I’ve been together with my bf for the past 5 years and he is a sweetheart. We moved in together after 2 years and things have been great I love him a lot and I know he loves me too. I work in a law firm and my bf is a physicist and works in one of the best institutions in the country for his field.
So he recently got tenure and I’m doing good in my field too. We live in an apartment we bought together.
Recently I’ve been thinking about marriage and didn’t just know when the right time was so day before yesterday I just popped the question, he was just so happy and obviously agreed. Mind you this was done in our home in a private setting. When the initial excitement started to wear off I could see he was visibly distressed and right before the bed he asked me ” will you want to have kids with me when we get married?” I said yes. To which he replied “Then i can marry you only if you agree to give me absolute control over our child’s academics. We can share all the rest of the stuff and I even agree in advance if you would like reserve something solely you two but i can’t compromise on this. ” I was absolutely gutted as I didn’t know what to say. It was so out of character for him. I said that I think that both of us should be involved in every aspect of our child’s life he just said no. I tried asking if something happened but he just left for the couch. I took the day off as I’m not in the right state of mind rn. This morning he entered the room, I was awake but pretended to be asleep. He just kissed my forehead and when he left I could hear him sobbing. I know something has happened and most probably it isn’t even related to us. I tried contacting him but he hasn’t returned any of my messages. I asked him if he would like to have lunch about an hour ago and he just replied no again. I don’t know how to proceed or what to make of my relationship anymore.
How should I proceed?
TLDR: I proposed to my bf of 5 years and he laid a condition that he wants absolute control over our future child’s education when we conceive in the future and is trying to dodge my attempts to talk ever since.
31 comments
Logically, this is a conversation that should have happened long ago. I realize, however, that it’s now a moot point.
But here we are. So he says that, but what does that mean? That’s what’s important here. Either way, you responded with a reasonable thought and he told you no. You pushed (essentially trying to understand my question around what it means), and he brushed you off.
You were probably right to take a breath and walk away from the situation. But now he’s ignoring you. The thing is, you didn’t even say no; you just asked for more information. Now he’s treating you like you harmed him and don’t deserve his attention.
So let’s keep it simple; are you good with this? If not, then you’ve learned you’re incompatible. You also shouldn’t be ok with how he’s handled this. Regardless, if you’re going to proceed, you absolutely should not be getting married until you have a full understanding of why he wants this, and subsequently that you’d truly be ok with it. Good luck.
Is it possible that he thinks you aren’t very smart but doesn’t want to tell you that?
What the fuck.
If his kid’s academics are important to him, that’s fine. If they’re a dealbreaker, that’s fine. What’s not fine is him expecting you to agree to something without knowing what you’re agreeing to, and possibly expecting you to hold to an agreement that was made under significantly different circumstances. (“You promised we could send our child to Hogwarts!” “Yes, but that was before Hogwarts fell under the control of Voldemort.” “But you promised!”)
If this is important to him then the two of you should discuss your values and intentions as honestly as possible and he should decide if he trusts you to make good decisions with him.
Don’t proceed. Seriously. He’s demanding control of your future children’s academics? Absolutely not. He already has a plan for who and what he wants his future children to be. You have to see how awful that would be for the child. Total control. He’s not someone who you can, in good conscience, have children with. I’m really sorry. Please don’t do this to your future child. It’s not okay.
This is a completely weird request, especially coming out of the blue. Do not agree to it. Even weirder is how he’s been acting afterwards.
Wait until you’re both home and talk about what’s going on in person. This is not a conversation to have on a lunch break.
He doesn’t understand how a child learns.
The lack of communication and the shutdown of anything more is a big red flag.
do you know the details of what he means by total control? this could be so many different thing to so many different people.
>”Then i can marry you only if you agree to give me absolute control over our child’s academics. We can share all the rest of the stuff and I even agree in advance if you would like reserve something solely you two but i can’t compromise on this. ”
Your response to this demand should be: “Okay, I guess we do not get married then.”. Really the fact that he wants complete control over this aspect of your child’s life is huge red flag number one.
>I said that I think that both of us should be involved in every aspect of our child’s life he just said no. I tried asking if something happened but he just left for the couch.
The fact that he doesn’t even want to discuss this with you, is huge red flag number two.
>How should I proceed?
I think your relationship has irrevocably changed. It may even be over.
>yesterday I just popped the question, he was just so happy and obviously agreed. Mind you this was done in our home in a private setting. When the initial excitement started to wear off I could see he was visibly distressed and right before the bed he asked me ” will you want to have kids with me when we get married?” I said yes. To which he replied “Then i can marry you only if you agree to give me absolute control over our child’s academics. We can share all the rest of the stuff and I even agree in advance if you would like reserve something solely you two but i can’t compromise on this. ” I was absolutely gutted as I didn’t know what to say. It was so out of character for him. I said that I think that both of us should be involved in every aspect of our child’s life he just said no. I tried asking if something happened but he just left for the couch. I took the day off as I’m not in the right state of mind rn. This morning he entered the room, I was awake but pretended to be asleep. He just kissed my forehead and when he left I could hear him sobbing. I know something has happened and most probably it isn’t even related to us. I tried contacting him but he hasn’t returned any of my messages. I asked him if he would like to have lunch about an hour ago and he just replied no again.
This is absolutely not something to just agree to without understanding what he’s planning / asking and why. Does he intend to homeschool the children in a fundamentalist religion? Does he intend to send them to a private school with corporal punishment? Does he intend to force possible future children into law or medicine or acting even if they don’t want to? For him to try to make this bargain with no details is completely unreasonable.
Maybe it’s innocent and he just wants them to attend Catholic or Hebrew school or has a strong commitment to public school — but **if he won’t tell you why and what his thoughts and plans are then it’s nothing you can reasonably agree to.**
I think how you proceed is to put the engagement on hold and ask him to talk more about his thought process here, either with you or with a couple’s counsellor or therapist or mediator. This is something he is SOBBING about, it sounds serious to me.
Do the two of you have differing views when it comes to politics, the education system etc? Is there a religious background at play here that would mean one of you would want your child going to a religious school and the other wouldn’t? Does one of you believe in using the public school system and the other doesn’t?
It sounds like he has a plan in mind already. The right academic plan for your kids can’t be chosen until you have them, and understand their strengths, weaknesses, challenges, wants, how they learn, and personality.
Making an academic choice for a child you don’t even know is a recipe for the kids failure. Giving absolute control of anything for your children to a spouse is a recipe for marriage failure.
What does this even mean? Where they go to school what they study I feel like this is some context missing.
To want complete control over a child academics whiteout ever having any say from you their other parent is a completely mad and unreasonable that will be a big part of the child’s life . you would get absolutely no say !so you either agree to that or he won’t marry you ?? Girl that flag is so red .
Very sorry that you are going through this. Please do not lose sight that giving someone the silent treatment is a form of abuse and manipulation. You really should proceed carefully and make sure this is really a person you want to build a continued future with. He’s showing you who he is with this demand, he approach to making it, and his behavior towards you now.
I have a spouse who is a tenured faculty member as well, and oh my god. We have degrees from the same institution, but I left academia. He thinks he has the recipe to mold the perfect kind and build the perfect application for colleges. Joke’s on him because who knows what the college landscape is even going to look like in over a decade.
This is one of the biggest sticking points in my marriage. If you decide you’re ok with this (which I DO NOT encourage), you need to negotiate big now so you “fully control” things you thing are important like medical care.
This is extremely strange and obviously not a request you should agree to honor. You also can’t move forward with the marriage until you know why he’s suddenly become so obsessive about this to the point of letting it derail his relationship.
!remindme 1 day
I like everybody else think that is a weird comment. The other part of it is without him giving you further context of what he saying is what if he wants to have the child get a degree in something to the child doesn’t want to have? I mean he says he wants complete control. That’s crazy. if you want the child to have the exact same thing as he has and what happens if the child doesn’t want that the damage that’s going to do the child is crazy
I really hope you come back and give an update once you’ve talked to him further because I’m really scratching my head over here. What the hell does this even mean? And why is he being so damn weird about it?
Something is behind this and you need to figure out what it is. My guess is he has some sort of trauma dealing with education. Give him some time and then explain that you would possibly like to agree if you understood where it was coming from and why. You both need to have a talk on how it would look and how other things would look if you got married. (Would chore split be the same? How will finances be handled?)
“Absolutely not. We are an equal partnership or we’re nothing. What are your concerns?”
I don’t even understand the request. As in he is the only one able to help the child with school work? He is the only one allowed to go to school meetings? He wants to be the one to influence the child in what studies to take on?
Either way, no chance I would agree. I would need to first of all need to know the details and the “why”.
Then possibly compromise from there.
Yeah this is bonkers. Something is up, other posters suggested some sort of trauma in relation to his education. Whatever it is you need to make it clear that he cannot dodge this. Give him a day or two to calm down. Then if he is still dodging you send him a message and tell him that #1 you will not agree to this demand and #2 you must discuss this and he needs to tell you about why he made this demand. Make it clear that there is no moving past this without addressing it. Go to a Therapist if needed but get to the bottom of whatever is going on.
I think the bigger questions you should be asking is what kind of plans he has for their education. Is it something controversial? Is that why he wants to be in complete control?
Either way, you need to talk it out because any future children aren’t just his. If he won’t discuss it and demands this condition, I think you need to back out and re-evaluate the relationship.
There should never be a big decision like that with a non-negotiable term attached to it.
Couples counseling before you marry.
There are 2 pretty big red flags here
1. His demand
2. His blowing you off when you try and find out why.
This is just weird. This might just be me projecting a prior experience. But I’m a to-be lawyer and my ex was a to-be physician. We were a lot younger than you guys. But he always thought of me as lesser than because I couldn’t get into med school (which is wrong, I just didn’t want to go). Obviously it was a reflection of his own insecurity as a man. But….
Do you just think he has an issue with your intelligence? Not the fact you’re smart, but could be smarter than him?
Yeah no, his demand and his actions afterwards are seriously distressing and I would totally take marriage off the table until he is willing to:
a) discuss where his reaction came from, including if it is related to some trauma from his past he’s never divulged to you
b) seek therapy for these clearly unresolved issues (you do NOT want them bleeding over onto any theoretical children in the future!)
c) understand that his demand for “absolute control” is unreasonable and not how parenting works in a marriage/partnership.
He’s trying to manipulate you and also is some kind of controlling psycho. Run asap.
WTF
There’s something really weird going on, that’s deeper than your BF wanting to send the kids to a STEM school or something. It’s not a reasonable request anyways, but I don’t think it’s the core of the actual issue.
My advice would be to give him space for a few days until he pulls himself together, and then talk to him about what kind of education he wants for them, why he thinks you’d have different plans for that, and why he’s behaving so strangely.
This is too weird.
The reasonable thing to do would be to say, before we get married, let’s talk about what we’d like our children’s education to look like so we can make sure we’re on the same page. A blanket refusal to discuss it but demand absolute control is deeply concerning. There’s a lot to consider about what would factor into it; public versus private; parochial, charter, homeschooling or unschooling; political, racial, ideological perspectives, control over what the kids learn, who teaches it, and the kids having access to support networks outside of their home…
You can’t marry him and have kids if he’s not going to talk about it. It’s very dark. And the fact that he delivered his decree that way is so weird. How has nothing about education or kids or a conflict in values ever come up before in the years you’ve been together?
This could be a trauma response, but I’m not convinced. The ides that you two could start a family and you’re supposed keep your trap shut about all the ways that the kids’ education would impact everyone’s lives is crazy—and what does he think would happen if you signed a permission slip for a field trip without his permission, or went to a parent teacher conference because he’s busy with work, etc? Is that grounds for divorce? What is your punishment supposed to be?