Throwaway. Sorry if it's weird formatting.
I've been with my boyfriend for almost 5 years. 2 years ago we were engaged but I was having trouble with my ring catching on things so I stopped wearing it and asked him to fix it. Shortly after we started having relationship issues. I never got it back.
We've fixed all the other aspects of our relationship but the engagement is not going well. I don't feel like we are engaged anymore. He says we are. Yet every time I complain about not having my ring or not planning the wedding, he says he hasn't given it back to me because we haven't worked through our resentment/insecurity around the engagement.
Over the years, I felt more and more insecure in our relationship. Mainly because it only seems to come up in arguments that I still don't have a ring. He never brings it up if I don't talk about it. For the past 6 months his response has been that he was going to give it to me for a special occasion (my birthday, valentine's day, on a vacation, etc) but I keep ruining the surprise by asking what the hold up is and creating bad feelings about it. And yes, I understand this reason is conflicting with his reason for wanting to slowly work through our engagement related issues first, but I don't know what to do with that.
I tell him that I don't need a holiday or anything fancy, I just want my ring back and to feel more secure in what we're doing. We do talk about being engaged and have had moments where we did some wedding planning but it is maybe one thing every 3/4 weeks. Nothing consistent. We used to do wedding related things all the time. He says it's occasional because he is trying to slowly work back to where we were. He doesn't feel comfortable just jumping back in. Despite all this, I don't see it as a commitment issue because he says we're engaged, we're committed, neither of us date other people, etc.
This week, we had yet another discussion where I talked about my insecurity in what we're doing and I said I was ready to call off the entire thing. I said that we could just stay boyfriend/girlfriend. And that I've hit my limit and don't want a ring, don't want to do any wedding planning, etc. He has now said that he understands that the ring and actions of wedding planning is necessary for me to feel secure in our engagement. And said that he was an idiot because his plan of slowly working back to secure feelings before giving me the ring on a special occasion was wrong. And now he wants to give me the ring ASAP.
But this is where I am failing to feel good about it. I feel like I'm getting it because I complained about it so much and told him I am calling the whole thing off. He says he's willing to do anything to get us back to securely engaged and wedding planning. But I'm just feeling bad about it overall. Am I being dramatic? It's like he waited 2 years for the feelings of rejection and resentment to overflow and for me to break before he gives me what I want.
I have so many questions.
How do I feel good about wearing a ring and planning a wedding when it feels like it happened out of coercion?
Is he really an idiot with a bad plan like he claims? Or is there something else going on with him and that's the real reason why he never did it?
When will moving forward like two normal people feel normal? How/under what circumstances would the engagement not feel forced?
**tl;dr** Engaged without a ring and infrequent wedding planning for 2 years. I call it off. Boyfriend now wants to give me the ring. I don't feel good about how it's happened but don't know if I should just be grateful.
Submitted April 29, 2020 at 03:03PM by maybeimengaged https://ift.tt/2ySwfwc
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