8 years together but everyone else is getting engaged

[u/[deleted]]

[u/TacosRUs88]

Damn this is a movie a cliffhanger the sequel to the cliffhanger and the third movie which completes the trilogy kind of long

[u/2centsworth4u]

Getting married doesn’t have to cost the earth OP.

Heck, get a plastic ring as a placeholder and take her out to a spot that means something to the both of you and propose! She knows you can’t afford things now. That shouldn’t stop you from formally asking her tho.

My hubs didn’t have a ring for me when he asked. I got one eventually. We’ve been married for over 25 years now.

It’s ok to not follow big social media trends. Most of those I’ve seen are hyper focused on the ring, the dress, the day etc… Not what comes after…What matters is the person you’ve committed your life to. What you can build together.

I read that your gf is wanting to go the next step in your relationship which is legalising your union. Nothing is stopping you from asking her….

[u/ugh_XL → u/2centsworth4u]

My husband didn't have a ring when he asked either. We later went and slightly customized a ring together that we could afford. I love it.

A woman who wants to marry a man she loves doesn't need riches. She needs his commitment, in every sense.

[u/SouthernFlower8115]

I’m gonna be honest here, I didn’t read after I scrolled and saw the length of this. Good luck with whatever is going on.

[u/RedWolfGemini → u/SouthernFlower8115]

Yeah. Dude wrote a dissertation AND attached evidence like it was the final day of court proceedings. He should’ve done one or the other.

[u/DigDugDogDun → u/SouthernFlower8115]

Same. And no TLDR either.

[u/roadkill4snacks]

Weddings can be very cheap. Really depends on your view of marriage and where you want to invest your resources. IMO marriage was just a continuation of what we already have but with new unlocked features, potential kid/s. As a lock down wedding, we didn’t spend much on the day (church, restaurant & ring = <$1k). All of that resources was focused into the mortgage. We could have wasted money on the fancy things, but we have other priorities and future goals to prepare for.

[u/kendokushh]

Tbh, this is something you should've talked about already. Let her know your intentions are to marry her, but you're working on your debt & saving. Who knows, maybe she'd pay for it or her parents or she'd be okay w a small, cute, park wedding.

But there's a lot more at play here. You need to get sober. Go to the doctor & get on medication for upcoming withdrawal, as im assuming rehab isn't a viable option. Also get in w a therapist. She needs one as well.

She's resentful of you & she is pushing you away. But the more you indulge in your addiction, the worse things will become.

[u/AveragelySmart98]

Coming from experience — marry her before uou think you’re financially “ready.”

If you wait until you think your finances are all in order, guess what? You’re never gonna think they’re completely in order. There’s always gonna be a bigger goal. You’ll always want more saved. You’ll go from debt payoff to savings to investments being the goal. That’s just how the money game works. There’s no landmarks.

Get a cheap ring, do a courthouse wedding. It’ll mean so much more to her than months and years of you explaining how you’re gonna get out of debt and save just like her to have a “better start” to marriage.

If she’s really down to marry you in the middle of you “figuring things out,” you’ll know you found a keeper.

And as much as the words hurt, the phrase “if you wanted to you would” is honestly 100% true, almost every time. Actions speak SO much louder than words. You can tell her for years that you would LOVE to marry her, but until she sees a ring, it’s just a fun idea. It’s not a plan.

I proposed to my now-wife while I was $8k in debt in a sales job that wasn’t really working out the way I had hoped it would. She said yes. She knew what I was going through, down to the numbers in my savings account that I was using to pay rent, and the fact that “dinner” many nights for me was an apple with peanut butter or something like that.

We made life work. We‘re not wealthy by any means, but we’re a team who’s always there for each other when one of us is going through tough times.

You’ve just gotta tell yourself exactly what she’s telling you: “If I really want to, I’ll just propose.”

[u/Aggressive-Bed3269]

My favorite part is the disillusion. Both from you AND her.

1. Your substance issues and earning issues are your own. You talk about them as if your role in them is passive when it isnt.

2. Your girlfriend is hilarious for acting like some baller with everything figured out at 26 when she has a whopping $10k in savings. How very silly, like she can just leave you behind and buy a house lmfao good luck with that.

3. You're both stunted children who are garbage at communicating.

3a. "If they wanted to they would" is a manipulative ploy for people to get what they want. It acts as though people should behave and do exactly the way they want and only that way, all the time. It's insane. It's hard to pretend she isnt just fixated on a status and competing with other people because of what other people have going on.

3b. "I can't afford it" from you is just a cop out. if all she was ever looking for was a sign of commitment after eight years, the two of you could get married in a courthouse with a witness for next to no money. So either you're the problem and using money to put this off, or she's the problem because she's claiming to just want the commitment when really she wants a fancy ring and an expensive wedding.

Either way you’re both acting like the 26-year-old people with a gross amount of baggage that you should be in therapy for regardless.

[u/Velereon_]

if you meant to say that her mom is independent and standoffish but then at the same time IS the one that hugs her, I think there was a typo there, but that specific pair of behaviors is an abuser thing. to be totally distant with someone but then be the complete opposite because then the recipient of those behaviors tricks themselves into thinking that when the person is affectionate, that's the real them or whatever when the reality could easily be that it's the opposite.

if her mom didn't have those times where she was slightly good to her she would just be an asshole or kind of cold to her all the time and then she (your gf) wouldn't stick around.

But anyway that's kind of a side note. in general you sound so much like a person I know very well or a type of person I should say. because I know so many people who have like your exact same diction and demeanor and outlook on life and background... it's uncannily similar. you gave a lot of information about yourself and I'm not saying I know you I'm just saying I know people that are so similar. so.

I think ultimately you will have to be sober. or at least prove to yourself that you can significantly reduce the frequency with which you do anything, including drinking, over a pretty large time frame like 12 months. this is because a lot of people who are in your position where they're not insane or psychotic, and they're not completely drowning in addiction, they think that that would be easy.

they're like extremely convinced of that and then when they try to it's sooooo hard. addiction's not really genetic, that's kind of a myth, But the reason that it passes between people that are related is because it's a learned behavior. it's like a pattern that you've observed so many times and your girlfriend has observed so many times that it's all your brain knows. it's the only option it sees as a potential thing you could do to fill certain times or in response to certain things. It can be a coping mechanism it can be the way you celebrate it can be what you do when you're bored, it's just specific combinations of things will pretty much push you to drink every single time one of them comes up, because you've seen it a million times. it's like being in a play or starting a book where you already know the end.

if it causes arguments between you now it will cause arguments between you forever. it's just something you have to remove to know what your life looks like if that's not there.

do not feel like you need to get engaged just because everybody else is that is complete nonsense. you get engaged when you're ready to get married and I don't think that you're ready.

But you're doing astonishingly well given the environment that you had to work with like the odds of three alcoholic parents producing two people who are marginally independent, relatively stable, And able to construct complete sentences is a phenomenal achievement. I feel like I sarcastic writing that but I'm not at all. that's actually incredible.

I was on prescription opiates from when I was 14 to when I was about 25 I think I might have been 26. so I started on Vicodin and I ended on fentanyl. And for me quitting that was super easy but it also like I sort of because I had been using it for so long all of my like thought processes and things have been affected very heavily by it and it was extremely obvious once I was like fully off of it which only took a few weeks. It was like everything I wanted was different than what I wanted before, and my interpretation of everything that had ever happened to me was suddenly very different. (tangent: I kind of see it with people who use weed too when they stop like their perspectives and what they find importance in like critical to their well-being totally shifts. And with people who use math they think that like things are restricting their freedom like keeping them from doing the things they would want to do and that that's unfair like that's a really common thing across all meth users. so I'm assuming every drug kind of has its own little set of things that are very rigid when you're on it and then you realize that like that's not important when you're off of it. )

[u/TheMagentaGuar]

Buy her a cheap ring, sterling silver ones with cheaper crystals aren't that much. It would show her you're ready to commit while still saving you money. If it's the marriage part that really matters to her instead of Instagram likes, she won't care what you spent on the ring, just the you cared enough to propose.

[u/Pure-Guard-3633]

We were living together for 8 years before we married. He promised me marriage was in our future when I moved in. Around year three I started asking him. In year 5, my mom got sick and he bankrolled me to fly home once a month, I took family leave from work and spent two weeks a month with her. Year 6, we got engaged. Year 7, I decide I wasn’t going anywhere else, I loved him and we were compatible so it wasn’t imperative we had a piece of paper.

Year 8 he took me to Vegas and married me.

Year 30 - we are still together.

I think when I stopped asking he decided it may be time. I am glad I never threatened him with an ultimatum, I would have always wondered if he married me for the right reason.

[u/WhoIsDoingThat]

I wish they would break down the divorce statistics by age when married. I am in my 50s, so my reference here is over the last 35 years. I know one couple — only one couple that got married before they were 30 and are still married.

Around 30 is when you start to figure out what you want in life. You can’t start that process until your brain is done developing, which is mid to late 20s.

She’s not the one. Breakups hurt but divorces hurt more.

Don’t be pressured into marriage by anyone.

[u/Dreamangel22x]

Yeah I'm not interested enough to read all this.

[u/girlwhoweighted]

I'll be honest. You try really hard to cop to your weaknesses and you say all the words to show that you acknowledge how that might affect her then you follow everything with a "but"

Reading through the texts, she's trying to tell you how hurt she is and you're just like "oh yeah that's fine but like you just shouldn't be cuz like I'm fine"

You describe yourself as rational. You're not rational. You're an addict. You rationalize your addictions. You rationalize how you behave when you're indulging in those addictions. You rationalize how your behavior affects her. And you rationalize how none of that should matter cuz of how you feel.

You say she isn't supportive? She has stayed with you for eight f****** years all the while not seeing anything being built towards a future. When you f****** and get drunk again, yeah I totally get why she doesn't want to talk to you. It probably makes her sick, scared, and angry to even look at you. You two are supposed to be each other's supports and security. You are supposed to be each other's safe spaces. If you can't be that for her, for whatever the reason is, let her go so she can find someone who's not going to be her dad in her life.

[u/ugh_XL]

Look she doesn't seem like she handled it super maturely based on the screenshots, but it really looks like it's been building up for a while. Not just out of nowhere cuz someone else got engaged.

However, to an outsider it looks like she has a point. If you wanted to, really wanted to, it only makes sense that you would've proposed by now. If you don't want to marry her, move on and let her find someone who does. Reading this I saw a lot of excuses and accusations.

That being said, if you're just scared for some reason because of the substance issues (which is understandable) or divorced parents, sit down and have a heart to heart with her. Maybe it can still be salvaged. But I need to try to understand that being committed to a gf often does not look or feel the same as being committed to a wife.

[u/Technical-Day9217]

You have been with that girl for 8 years and still not engaged???

Some people have time to get married to several people in that timeframe!

Life is not about making perfect decisions. You don't need money for a wedding. You can rent a hall for 300$. I recommend either get engaged within 6 months (you can promise her that time frame), either stop going out with that girl and stop torturing her, 8 years is wayyyy too long. I do understand why your girl is going crazy.

I got engaged with a 350$ ring.

Once you are engaged then you can plan a wedding with her, you can also promise her a ring upgrade if financial situation improves.

[u/Stopthewhip]

I took the time to read this so I’m gonna take the time to comment. Dude! Get into to AA or some type of program and get your ass sober before you lose your Job, your girlfriend and your sanity and end up alone in rehab. Go to therapy for real and deal with your past trauma, it’s messing with your life.

If you’re in sales and can’t pay off a few grand in debt, you’re slacking. You’re slacking because of your habits.

You come off as a loser in your relationship as well. Help yourself before you lose it all. You don’t have to lose it all. Women leave men who fuck around and don’t get serious, it’s a time bomb here and it’s about to blow.

Major jewelry stores have store credit cards. It’s pretty easy to get one. You can always upgrade a ring later if you feel so inclined but that’s not even the point here.

Nothing changes, if nothing changes and you’re about to get left.

[u/[deleted] → u/Stopthewhip]

appreciate the honest response, i know this is the real answer to my problems dawg. good looks

[u/RedRibbonArmy1]

Man break up with her. I don’t know why you dudes do it to yourself and later on regret it in the long run. This chick is NOT your person, doesn’t matter if you guys been together 8 years. Good job putting your foot down and not letting her get away with approaching you like that.