My partner (29M) wants to get me (26F) a promise necklace instead of an engagement ring

35 comments

1. Promise jewelry is for children too young to get married.

   He doesn’t want to marry you enough to marry you. Stop wasting your time and go find someone who knows deep in his soul he can’t be happy without you.

2. Do not buy a house with someone you’re not actually married to.

3. DO NOT buy a house with someone you’re not married to. Sounds like he is not interested in marriage.

4. Be ready to end the relationship. This dude doesn’t want to marry you.

5. >We have talked about engagement and marriage and he always gets defensive when we talk about getting engaged/ engagement rings as he thinks they are pointless.
   He knows I want to get engaged and married but he is always making excuses.

   Now, sis. This man does not want to marry you. The promise necklace is a promise that he will continue to waste your time

6. if he wanted to marry you he would! do not waste more of your life on someone who doesn’t have clear intentions.

7. Have you heard of a “shut up ring?” He’s trying to give you a shut up necklace. You probably shouldn’t buy a house with someone who isn’t ready to commit to a life together.

8. “I feel like I am wasting my time”

   That’s because you are. Boy, bye. 

9. He doesn’t want to marry you.

10. There are three kinds of dragging-their-feet men:

    1. There are the ones who lead a girl on for years and years, then they’re married to the next one within 18 months.

    2. The ones who do indeed never get married.

    3. The ones who reluctantly get married, spoiling everything about the engagement process, and then they hold it against you forever.

    You deserve to be with someone who is excited to marry you.

11. Probably time to sit down and have a real conversation about what the two of you want from the relationship and the plan for the future and timelines. For whatever reason it sounds like he has cold feet now and that’s important to know if you’re looking to get married and have kids in the next few years (and definitely time to pump the breaks on buying a house).

12. #He doesn’t want to marry you.

    He’s made it abundantly clear.

13. I think 90% of posts can be answered by asking the person directly. There’s no other way of finding out

14. Promise jewelry is CONTEMPORANEOUS with the proposal when the dude needs to save up for the ring. I needed to sell a car to buy my fiancé a ring and I gave her a charm my mom donated off her charm bracelet.

15. He doesn’t want to get married or commit. He just wants his life to be easier and build equity in real estate.

16. What the fuck is a “promise necklace”

17. You feel like he’s avoiding getting married because that’s *exactly what he’s doing.*

    You are starting to feel like you are wasting your time here because that *is* what you are doing.

    Trust your gut and be honest. Call him out and ffs don’t buy a house with a boyfriend. It’s just a bad plan.

    Separate if you need to or cut the cord entirely, but don’t settle.

18. a promise is not an engagement & a necklace is not a ring

19. He wants you to think he is planning to marry you so he can steal a few more years of your time. 🙁

20. if he wanted to marry you, he would have done it.

21. He benefits from buying a house with you because it costs him less. He doesn’t benefit from proposing to you or marrying you because it will cost him more – both financially and, seemingly, in terms of perceived sacrifice. He has no interest in marrying you, he’s made this lack of interest clear, and it’s not the sort of thing where a compromise can be reached. A piece of promise jewellery at your ages and level of commitment isn’t a gesture, it’s an insult.

    OP, let’s say this escalates and you both have a conversation where you tell him this is a dealbreaker and you’re reconsidering your relationship and buying a home because of this – how would you feel if this conversation were to suddenly make him change his tune and directly contributed to him suddenly proposing? Do you feel you would feel happy knowing he took your words seriously and proposed, or do you think you’d never be able to shake the feeling he only proposed to shut you up, maintain the lifestyle he has, and you’d be constantly worried about how he really feels about the whole thing? The conversations you’ve had make it clear that your partner is someone who is never going to marry you, or is only going to marry you because he had to be convinced or given some ultimatum – being with him means you have to make your peace with either outcome. If you can’t, leave.

22. “He wants to spend a lot of money on a diamond necklace but doesn’t want to get an engagement ring”

    Translation: He doesn’t want to buy you a ring or marry you anytime soon but is willing to spend a little bit of money on a necklace to get you to shut up about it.

    A “promise necklace” very nicely avoids announcing to anyone else in the world that he intends to marry you (hint: because he doesn’t) but keeps you hoping you’ll get that ring someday. To be even clearer about what I’m saying, he’s not only avoiding an engagement ring, he’s also avoiding a promise ring and it’s not because those are for teenagers. It’s because he wants to avoid giving you any kind of ring whatsoever and/or having it appear to anyone in the world aside from you that he’s promising you anything.

    Don’t buy a house with someone you aren’t married to. That’s a recipe for disaster.

    I want to be clear, because someone will inevitably comment about this: It is possible in many places to get legal documents in place that will allow you two to safely buy a house together and to protect against most things that could go wrong (ex: a breakup, one of you ending up incapacitated, one of you dying and a relative inheriting that person’s share in the house, etc.). However, in most places, all of those documents will cost a shit ton more money, time, and other resources than going to a courthouse and getting married will and will still protect you less.

    If someone isn’t ready to do the much more simple and cost effective option (i.e. marriage) and is going to that great of lengths to avoid it (i.e. getting a purchase agreement, a cohabitation agreement, a living will/ advanced directive, setting up appropriate estate planning/ rights of survivorship, making you the beneficiary on everything, opening shared accounts with you, etc.). That’s their way of telling you that they are deeply committed to not marrying you anytime soon (so committed they are putting in a ton of work, time, and effort to avoid marriage). Don’t ignore that when making a risky legal and financial decision that will impact you for many years (which homeownership is). If you are jointly purchasing without doing those things, watch out. You are taking a major risk.

    The harsh truth is that if he’s 29 and doesn’t know after 4 years together/ 3 years living together, it’s not an enthusiastic yes. Which means it’s a no. If he was younger or you’d been together less time or you had spent the majority of your time long-distance or had a complicated family to blend then maybe there might be hesitation for other reasons that could be resolvable. But at 29 and after 3 years of living together, the reason is, he just doesn’t want to marry you.

    Stop wasting your own time and find someone who actually wants to marry you if you know what’s something you want.

    This guy ain’t it and he wants you to stop doing the thing that’s inconvenient to his plans of purchasing a house with you but not marrying you any time soon. Namely, he wants you to stop bringing up an engagement so badly he’s willing to pay for an expensive diamond necklace in the hopes he can use that to stall for longer. It’s a terrible sign that the two of you can’t even communicate about future goals like marriage without him getting defensive or dismissive. You aren’t having kids in the next few years, at least not with intention behind it.

    He is, at the very least, highly hesitant to marry you and a shitty communicator about it.

    Here is the thing, if he actually thought an engagement ring was pointless or had little meaning behind it and/or didn’t care that much about being engaged or married yet wanted to be with you long-term, he’d have already proposed knowing how much it matters to you. It absolutely is not “pointless” to him and instead has great meaning. It means he’s committing to marrying you and he does not want to do that. He’s putting a ton of effort into finding a way to avoid giving you a ring while dismissing the ring as being meaningless.

    What do you actually think that’s about? The “I don’t want to get married because marriage doesn’t mean anything to me” crowd usually does get married when the person they love and want to build a future wants that and when the person they trust explains to them the benefits of being married (legal and otherwise). The “I don’t want to get married because I don’t want to end up legally tied to you” crowd is the one who goes to great, in this case absurd, lengths to dismiss your opinions and desires and avoid marriage to you at all costs.

    He’s either going to one day marry you, reluctantly and resentfully, and then tell himself he was forced and treat you with resentment until the marriage implodes (or just lasts for years unhappily), or he’s going to waste your time until you leave or until he mets the person he actually wants to marry (and then he’ll get married rather quickly), or he’ll never do it at all.

    But he is never going to be excited about marrying you. If you want someone who is excited to marry you, get out of this relationship.

23. He doesn’t believe in marriage, nor engagement. he’s buying you a hush necklace. ask him straight up do you believe in marriage? Because he knows what you want in the next step of your relationship but is choosing not to do it. Instead doing it his way. To silence you. You deserve a ring 🤍

24. Have you seen the Vanderpump Rules episode “ring on a string”?….Katie Maloney

25. So he wants to buy a house now. Because that will be good for him. But he wants to give you a promise necklace. How long will it take for him to buy an engagement ring? And how long will it take for him to actually marry you? Maybe he will want a long engagement.

    Sounds to me he is just trying to keep you around and “happy” while he goes to the next phase (a house) without being married. Absolutely do not buy a house with him. Believe his own timeline. He is not ready to marry you after five years? You’re not the one for him.

    Give one more year and then leave.

26. As the old saying goes why buy the cow when he can get the milk free! He doesn’t want the legality of marriage he can walk away with no entanglement

27. He doesn’t want to marry you right now. Don’t buy a house with him. Also, women can propose if they want to get married. I did. Why wait to ask for what you want and get an answer?

    Propose to him. He’s free to say yes or no. You’re free to do as you wish in response. Politely decline a promise necklace. That doesn’t even make sense. You’re both adults.

28. So many of these stories, every single day. Live-in boyfriend wants to enjoy all the benefits of being married without having to sign up for the commitment and obligations. OP, don’t you think you deserve a man that absolutely can’t wait to make it permanent and official?

29. Do you want to be married? Or do you want to be married TO HIM? Big difference.

    You mentioned you started talking about marriage and wanting to be married when you started dating. It’s fine to have a timeline but you should examine your own priorities also and whether you want the proposal/wedding or you want a relationship with him.

    To me it sounds like he isn’t feeling ready, and he may never feel ready. I’m not sure I would have felt ready at 29 and 26. My husband and I dated for over four years before we got engaged and we were in our 30s.

    But if he knows it’s what you want and you express a timeline and he’s dragging his feet… you’re young, and there are plenty of men out there who know what they want.

    Definitely don’t buy a house with him.

30. He doesn’t want to marry you. He wants to give you a “shut up necklace” instead. If you choose to break up with him, prepare for him to show up at your door asking you to take him back with a ring. Please say no.

    I was once in a 5 year relationship with a guy who promised he would propose and marry me and that never happened and I broke up with him. Within a day, he was gas lighting me to all his family, trash talking to all our mutual friends online.. All while I was still living with his family and packing up my boxes for the next two days. Months later, I found out he actually cheated on me during the relationship and went back to date that girl. (Yeah… no wonder why he didn’t want to marry me and THANK GOD I left.) If he truly wanted to marry you, he would have committed and asked you within 2-3 years of the relationship. Please do not settle for him.

    You want someone who shows that they want you and care about you. When you know your the person you’re dating is the one, the relationship moves to an engagement pretty fast. Out of all the friends and relatives I know that have dated more than 5+ years, they have all broken up except one. That one couple have been together for 15 years unmarried, because they don’t care about a “marriage certificate” but are considered to be in a domestic partnership.

31. I dated a dude for years who kept saying he wanted to get married one day. He swore it. He actually ended up proposing. We were engaged for maybe a week before he called it off. I have no bitterness towards him. He’s still not married, and I doubt he ever will be. Im married and I have soon to be three kids. He did what he had to do, nothing more and nothing less.

    Do not buy a house with this man. Do not have a baby with this man. If you want marriage, you won’t get it with him.

32. Time to move on. You deserve better.

33. He will NEVERY marry you. Your move.

34. People keep mentioning a “shut up” necklace but are missing a key point to me. He doesn’t even want to get you something people could *construe* as an engagement ring. He does not want to marry you or be seen as wanting to marry you. Do with that what you will.

35. I think you’re overthinking the engagement. Is this guy going to marry you is the real question? The ring or necklace doesn’t matter. His desire to marry you or not is the thing to focus on.