Boyfriend and I decided early on in our relationship that neither of us wanted marriage. Except now I do.

38 comments

1. Dropping hints would only work if you have already had the conversation and agreed that marriage is in your future. You’ve both decided already that it isn’t so it’s not going to be on his radar at all. It will probably be confusing more than anything, and you don’t want to start resenting him for not picking up on something he knows nothing about. You need to tell him you’ve changed your mind.

2. Men make plans, God changes them 😀

3. You discussed not wanting to get married and agreed you both find it gross… so why are you hurt that your partner hasn’t asked you? Obviously he thinks you are not into the idea, so why on earth would he bring it up or suddenly propose when he believes you don’t want that??

4. Guys don’t get hints. And if you’ve already agreed that marriage wasn’t in the plans, he’s probably going to be even less likely to get a hint about it. It’s better just to have an open conversation about it.

5. So you’re asking how to manipulate your partner into doing something you’ve both agreed you don’t want to do and make him think it’s his idea to do it after all? Be a big girl and talk to your partner.

6. You were 26 when you got together; it’s fine for your desires and opinions to have changed. Why don’t you say to him some of what you’ve said here – that your feelings about marriage have evolved over the years, and you love the idea of a romantic proposal and an official, public declaration of two people’s intention to spend their lives together and a celebration of that fact. And see what he says.

7. Best way is to be direct. If he is privy to your wants and needs, then chances are he will want to make you happy and propose. People change their minds all the time! Is marriage a deal breaker to the both of you?

8. Mention it to him really casually. Maybe when your watching a tv show or a movie that has a wedding or proposal I it. And just say something like, “I no I’ve never been keen on marriage, but I think I would now. I’d love to your wife.” And gauge how he reacts and what he says. At least then you’ve put in the ground work

9. For an extremely nonreligious person, you seem to really be counting on an act of god here

   >It sounds incredibly stupid but I would rather hint at it and have him bring it up directly than to bring it up directly myself

   You directly told him one thing, presumably repeatedly, over the course of 5 years, and want him to essentially disrespect your stated wishes and go on some sorta gut feel that he gleans from “hints.” Not gonna work.

   Instead, directly tell him your *feelings* have changed, what marriage would mean to you in a non-traditional sense, and how, if it’s something he wants, it something you want.

10. He’s not gonna get the hint. You need to just sit down with him and explain that your feelings on the issue have changed, and you’d like his thoughts on getting married. You said he was open to it for practical reasons, and that’s great. You can tell him that you respect his practicality and hope he will understand your sentimentality behind it. Sure, it may feel like a weird conversation to start, but wait for a night when you have free time and are both in a good mood and go from there.

11. >But I want to get married for sappy emotional reasons, and I find myself feeling a little envious of friend’s cutsey proposals and engagement rings, and I don’t know how to bring it up to my partner. I honestly think he would agree to it if I asked him, but I would feel like I was forcing him into something he’s at best apathetic about and at worst actively trying to avoid.

    >It sounds incredibly stupid but I would rather hint at it and have him bring it up directly than to bring it up directly myself. Because then I would feel like his idea, which is what I really want. So how should I go about indirectly making it known that I want him to ask me

    Read this again and convince be a mature adult wrote it.

    …….

    If you want something, ask.

    Yes, it is less special. However, that’s only because you have to accept that your guy isn’t a mutant with the ability to read minds. It’s always a sad day when someone realizes they’re never going to be an Avenger.

12. OP, playing games like this is a disaster waiting to happen. I wouldn’t even recommend that couples who *do* plan on getting married result to “dropping hints about it.”

    If he’s already said he doesn’t want to be married, and you have already said you don’t want to be married, there are no hints you can drop that will override that. Even if you do “drop hints,” if he’s anything other than a complete moron he’s not going to act on those hints without talking to you first to confirm that’s what you were hinting at.

    Seriously, think this through. What would it say about him if he *did* propose now, while thinking it was his idea and not yours? It would say that he didn’t give a shit about what you explicitly stated you wanted over the past five years. You don’t actually want a partner who would do that.

13. You really do have to have the conversation on this one. You don’t have to get into who should propose and how, that’s probably several conversations down the road. But you have to have the “I’ve been thinking about our life together, and I’ve realized my feelings about marriage have changed. I’m wondering how you’re feeling about it these days.” discussion. And see where that takes you. This one’s too big and serious a life decision to hint and hope about.

14. You know marriage is an artificial societal construct that you two already agree you find distasteful.

    You can have similar bondings of your own creation without calling it marriage. Its all about communication. You can even have a nice bonding ceremony thats not a religious marriage

15. Definitely, as others have said, you need to talk openly about this.

    It may also be worth reflecting on if things other than marriage could hit the spot. Other gestures of appreciation, a bit more romance and romantic surprises, a big anniversary party where you get a great dress and take photos.

    Marriage is not for me, but I still well up at proposals on tv and love it when my friends get engaged and married. I am a sentimental sap. And there can be a little bit of sadness in rejecting a big social script, even when you know following that script would be worse for you.

16. You need to talk to him about tis.

    I was married in 1974 and things have changed. In those days the minister who married us wanted to talk to use before we scheduled the ceremony. Basically what he said was that if you aren’t already married in your hearts and commitment to one another the words said during a service mean nothing.

    It sounds like you guys are already married in your hearts, but in case of the death of one or the other of you being married can make a huge difference on the rights of the surviving partner.

17. Hey OP, I think you really need to have a sit down conversation with your boyfriend.

    I also want to stress that it is totally normal that your preferences changed. We all change as grow.

    However, you can’t force someone to want to marry you.

    I know that’s not what you mean or what you want but marriage should always be a two way conversation.

    Like they say, when the proposal is – can be a surprise, but the fact that someone is proposing – never should be.

    You need to both sit down and tell him how’ve you’ve been feeling. That you want to be with him for life and does he feel the same way?

    What does a marriage look like to him? Is he open to it at all (after all he’s mentioned it in a practical sense).

    Weddings can be sappy and romantic but the marriage should be practical.

    While marrying may come from practicality (mortgages, hospital visits) that person is still choosing to legally tie their life to yours.

    It seems like you want more romance and a loving display, do you not get a lot of that now? Has that fallen by the wayside?

    You can’t make your partner into more of a romantic if he’s not. But you can let him know what you’d like.

    My partner is incredibly unromantic, I’ve told him how I feel appreciated and loved.

    Because he knows, sometimes he’ll buy my favorite flowers.

    More often than not I’ll find him repairing a bookshelf, changing a really high up lightbulb, buying a nightlight for me because I tended to walk into the wall by the bathroom at night.

    If I want serious romance, I tell him what I’d like and he surprises me with when.

    For some of my friends this would be a dealbreaker and that’s ok!

    Dealbreakers don’t mean either of you are bad or poor partners. Dealbreakers exist so you can find a good match.

    There are things we can actually compromise on and then are the things we tell ourselves that we can live with (which never end well, look at this Reddit).

    I am not saying break up, but you both need to have a serious discussion, you want a loving wedding to celebrate the marriage you already have.

    How does he feel about that? Would you get the sappy romance you actually want or is that spontaneous romance just not in your partners wheelhouse?

    You can’t make someone unsentimental (Like my partner) sentimental.

    You want him to bring it up as if it’s his idea, but OP it never will be.

    If it was then you wouldn’t have to *hint* he’d choose to have this discussion with you like all folks should do when they’re legally and financially binding themselves to someone else.

18. > It sounds incredibly stupid but I would rather hint at it and have him bring it up directly than to bring it up directly myself. Because then I would feel like his idea, which is what I really want.

    I understand your feelings here, but this just isn’t a functional way for an adult relationship to work. You have to set aside your pride and insecurity and just honestly tell him what you want.

19. You should have a conversation about it and don’t feel weird! Talking about your thoughts doesn’t mean you’re forcing him into anything.

    Say something like, “Hey, I’m kind of surprised myself but my feelings about marriage have been changing as I’ve gotten older. While I still dislike the patriarchal aspects to it, I never realized before all of the sappy emotional aspects and how nice they seem. What about you? Have your thoughts changed at all?”

20. It’s ok to change your mind. A lot of people do. But dropping hints is not going to do anything. I’d just talk to him about it. Just be prepared for the fact that he’s not into that romantic stuff

21. The couples who have cutesy proposals will almost certainly have discussed marriage beforehand- at least if they have any sense. Your views on marriage have changed, the only way your partner will know that is if you discuss it with him.

22. There are lots of non-marriage public displays of commitment that you could have together. Wanting some romance and cutesy things isn’t bad, and neither is wanting the practicals of marriage, but, if you’re with someone who doesn’t believe in marriage, their idea of showing love and commitment is never going to be a proposal. You’ll have to think more specifically about your reasons for wanting marriage and communicate those things. If you want the social status of marriage then that’s fine too, but he might not just think to try to give you that if he has problems with marriage unequally doling out social status.

23. Bring it up directly lol you’ll ruin your relationship with hints.

24. >Tl;dr I changed my mind about not wanting marriage and want to make it known to my partner without feeling like I’m forcing it.

    But you *are* forcing it, and the worst part is you want him to *want* what you want. This is a recipe for disaster, and I am only saying in this way so you can prepare yourself for disappointment. Hope for the best but don’t expect a fairytale.

25. You will have to directly tell him that, and explain the situation to him.

    Also, what are you exactly looking for in a marriage? You just want him to propose you? Do you only want the papers signed, or actually having a party/ceremony for that? And about the ring, I see lots of spouses getting mad that it “wasn’t the ring they wanted” because they were looking for more expensive one’s. Are you fine with a, lets say, more “normal” ring that isn’t neither cheap or too costly?

26. You’ve gotta tell him this.

    As someone who is ambivalent about marriage/weddings and can relate to your thumbing your nose at tradition, if I was him and you came to me with this, I might agree with your own assessment that your feelings here are silly, but I absolutely would not agree with how hard you’re being on yourself about this, or your assertion that if he were to ask you to marry him after finding out that you want to get married, that it would be a bad or meaningless thing.

    Everyone feels ways they don’t necessarily want to feel sometimes, especially in love, so realizing that actually you do want a romantic proposal even if you think it’s stupid seems very normal and human to me. I hope he is an empathetic human who understands that sometimes people change their minds or surprise themselves or feel ways they didn’t expect. If he’s not empathetic with you, then that would be an issue.

    And assuming he can empathize with you, and he hears you say that you want something from him that he can easily provide and that he seemingly has no other objection to (given the mortgage conversation), my hunch is that his response would be also wanting that thing. Not because he pities you, but because he empathizes with you.

    If it turns out he doesn’t want to give you this freely once he knows it’s what you want, definitely don’t push it. At that point you would have some shit to figure out, for real, and begging or badgering or manipulating him into it would be unhealthy/on the more pathetic side of things.

    But right now you’re thinking through the best case scenario, where your loving partner happily gives you the thing he knows you want because he wants to make sure you feel happy and secure, and you are poking holes in that to try and convince yourself that you’re wrong for feeling this way and bringing it up would make you look like an idiot.

    I think you should trust him enough by now to believe he won’t think you’re an idiot and to at least be able to engage with you about your needs and how they fit with his needs.

    If you can’t have that conversation, then i think you are not ready to be married.

27. If you cannot be vulnerable with your partner and communicate directly about things even if it feels uncomfortable then you are not ready for marriage. Open communication with a spouse is foundational to a healthy and successful marriage.

    Also keep in mind that most cutesy proposals and such are either planned beforehand and parties know they are coming because they’ve have had many in depth marriage conversations beforehand or they are performance art of people who are not in relationships you want to model your own off of. As a recently ish engaged person, I am always so insanely confused at everyone wanting to know if it was a “huge surprise” and my response of “oh god no” has been met with a lot of defensiveness and strange reactions. But I have an insanely stable and secure relationship with someone that I know exactly what expectations and desires they have from marriage and with someone I can bring up any and everything to and be able to discuss.

    Stop “hinting” and wanting your partner to read your mind and communicate directly. You waste so much less time and energy that does not need to be expended. Be authentic.

28. You told him you don’t want to be married and now you do, so you need to tell him that. The man is not a mind reader or else he would know already. You’re allowed to change your mind, but when you do, you have to let him know. Marriage is a partnership, so use your partnership skills and get on the same page.

29. You need to just tell him. You can’t explicitly say you want one thing, then 5 years later try to drop hints that you now want a different thing, and hope he’ll get the hint that he should now disregard what you very clearly said in the past. He’s supposed to listen to you and respect your wishes and boundaries, not ignore what you say and instead guess at what you really want.

    Like, imagine his perspective on this. If you’ve said you don’t want to get married, and then he thinks maybe you’re hinting that you’ve changed your mind, so then he proposes to you out of the blue with a ring and everything… then that would be a really shitty move on his part. What is he supposed to say if he gets it wrong, and you get angry at him because he embarrassed you and wasted money on a ring against your express wishes? “I’m so sorry, I know you said you didn’t want this and never to do it, but I thought maybe you had changed your mind because you kept talking about how pretty Kaylee’s ring was and how awesome Bob’s proposal was!”

    Also, it’s a good idea to get legally married if f you’re going to own property together and if you’re planning to join finances in any way, as it provides both of you with legal rights and protections that you just don’t have as an unmarried couple. Not to mention it makes you each other’s legal next of kin, which is extremely important in a medical emergency, or if one of you dies unexpectedly. Don’t get me wrong, the sappy romantic part of marriage is awesome too, but it’s also a VERY practical way to join your life with a partner’s. It makes them your official closest family member, and does so in a way that allows you instantly communicate the gravity of your relationship to the rest of the world.

    There’s a reason that people have fought for so long for legal marriage equality… it’s not just about the romance. It’s about saying to the world, “this person is my family and we are a team,” and having the rest of society respect that.

30. Based on what you’ve said, it sounds like he’s not entirely against the idea of marriage – if only for practical purposes.

    It doesn’t sound like either of you want the ceremony part so maybe ask him to propose with a ring and head over to city hall to sign the marriage license (or ask a friend to officiate)? You can still skip the ceremony and vows part, sort of still live in sin, and get marriage benefits.

31. YMMV, but I directly told my (now husband) that I wanted to get married and I wanted him to propose to me. He agreed to begin seriously contemplating marriage. It took him the better part of a year, with some counseling, a “hermitage” weekend, contemplative time with his guy friends, journaling etc. to clarify and solidify his own desires. I never thought he was doing it to appease me, or that it “wasn’t his idea,” – there was no lack of romance due to my desire being out in the open. Just two grown ups asking for what they want and sticking around to negotiate.

32. Have a date night where you watch Mike Birbiglia’s special “My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend”.

33. So…you changed your mind, but you want to put all the responsibility for talking about it on him?

    You get how unfair that is right?

34. Lmao women. “I’m a little hurt that my boyfriend won’t ask me to do something I’ve been very clear with him from the beginning that I have no interest in.”

35. Talk to him. And LISTEN to him. Listen to him because HE IS NOT GOING TO CHANGE HIS MIND ABOUT THIS.

    The next paragraph is going to sound a little harsh:

    Honestly, a lot of people here are saying you were only 26 when you got together so it’s okay for you to have felt differently, but I disagree. 26 may not be old enough to actually get married or make a giant down payment on a house, but jt is old enough for someone to take a serious look at their life and give due consideration to where you want your life to be going. I mean, it’s not like the patriarchal history of marriage has changed, so what changed your mind. You sound like one of those women who enjoys being “not like other girls” in their 20s, only to realize they’re not as cool and progressive as they initially thought.

    I needed to get the harsh stuff out of the way to warn you that your boyfriend may bring up something along these lines and it’s going to hurt more hearing it from him. So brace yourself.

    Once you’ve heard what he has to say about this, REALLY start picturing the rest of your life. How does your life look when you are 37? 45? 55? It will be tough. But this is something you need to do.

    If it makes you feel any better, you are not the first person to be in the position you are in right now. Actually, as nontraditional as you pride yourself in being, your current position is pretty common. So, in all likelihood, everything will be okay, especially considering how you don’t want kids so there’s no issue with the biological clock or all that. It’s possible that you might change your mind about wanting marriage too, and that might not be too bad, either.

36. Dude…it’s marriage. If he would agree to it if you asked him, he isn’t that apathetic about it. Get that weird, contradictory thinking out of your head girl, it’s a huge life commitment. He wouldn’t agree to it if he didn’t want it.

    And further. Yes. I agree with you that hinting at it and playing games rather than being direct and telling your partner the truth and having a proper discussion about it is, indeed, incredibly stupid.

37. Totally agree with everyone here about talking about it ahead of time. Also, I highly recommend proposing to him! My now fiancé and I hate the patriarchical implications of a marriage so he always told me that if I wanted to get married I would have to propose

38. People change. Try to talk about these things with him. If he is a supportive partner, at least he will hear about it and give his opinions. End not, Don’t let yourself get stuck because of others. Be happy for what you want to do with your life