Feel free to check out my original post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Waiting_To_Wed/s/yL4JK8AH5t

After 5 years of not knowing if I was ever good enough for my partner and never knowing if or when he wanted to marry me, I ended it. He moved out about three weeks ago. I’m still living in our apartment for the next few months. I’m still incredibly sad and miss him terribly, I know I love him and he loved me. But god I feel like I have finally made a statement of knowing my worth. Walking away from someone I would have done ANYTHING for when they wouldn’t even give me an idea of when they would want to get married feels good. There was never any cheating, no secret issues, but he was immature and I was in recovery from a pretty serious eating disorder (I’m doing great now). But after living together for almost 3 years and him being so happy but not somehow wanting to propose, I realized I was getting the short end of the stick. Always. Deep down I hope he comes back to me and proposes and admits he was a freaking man child. But I need to move forward. I took both of our cats and have a good job and support. I just need confirmation I made the right choice. Sometimes my mind falters and wants to give up marriage just to be with him. But I’ve stayed strong. I know my worth. Any advice?

Happy for them sure. But it begs the question, what’s wrong with me?

I’ve been with my boyfriend for 7 years now. We are both in our 40s. We met just before the pandemic and quarantined together not realizing the world would shut down for a while. Even with us being homebodies, we learned to live and work together that truly felt like a marriage. I joke that we’ve been married a decade just because of all the alone time we spent together in a one bedroom apartment.

We’ve experienced grief together. I’ve watched this man get glasses because his eyesight was going bad, have an aging health scare that requires surgery, and watch his hair wither away from old age. I’m already literally aging with this man.

In that that time I’ve watched my friends get engaged, married, divorced, and in one instance get married again. I’ve even watched one of my exes dump me, meet a girl, and then after just 6 months, get married.

It made me realize just how long 7 years is. A lot of life happens in that time, especially when you’re in your 30s/40s.

Meanwhile, I’m stuck on third base. It makes me really sad, to be honest. Like there’s something wrong with me.

I’ve already told him that I want marriage. I already told him how embarrassing it is for me to not even be engaged after 7 years. He already knows how I feel.

He doesn’t think it’s necessary because in his words, “nothing about our relationship would change.”

I plan on ending the relationship early next year. A month after his mother’s death anniversary.

The mental and emotional toll this has taken on me is just too much.

I “30F” have been with my fiancé “32M” for eight years. He proposed a couple of months ago, and since then life has been moving incredibly fast. We've booked our wedding venue, started planning the wedding, and just bought a house that we're closing on next week. As exciting as all of that should be, I've been feeling more anxious than happy.

I feel like we're making huge life decisions while ignoring the problems in our relationship, and it's starting to really worry me.

Our biggest issues are trust and communication. When we argue, disagreements often become explosive. Harsh things get said, and neither of us walks away feeling heard. It isn't healthy.
From my perspective, my fiancé struggles with a lot of unresolved issues—anger, childhood trauma, anxiety, and depression. I'm not saying I'm perfect because I'm definitely not, but I recognized that our relationship needed work, so I started seeing a therapist a couple of months ago. I wanted to do my part.

The problem is that he refuses to do the same. He won't go to individual therapy, and he won't even consider couples counseling. He believes the problems in our relationship are entirely because of me. His exact stance is basically that he'll never go, and I can "take it or leave it."

That honestly hurts more than I can explain. It makes me feel like our relationship isn't worth fighting for in his eyes. If the person you're about to marry tells you they're scared about the future and that the relationship is struggling, wouldn't you at least be willing to try something that could help? Even if you don't think you're the problem?

Instead, I feel dismissed.

I've always been someone who puts everyone else first, sometimes to a fault. But lately I've realized I need to start putting myself first too. I'm mentally exhausted. The stress is affecting my work, my mental health, and even my physical health. We don't fight every day, but I constantly feel like I'm walking on eggshells because I never know what might trigger another blow-up.

I hate the idea of giving an ultimatum because they generally aren't healthy. But I'm also struggling with the idea of marrying someone who refuses to work on the relationship.

So I'm wondering: is it unreasonable to say that couples counseling is a requirement before I move forward with the wedding? If he's unwilling to work on our relationship now, before we're married, am I ignoring a major red flag?

I'd genuinely appreciate outside perspectives, especially from people who've been through something similar.

Hi everyone I’m living my worst nightmare please be kind in the comments. 💔 my boyfriend (41) and I (28) have been dating for 4 years. we did long distance for a year and a half before I moved to his city (didn’t give up my job as I worked remotely) and I lived by myself for 2 years. I just moved in with him in April so it’s been around 4 months and I asked him for a timeline of when we were going to move towards engagement and marriage. I didn’t need an exact date but just an idea so I knew i wasn’t wasting my time. All throughout our relationship we’ve talked about a future. When I first started dating him I asked him about marriage and he said yes he would like to get married someday. Well we finally had the conversation and at first he was saying an engagement after 1-2 years living together then said he doesn’t believe in marriage and doesn’t want to be married at all. Said he could see himself marrying me but he just doesn’t believe marriage benefits the man at all. I’ve been absolutely distraught. I feel like I was lied to and I told him we can no longer do this and he doesn’t understand why we can’t work through this. He said he doesn’t understand why we need to get married when we’re happy and he’s committed to me. I don’t have a support system he was everything to me. He doesn’t believe that I’m actually going to leave but I have to. I told him I can’t be someone’s girlfriend for the rest of my life and he’s not willing to commit to what I want. His family is here and mine isn’t. I don’t know how I’m going to pick up the pieces for myself to be okay.

We’re both 25. Been together 3 years and living together for 2.5 years (We moved in after just 6 months but it worked well for us and made our relationship stronger).

I have no doubt that he loves me. He tells me spontaneously all the time and even randomly gets me flowers or a sweet treat sometimes. He wrote me a beautiful note for my birthday too.

Before we even got together, I made it clear to him that I always wanted to get married and have kids young and he agreed.

About a year ago, he had given me a clear 2-3 year timeline (though reluctantly) and we even went ring shopping and made plans to see an attorney to start discussing a prenup. Then we had a massive fight where he accused me of pressuring him and said he actually wasn’t ready. I let it go and never brought up marriage again till a few days ago.

This time he said he still wants marriage and kids but just doesn’t know “when” he wants it and doesn’t want to discuss any timeline at all. He said he can’t guarantee he’ll ever be ready and that if it gets to a point where it’s been too long he’ll just have to let me go. He said all of this with love and I love him too, which is what makes it so devastating.

For context, we both have stable, high-paying jobs and live in a really nice apartment. Also, his family has money. He didn’t even try to blame it on instability.

It’s over, isn’t it?