My boyfriend and I met in July 2017, during our first week of university through a mutual friend. We were in the same major (engineering) and shared a lot of classes, and found ourselves clicking instantly. After 3 months of basically becoming best friends, he asked me out, and we started dating. We were together throughout university and had so much fun over the years, so moved in together in 2019.
In the summer of 2022, we both graduated and started working. It had been 5 years by then, so my friends and family started asking about marriage. I’ve tried to spark discussions about what he thinks about marriage or kids twice or thrice during our relationship, but he said that he’s too young and doesn’t want to marry me and be “tied to me for life.” This really hurts my feelings after so many years of being so close, and I try to tell him that, but he just laughs it off and says “of course i’m kidding” — the thing that bothers me about that is that he never says anything other than “kidding” — does he even mean it as a joke? It really hurts me that after 5 years he still isn’t sure if he would marry me, even if we don’t get married in the next 2-3 years, it would mean so much to me to hear him just say my name or say he would consider it in the future — instead of him joking about “his future wife” (not me), or “my future house” or “future car” with his friends.
My boyfriend is generally not a romantic person, and doesn’t believe in taking me on dates, getting gifts or flowers, etc. and has never done that in the entire 5 years even though I often get him gifts, beer, or snacks to brighten up his day and he says he likes feeling special and loved.
We used to go out a LOT before we moved in together, but since 1.5 years he wants our “dates” to usually be us having fun at home playing video games, or ordering food home and splitting 50-50.
He goes out with his friends until 2 am – 4 am most weekends.
I try to be cool about us staying home all the time (since he usually tells me that he’s too tired to go out when I try to make plans with him outside). I usually ignore it, but feel bad that he doesn’t feel “tired” when he’s out with friends until late at night, so I sometimes try to get him to go out for dinner or drinks, but he usually asks to come home by 9 pm so that he can hop onto games with his “boys.”
I’ve never met his friends as I am not comfortable with our country’s language (I only speak English), so he says it’ll be awkward to talk to them as they aren’t comfortable with english.
Around 2 months ago, I had surgery and ended up having to bed rest for a few days. He took care of all the household chores for those days, which was so sweet. I tried to repay him by getting food, etc. paid for and delivered so that he doesn’t get too tired. However, since then, he’s started being distant and telling me that he’s “tired of being around me al the time” since I haven’t been going out with my friends since Ingot sick.
I know we live together, but I would never “get tired of seeing him.” I work 8 am – 6 pm from a separate bedroom, and he plays games or talks to his friends from 9:30 pm – 12 midnight on weekdays anyway, so I barely even see him. I try to bring up my concerns but he ends up raising his voice or misconstruing me and starting a nasty argument, so I’ve stopped trying to do that since I don’t like seeing him angry (and I don’t get angry myself since I grew up watching my parents be in love and never argue for the past 30 years!)
I’m sorry for the rant but it’s not a good feeling to see my friends so happy with their partners or getting engaged on social media, while mine never takes photos with me, talks about me, or does anything with me other than staying in or doing chores, going out only once or twice a month 🙁 I really thought he would be the one but after 5 years I feel like I might be waiting for a ring that’ll never come …. i’m especially sad in this holiday season since my friends are all gone for vacations, my boyfriend initially said we will travel abroad to visit family, so I took time off, but then he cancelled it 2 weeks ago to visit his cousin and now i’m alone for christmas 🙁
I don’t want to lose this relationship after so many years of love, so would appreciate advice on how to improve things… or would you try to move on if you were in my shoes? It’s so hard 🙁
tl;dr My boyfriend [24M] of 5 years doesn’t want to marry me [23F]. I don’t know if our relationship is worth salvaging.
8 comments
Sounds like you’re in a modern relationship. He regularly stays out till 2-4am, you split the bill 50/50, he makes excuses for you not to meet his friends. I assume the “going out” was when you were in university and in the party phase of your life?
Sounds to me like he’s stayed roughly the same and your expectations of him have changed.
I’m not reading anything that would lead me to expect a traditional outcome like marriage or a family. It sounds like a modern relationship: two people never fully committing, acting according to a decent relationship standard, or getting married.
he’s wasting your time and you are letting him. maybe take the time to get individual therapy and find out why you are settling for this guy. you are falling for the sink cost fallacy possibly. you’ve had some good times together and it’s been 5 years but that’s not much compared to 5 more, or 10, 20,30 etc.
what kind of guy doesn’t believe in dates or doing anything romantic. saying that is a cop out. i wouldn’t be surprised he would do that for someone else that he actually wants to chase and keep in his life. so don’t enable this behavior and settle for this kind of love. it’s not real. there’s honestly so many red flags in your post about him, i don’t understand why you are trying to hold on.
u don’t feel good about how the relationship is going, probably how it has been in the past, and u don’t like how it is right now. so why are you wasting your time.
You should leave him. This relationship sounds like shit. You have said nothing positive about him this whole post. You were out of commission in bed and he got tired of being around you. I don’t think he’s marriage material, he can’t even do the “in sickness and in health”
Don’t let him waste anymore of your time and he sounds kind of selfish.
I’m sorry that you are going through this but it seems like you are the only one in a relationship, your boyfriend is operating as a single man and have not made an investment into your relationship at all. I think you can find better than what you are receiving because I don’t think your boyfriend can give you what you deserve, there is someone out there willing to put in the same work you are putting in to making a relationship work but it’s not your current boyfriend.
You are very obviously so smart and so accomplished – you deserve better.
Why are you taking the time to make him feel special when he doesn’t care about you at all?
Honey sometimes people change. Your love seems to have grown while his has not. You actually can be tired of seeing your significant other lol but that doesn’t cause distance. I think it’s time to cut your losses and move on. There are plenty of men looking for marriage