoy your new house. There are some of us on here who are engaged and don't get to enjoy that (or won't be able to in any forseeable future). There isn't any rule saying you can't look at wedding stuff, just don't share the things with your bf. It could cause issues.
75LOSER 3/4/07 11:28 P
My fiancee put a deadline on me and it almost ruined our relationship. If she hadn't backed down and let me come to the decision on my own, we wouldn't be getting married this December.
TERRI77 3/3/07 10:33 P
If he's not ready, he's not ready. You can't make will him to marry you. Well, you can, but he'll resent you for it for the rest of your lives and who wants that? You're very young. Give it a couple of years, if not more. If you're going to be together forever you have time.
MOON27 2/22/07 8:44 P
you know i feel the same way about age just being a number and you are the age you want to be. with that said im not saying your to young i think when your ready you know.now with that said let me tell you my story-- i met him he met me i was young he was was older.anyway here asked me to marry him after 2 years together i of course thought that was everything. anyway he turned out to be a cheating pig. needless to say we broke up he broke my heart,but i also believe all exprience you have in your life weither they are good or bad help you to learn and grow as a person only a select few in life find ( the one) without going through a pile of useless men. my point of the story honey is im glad it happened becuse right now im going to marry ( the one) in october- hes stinkie and makes me nuts but god help me everyday i look at that man and love him more. it took him six years to ask me. you have to know him good and if he says he will marry you just not now if you know in your heart of hearts he will ask you someday. than just wait you ever heard the saying somethings are worth waiting for well your true love is one of them.you know things you want now might be different from what you want when your my age. in fact when i was your age i was a mommie and im glad i love my babies and that was my path at the time. i suppose my whole point of all this sweetie is its wonderful to love a man but you dont let the man define who you are. you just be you. believe me honey if hes never going to ask you .you will know there will be red flags and stuff. also i told my baby he had six years after that he better cough up a ring and he did six years is a long time no presure on him and he still feels like a big man and that he did on his own time. however i was ready to back it up if he had not asked me his butt would have hit the crub so fast it would catch fire. i know it sounds silly. also always keep in mine that when he gets older he will change as well and you may not like who he becomes. i hope you find your way and he finds you a ring.
BUTTAHFLY 2/21/07 12:56 P
I forgot to mention in my past post that my fiancee and i were 16 and 17 when we met and started dating. I am now 26 and he is 25. When we get married in september he will be 26 and i will also be 26 since i don't turn 27 until october
HUSKY422 2/21/07 12:44 P
Honestly, he is 22 and you are 20...I can assure you he is definitely not ready!
My FI and I have been together for 8yrs now and he was 20 when we met, definitely not marriage material. We just decided last May to finally get married.
He will ask when he is ready and that could be 5 years from now. Probably not what you want to hear but just be happy that you have a great life with him, a home and a puppy. If you start pressuring him, that will be a surefire way to never get asked.
My two cents.
MSEXCITED 2/21/07 10:53 A
Aww.. hang in there, I know its tough but trust me... don't you want that when he does ask you to marry him he is 100% true... it should be the happiest time and therefore be when you both are ready.
You're moving in the right direction but so young... just be patient
BUTTAHFLY 2/20/07 11:05 A
Okay here is my 2 cents. I have been with my fiancee for 9 years and we have been living together for the past 6 years. We just got engaged this past year and we are getting married in Sept. He just wans't ready before now and i wasn't about to push him into it. We discussed marriage long before now and it kept coming back to he wasn't ready. I never pushed him or said marry me or its over, nor would i have left him just because he wasn't ready. My best advice is, if you both know you want to get married, but he doesn't want to right now because he isn't ready then stick it out. If he says that he never wants to get married then I would think about leaving him.
**SARA** 2/19/07 7:17 P
Confused, here is some more advice you probably don't want to hear. As someone who hears a lot of 18-21 year old talk, they all think they are more mature than the average person their age and they all have a story about how they had to grow up before they were ready. I am not saying that to be rude, just hopefully give you some perspective. Ditto the person that said dump him and move on. You are too young to be feeling that sort of pressure.
CARROLLKR 2/19/07 12:09 P
Well, I can give you a perspective from some one old enough to be your mother! I hate that I can say that. I was engaged at 20, he wasn't in any hurry to get married. I broke up with him. After we broke up I had the best time of my life. Did I make the right decision? Who knows. But I had fun! Now I am divorced to my first husband and engaged again. We dated over three years before he considered marriage. We discussed it, he wasn't opposed to it, just not ready. I waited and it was well worth the wait!
You are young enough that if you love him, give him some time. Let him know that you want to eventually be married. If he doesn't ever want to get married, he needs to let you know that. Be honest with him and hope he will be honest with you.
FLAUBERTBUNNY 1/25/07 5:51 P
Maybe you should ask why you want to be married? What does it mean to you?
I have a couple of friends who I think would be ideal for each other, but both tell me they would never date the other even though they hang out with each other all the time and get along great. They tell me it's because they both feel that people can be happy together without having to be together in a relationship -- I think for them, this works.
I think for others, there is sometimes the stigma of living with someone, but not being married and there's something about that situation that is still viewed as a little taboo. I know that my mother, for one, frowned upon the idea of my boyfriend and I living together before marriage. Up until the time that we became engaged she would still ask me when I thought we were getting married.
You two just bought a house together and I know that if it were me in your situation I would be questioning as well... mostly because if I owned half the house and we broke up, would we both still live there and what happens if one of us wants to see other people? It would be awkward.
Would you feel better if you were engaged to him, but he never got around to setting a date to marry or kept postponing?
CARROT_RED_HEAD 1/24/07 10:20 P
The way I look at it, think in five years... IF you leave him b/c hes not ready, are you always going to regret what "could have been" if you waited? Is HE right for you? If he is, then wait.. If your so sure your ready to spend the REST OF YOUR LIFE with him, then why not give him the time to come to the same conclusion. He obvously must be worth it if you want to grow old with him.
GREYFUZZY 1/24/07 12:05 P
My fiance and I met and started dating when he was 19 and I was 20... I don't know about 'ready', but I was interested in getting married by the time I hit 23. Anyway, he did not propose until just after my 26th birthday.
My point is this - is it more important to you to get married in the next 5 years, or to get married to THIS GUY? If you just wanted to get married, then the solution would be pretty simple... but it doesn't sound like that's what you want. If it's him you want, then you just may have to wait a little longer than you'd like.
I always envisioned myself married, in a house with a kid by age 26... instead I just have a ring on my finger and a date in 2008. Things don't always work out on the timeline we'd planned, but I would much rather be marrying THIS man at 28 than some other guy I'd settled for at 23 because THIS one hadn't proposed yet.
Enjoy what you have while you have it- those extra years of dating turned out to be a fun experience. It also gave us more opportunities to learn about each other, and weather through some really rough times together - deaths of loved ones, huge ugly financial issues, family problems, a near-breakup and more. I definitely know now more than ever that we CAN make it through anything, and at 23 we hadn't had enough of those major life experiences together to be certain of that. I didn't appreciate having to wait at the time, but now I'm glad it happened that way.
CA1IOPE 1/23/07 3:37 P
Color yourself lucky enough to have a man who is smart enough to know he's not ready. Would you rather he married you now knowing he's not ready? What a wonderful proposal story to tell the grandkids -- "He wasn't ready but I told him if he didn't propose I was going to dump him...." Trust me, waiting is a good idea. In the meantime, just enjoy being with the one you love. No piece of paper is going to change that.
CRICKETRO 1/23/07 2:50 P
one of the reasons we got married only after 4 yrs was b/c of money. it's just expensive to have a wedding. why not wait til u guys actually afford a dream wedding?:) as long as u 2 are together, honestly, i doesn't matter if u are married or not. just my opinion
JESSICAMH321 1/23/07 2:26 P
i said the same thing when we had been together for 2.5 years and i had to wait another 3 before he proposed. MY ADVICE: if you love the guy, wait until he is ready. some guys just want to have all their ducks in a row before they propose. maybe he wants to buy you a REALLY nice, expensive ring and doesnt want to be in debt over it...so he is saving and you just dont know it. OR, maybe he wants to wait until you are old enough to have drinks at your own wedding....OR maybe he wants to wait until you are both old enough, I am 24 and i am getting married in 6.5 months, and although we have been together for almost 6 years, i still dont know if i am ready to be married....i want to marry him, and i am marrying him in 6.5 months, but there is still that "am i old enough for this responsibility" question in my head.
my point: just dont rush him if he isnt ready yet. and dont give up on him either, cause you could end up dating someone else that isnt worth your time, and ends up screwing things up for you and the man you truly love....almost happened to me-luckily i have a guy that loves me no matter what-those kind are hard to ccome by! j j
MEGANJANE1 1/23/07 1:58 P
You said this: "I know I want to marry him, and I do know he wants to marry me, I just dont want to have to wait 5 years."
Why? What's wrong with waiting a little bit? Especially since you're convinced you're going to end up together? What's the rush about the wedding? Marriage is a huge commitment, and you have a ton of time. Regardless of where you think your head is, you're still considered "young". You aren't even at legal drinking age yet.
Forcing him into something he's not ready for (regardless of what you say, he's not ready; if he were ready, he'd propose) is no way to treat someone you love. Just have patience, and enjoy your relationship where it is today.
MOMMYKMV 1/23/07 10:50 A
Well, there has been lots of advice already given but I was in your situation a few months ago. My now fiance and I have been together for 3 years. Last February we started building our first home and at that time we weren't engaged. After we signed the contract to start building I started asking questions about our future and what it meant. We had broken up the the summer before and only been back together about 4 months. It made me nervous but I knew that I loved him and wanted to be with him. He never said he wasn't ready just said that with the house expenses he couldn't give me the wedding I had dreamed of so he wanted to wait. Well, being the female that I am I twisted those words all around and cried every night thinking he didn't want to marry me. Needless to say, after the house was completed and we knew more where our financial situation was going to be, he told me to start planning. There was no official proposal because we feel like we have been married for a while. However we both want to have children and we felt we needed to make it official. If you love him and you know that he loves you, give it time. I married at 18 and divorced at 22 and beleive me, I say living with someone is the best thing to do before marriage. Good luck to you and I hope that it all works out.
S-T-B-MRS.ASARO 1/23/07 9:54 A
Ok- my fiance and I got engaged when I turned 21. Maybe he's not scared, or not ready, maybe he just needs to find the right time. It sounds like you are already married.My fiance and I still don't live together, and we will be getting married in September. One of my good friends told me once that she has been with her boyfriend for 10 years, and they have a daughter..." Marriage is just a piece of paper, I don't love him any more or any less, if we were ment to be together, it doesn't mean we have to marry." I know that's a little jumpy, but are you just consumed with the idea of a wedding? They're fun and all, but if it doesn't make you want to leave him, then stop. It will happen if it is meant to happen. Men don't like to be preassured, and women just have their dreams since they were little. Why don't you want to wait 5 years? Are your feelings going to change?
CONFUSEDONE 1/23/07 8:50 A
thanks for all the advice, but I hate it when people tell me Im too young. Age is just a number in my book. I have been through so much already in my life and I have grown up very fast, (I was raising my sister when I was just nine years old, already cooking and cleaning and changing diapers.) It depends on the people not the age, if your ready, your ready, you could be thirty with the mind set of a twenty year old and not be ready. My boyfriend and I are very much in love, I love him more than anything and after two and half years, I love him more than I did when I first said it! We get along very well, we dont bicker about stupid things, and we are very supportive of eachother. I know I want to marry him, and I do know he wants to marry me, I just dont want to have to wait 5 years. And dont worry, Im not having kids till were married. We both agreed on that. But thanks for all your advice! But Im not leaving him just cuz he doesnt want to marry me right now. I cant picture myself with anyone else, nor do I want to be with anyone else!
CRICKETRO 1/23/07 7:53 A
here is my 2 cents. i met DH when we were both 19. at 21 we moved in together after actually "dating" for a week and talking via letters for 6 months. he did ask me to marry him while we were "dating" and i told him i need to think abt it b/c it's a huge step but we can live together. he moved in wt me on Oct 24, 2002. We didn't discuss anything specific related to wedding/engagement and so on but in 2004 we decided to have our engagement party. that happened on Sept 4, 2004. Last year, around March we decided we should actually get married and set the date for Nov 4,2006. We are now married :)
the idea is that if u 2 live together and get used to each other getting married is a normal step. u really don't need to stress about it. he stays wt u b/c he wants to not b/c he has to. ok, i've been told by friends (girls) that it's better to be married b/c he wouldn't think abt it twice b4 leaving. i disagree wt that. if u 2 stick together while there isn't a "paper" signed (marriage certificate ) u most certainly will be together when u say the i dos.
just enjoy the time together, and maybe, on Valentines, u can play a bit and "pop the question". u know, it doesn't have to be the guy who asks :)
i won't tell u to dump him b/c we moved in at 21, got engaged at 23 and married at 25. so i really don't think 21 is too young for a serious relationship. and yeah we don't have children b/c we are still studying. we also don't plan to have children until we hit 30 :)
JULYBRIDE2007 1/23/07 7:35 A
You are quite young to be getting married. (my opinion) There are stats that show that marriages where both partners are under 25 have a much higher divorce rate than if both partners are over 25.
If he is not ready then don't push the issue - living together is a good way to see if you are compatible enough to be married. Besides, why would you want to marry someone who isn't ready to marry you? If he was really ready he would ask.
I know that I changed a lot between my early twenties and now (I am going to be 27 when we get married in July). What I wanted then was not what I want now.
JILLARO0 1/23/07 3:21 A
Yes, as others have said, if he's not ready, he's not ready - and at 22, that's not so surprising!
However, I talked with a girl who at 26 had lived with her boyfriend for six years, they owned a house together and had two children together and he STILL claimed not to be ready for marriage. She was so upset, and had been wanting to get married for years. I find such a situation really strange. What on earth is up when you're ready to have TWO children with a woman and buy a house together - both (especially the children of course!) being major long-term financial and emotional commitments - and you're not ready to marry her!!
Seeing this girl's emotional distress - well, I don't know whether I'd tell you to move on and leave him - that depends on SO many other things about your relationship!
But DON'T have children with him until you're married - not unless you're quite happy not being married to him. And of course, more and more people do live together permanenetly and committedly without marriage.
Oh, and about youth - I moved in with my boyfriend when I was 19. I'm sure nobody could have talked us out of it at the time - but I sure hope my daughter doesn't do that! We ended up getting married (at 24) and having a baby (at 25) and getting divorced (at 27). In retrospect, I know that so much of the problems in that were that we simply slipped into it way too early - it was simply the default thing to do. I'm so happy to have my daughter from it, and it was part of my life, but I think very early marriage/living together really isn't a great idea. Those of my friends who did it have all either divorced or they had major, major marital problems in their late twenties.
And I'm sure if someone had told me that when I was twenty I would have laughed at them!
So I'll leave it at: please don't get pregnant until you're ABSOLUTELY sure - and you know he is too - and he isn't so long as he's not ready to marry you.
JENNB2003 1/22/07 5:54 P
I think that if he isn't ready then the best thing to do is to drop the issue. If you are both still satisfied with the relationship, I see no need to call it quits, but pushing him is only going to make him more apprehensive about the subject.
Also, I realize I am not much older than you (only 22), but I know that even in the past 2 years I have changed a lot. Some people would say I am too young to be getting married too, but if BOTH of you are ready and it is mutual, I think it can work- but not if he isn't 100% ready.
Enjoy just dating (we dated 4 years before the engagement and it was great)- once the question gets asked things change (not for the worst- just different). Enjoy being young and having fun- that's what your 20s are for. Just don't push him- if he's THE ONE, he will come around. If you realize later on that he isn't, then chalk it up to life experience.
