Am I Pressuring Him?

[Anonymous]

My boyfriend & have been together for 4.5 years, lived together for 2, I have 2 children from a previous relationship but only one of them lives with us. We had a trying start to our relationship (no cheating just stressful to say the least), but now we're both extremely happy, happier than we've been in our entire relationship-except about the future. He'll say "we" about everything-"our" house, kids, etc. but if I talk about "being excited" about marriage, a kid, starting his own business, he gets stressed and says I'm pressuring him. I don't insist about when we're getting married and I haven't given him a definitive timeline of when he needs to propose, I'm happy with where and what we have in life, but any woman would get excited about being married and having a child of our own. Talking to him about it is marriage is "someday", kids are "within a year or two". He wants to eventually start his own company, but when I mention I'm excited about that he scowls & says I'm pressuring him...I'm so confused! I guess I just don't know if he's a commitment phobe from seeing his parents terrible relationship, if he's waiting for the right moment, or if he's just enjoying the ride of playing "house" without a solid commitment. He's said if I didn't already have kids, and an ex-husband that he "has to deal with", we'd already be married (which makes me feel terrible for feeling restricted by things I can't change now), but it also feels like a cop-out...

Some insight to a male mind would be nice-Thanks :)

[Ashley8282]

This has been seen so many times, girl pressures guy, guy gives in, marriage ends or the guy resents her.

Do NOT pressure anybody into marrying you or doing something they are not ready for. People need to respect other people's decisions. He has already proved to you that he is committed to you by moving in with you and helping to take care of your child that is living with you. This is more than enough to show that he wants to be with you.

If I was in this situation and the guy was pressuring me to marry him when I wasn't ready and I had goals that I wanted to accomplished before I was married I would leave. Simple as that.

If you keep pushing he will not marry you, he will end up leaving you than you'll be scrambling to do damage control. Besides would you really want to be married to someone who only married you because you FORCED them to?

I think not.

[Asker]

I didn't say I was pushing him to do anything, situations like that ended my first relationship, I do what I can to avoid it...I only support what he wants to accomplish & am there when he needs me, I was more asking if this was common...

[Ashley8282]

No but your questioned asked if you were pressuring him which is yes (not all the time but you had) try to talk to him and ask him where he see's this relationship going in say a year or old, ie what are his goals for himself and your relationship.

[prophecy]

no one in his right mind would marry you now. absolutely not. I don't know what his game plan is but let me tell you this;

if he's smart, he will never marry you.

if he is a bit less smart but still smarter than the rest, he won't marry you for quite some time and he will start the business prior to marriage. he needs to protect his business and to properly protect your business there are certain relatively complicated and time consuming processes need to be done.

so yeah, if you really want to marry this guy, keep your mouth shut and stop talking about marriage stop talking about kids and this kind of nonsense and wait.

[Asker]

I said long story short, but thanks for being a d***, because that's what people need in stressful times

[prophecy]

i know, I know, it's stressful when you desperately want to secure your future with others people money and they won't let you.

another thing; you're max 24, but you've been together for 4.5 years. so when you met him, you were like 19.5 - with two kids already. bravo. I'm actually surprised that he even wants to be with you.

[native65]

You hit it right on the nail... He is afraid of this turning bad. I know of a few couples that were together for years, both had bad experiances with past relationships and held off on getting married, but when they decided on getting married (for whatever reason) it was over within the year after they got married. I don't know what it is, if it's the piece of paper making it legal, or what, but it changed them and they never recovered from it.

[AndyWes]

You have two kids, and want a third with him, and you're wondering why he's not eager to legally be wed?

You realize that he's looking at a situation where he's pretty much facing going from living with girlfriend to being married with three kids? That's a huge lifestyle change and responsibility change.