GoonOfFortune

When I think about that I get very excited, the thing that is in the back of my mind alot is introducing our kids to her Mum and my Dad knowing full well that they think punishing kids is acceptable even though I know they would not dare attempt that when we are there with them As for moving out we want to live together and see how that goes and experience that lifestyle, plus more freedom from family and then her mum wont have that "you live in my house" power over her so she will feel more confident in talking to her about her childhood knowing that if her mum reacts with aggression or immaturity she wont feel trapped

Hey, thanks for the responses, To answer you Jiminy.. I'm sure she can feel her biological clock ticking away because she is type 1 diabetic and the longer we leave kids the higher the chances for complications. Her friends aren't pressuring her and I'm fairly close to her best friend but she does see people around her getting engaged and she feels like she is not moving on and the thing that bothers her the most is that some of these people have pretty superficial relationships from her perspective. I know that her parents met and married young so that plus watching endless amounts of Disney movies would have had some impact on her view of marriage and there is a bit of the old mother fear but mainly because of her medical situation. @Steff: Hey man, yea I've watched those vids they are great, maybe it is a subconscious fear of commitment I have based on some of those reasons or just a rational caution in regards to the consequences of a failed marriage. On that note I have told her this is the most important decision of my life and that I want to be sure were ready plus that when it happens that there's no going back, and no snowballs chance in hell of divorce if we have kids which she took pretty well and understood. I'm so sorry that you found yourself in that situation that sounds terrible, I'm glad its turned out for the better for you. It is stories like that that do make me and others think hard. When I talk to other guys my age marriage isn't even on the radar and kids are completely out of the picture. Yea I'm definitely not one to conform to societies expectations and I agree that engagement has importance as a gesture as in a way of telling the wider community about the level of commitment in your relationship which I think is important. I guess women are brought up to dream about engagements and weddings and that coupled with an inflicted sense of insecurity through violent parenting would make the urge to get hitched even more compelling Well thanks for the responses I'll be sure to keep talking to her about it

Hi all, OK so I'm 25 and my gf is 22, my girlfriend has been asking me why I have not asked her hand in marriage yet after 3 1/2 years of being together. I've told her it frustrates me when she asks me that question or even talks about engagement and that it's something I'll ask when I feel the time is right. Now this is where she gets confused because we do talk about kids a lot and how we would like to raise them and we have established that marriage will come before kids so she becomes frustrated sometimes when I bring up kids. I've said that makes a lot of sense to me and I can understand how that would make you think I'm putting the "cart before the horse" so to speak and then get confused about my intentions. Ill just give a little back story on our relationship in case that helps anyone solve my conundrum.. My gf and I met before I started my "awakening" with Ron Paul then Peter Schiff then Stefan. After 3.5 years of being together there have been no fights or yelling of any kind.In the beginning I had a lot of trust issues around other guys and we both didn't know much about win win conflict resolution, when I would say something hurtful she went more to the silent treatment style which I didn't know how to deal with which frustrated me alot and we would eventually either sleep on it and make up in the morning or spend an hour or 2 of me trying to talk to her and eventually we would be talking again. These days thanks to reading Stefan's book real time relationships and watching a lot of his videos our relationship is much more stable though we do get frustrated at each other over certain things. Were constantly working on being more open, vulnerable and honest with each other which is going really well and I've since talked to my parents about my childhood (some yelling, maybe 5 - 8 spankings but alot of counting to 1,2,3 and my dad was pretty authoritarian might makes right etc) and she is just starting to talk to her mum about the way she was treated (alot of yelling, smackings, authoritarian where her dad was more passive and didn't do any of the punishing etc). We agree on things like parenting, are almost identical on money issues, what we want out of life, we go on alot of holidays together and we both still get very excited when the other is coming over (we live a 10 minute bike ride apart) We are looking at moving out together in an apartment in the next 1-3 months. So when she asks me about why I have not asked her to get engaged yet I say "I just don't feel like I'm ready yet and I don't know the underlying reason for that" So when I say that she feels its something wrong with her and I can't give a real reason she she feels she needs to change something about herself but doesn't know what etc but I explain that I can't change her nor want to which then frustrates her even more.. And to me it seems strange to ask your boyfriend that questions since it's usually a surprise kind of thing. Anyway, were both getting frustrated over this which is why I promised her to post it on the forums here to see If i can get some help with determining why I haven't asked her yet or how we could figure out why were both getting frustrated Any help would be greatly appreciated and I'm happy to answer any questions Thanks!