Dear Christine,
When do you know that you’re ready for marriage?
I’m asking because I think that I am. As far as I am concerned, I have everything to make a good marriage.
I am 29 and my boyfriend is 31. We have been seeing each other for the last three years and months. We are good friends, share similar interests, can talk about anything, and we have a good sex life.
I live in my own home. He moved in with me about a year ago.
I continue to pay my mortgage while he pays all the household bills, so we both are able to save money.
Everything is working out very well apart from one thing, that is, he has now made it perfectly clear that he will never get married. He said his father never married his mother, so he will never marry anybody.
Christine, my parents were married for more than 40 years. I believe strongly in marriage and I told him this several times, yet it seems that he never took me seriously.
I don’t know whether to stay with him and accept this situation, or look for someone else who believes in marriage and having children. What would you advise me to do?
– Hurt
Dear Hurt,
It seems that your boyfriend is either not ready to settle down or is totally indifferent to marriage based on his resentment for his father’s actions towards his beloved mother.
He has not matured or cares not to recognise the psychological difference between living together and being married.
You need to revisit this situation with him and make your feelings clear again. Just as he has insisted he’ll never get married, you can declare that you want to because that is fundamental to what you stand for.
Explain your views about wanting your children and don’t apologise for them.
You are at the perfect age for marriage and a child and I can understand the yearnings you are going through now.
No one should blame you for getting out of a relationship which has a big no-no in response to these desires.
– CHRISTINE
