So my (F28) partner (M28) and I have been together for almost 6 years. For the most part, our relationship is really good and we are genuinely really happy together. We have bought a house, we have animals together we have a life set-up.
He has recently disclosed to me that he doesn't want to ever marry. He wasn't sure before but he knows now that he doesn't want to and he doesn't think he will ever change his mind. He says that he wants to stay together forever, that he doesn't want to be with anyone else and he wants to have a family together, something we both really want when the time is right, but he just doesn't want to marry. He wants everything that we have discussed and imagined together, apart from that.
I am absolutely distraught. I am really trying not to be, but it honestly feels like I m grieving. It comes in waves in that sometimes I feel maybe that's fine, and others I see people getting engaged or married or pictures of dresses and it dawns to me I will never get that. I know that it sounds a bit dramatic, but I have honestly been teary and I actually feel betrayed because I feel led on. He could have told me this years ago, when he knew that I always wanted to get married, and he just didn't. Should I have known sooner I would have probably left. Now we have a life together and he is the only person I have imagined myself growing old with, the only person I love and I can't even imagine the possibility of starting over with someone else. I don't want to. But this is such an issue for me. I didn't even realise how much, until I knew it wasn't an option at all.
His argument stems from having seen his parents go through a very stressful and ugly divorce and he argues that people change after marriage and stop trying for each other, often stop talking to each other when having arguments. That the relationship is not the same after marriage and that he is scared of that happening with us. He says that he doesn't want to succumb to a social convention where you have to declare your love for each other when he has seen people lie about being with the other through "sickness and health" and it's all a big farce. He assures me that he would have felt like this with anyone, and it's not anything to do with me.
I am away from home and I will not feel part of a new family without the commitment;we will never be a 'unit'. For me, it just feels that he wants to ensure that he has an easy way out. He says that should we have a family they won't have to go through what he had to go through, which for me means it won't be as painful because the kids know that the parents weren't commited that much to each other anyway. He is not a particularly expressive person and I already at times felt unloved in the way I am used to, and having someone show that commitment would alleviate these feelings. I feel angry at him for not being more transparent sooner and I feel betrayed for not wanting to show this commitment to me and our relationship. His parents, that lived through this drama remarried happily and so did his siblings. I feel led on because we spoke about marriage in a roundabout way (i.e. how he would want me to take his name if we do, how I would really want to marry at my home town etc.). He never expressed to me that he didn't want to marry and didn't think he ever will. I mean he was never overly enthusiastic about the topic but can't imagine many men are. I feel so distant from him because of it because I don't feel like a unit. I feel like two individuals living together. I hate the idea that people will think, 'ah well they must not be that serious if they never married' and the fact that I will see all of our friends and family getting married and we just won't. I know it will be so painful.
I actually don't know where to go from here. I am so lost. I don't want to break up and I don't want to spend my life with anyone else. But I also don't want to stay in a relationship forever and never marry. I am trying to feel fine with it. But the reality is that I am fostering all these emotions that I don't know how to deal with. I find myself crying at random moments. It's bizarre.
Has anyone been in a similar circumstance? I don't want to marry someone that doesn't want to marry me, but is there any possible middle ground? Civil partnership is also out of the question for him. Also, is there anyone here in a long term relationship that never married and are happy? Is marriage that important? Am I maybe I overreacting?
TLDR: Partner of 6 years doesn't want to marry. I really do and feel really lost. What can we do?
EDIT: Fixed some typos.
Submitted June 23, 2021 at 07:34AM by helloandbye19 https://ift.tt/3qmdRCx
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