Shit a ring or get off the relationship pot? Warning: very long.
Ok, I've read the previous 2 years of ask mefi questions tagged with 'love'. Most (not all) of those are about younger people or married people or they are 'who do I choose?' questions--not exactly my situation. I still need some outside perspective. I really appreciate it because I'm going crazy with indecision. Again, warning: long.
I'm in a 2+ year relationship. We're in our mid-30s. We both want to start a family soon and get married and buy a house and settle down. The question is whether we should do that with each other. She has been ready to marry me for a year, but I am feeling unsure. She is feeling lots of biological clock pressure, which I am very sympathetic towards. There are many great things about the relationship, and, in general, it has gotten better and better over time. But I still have questions about it too.
History:
First year of the relationship: When we first started dating, I was depressed and just starting to try anti-depressants (which eventually worked) and had a lot of horribly stressful issues from work that lasted the whole year. We fought a lot. This was in part due to my depression and in part because she was raised in an insanely critical family and her parents never reliably protected her from others, including her siblings who hit her a lot. So she was/is incredibly sensitive and defensive (she's working on that with some real success, but it's an ingrained instinct). But there were plenty of good times, too. Second year: the relationship became cross-country long distance b/c I got a one-year job somewhere else and wasn't ready to propose, so she wasn't ready to move with me. I tried to break up with her 2 months after moving down, but she convinced me to stay together. Now: I have a new job in a different town, she did move with me to this small town, she wants a ring and a baby ASAP. She is in a hard situation. She gave up a lot to come here without a committment from me. I know that I'm extending this situation through my inaction, and I feel awful, and she is depressed and crying a lot, and we're in a new town and don't really know anyone. She did just get a job here, however, which should help her mood. Part of my point here is that the relationship was born in an unusually stressful and unsettled situation, and that might have helped prevent the blissful start that some relationships have. So far, we have not had any period that felt settled or permanent.
The month before we moved to our current location, she was horrible and screamed at me a lot. In her calmer moments, she recognized this and attributed it to anxiety about leaving house, town, job, and family, and these issues were/are very real and reasonable. But I started to have doubts about us and at the end of the summer I asked her if she really wanted to come down with me. She said, 'I am not acting like myself. I think I'm having problems about leaving that are making me act crazy. I think these will pass. If you love me, yes, I want to come down with you.' I said, 'I do love you, but I don't know whether we are meant for each other long-term. I have some doubts about whether our issues can be solved. But I want this to work. If you want to come down to see how it works out, and try to solve our problems, I'm willing to try as hard as I can to do that.' I told her that if she needed more committment than that before she would come down, I understood. She decided to come and we are living together for the first time.
Currently:
The pros of the relationship: I love her. I can totally see building a comfortable life with her. We have the same social values, financial stability, general life goals, attitudes towards money, attitudes towards religion, taste in houses, enjoy talking about politics, same sense of humor, we can get along with each other's families, like each other's friends. I think we could work out any parenting issues. And, importantly, we are both willing to continue putting a lot of work into improving the relationship. Also, she is willing to prioritize my career over hers in terms of where we live, with some veto power for her, and I would obviously consider her opinion a lot. But she'd give up a job (she's a laywer) so I could get a better job for me. I'm in a field where moving up will require moving locations, so that's a very big deal for me.
The cons: With some frequency, we get into petty arguments. Sometimes, things that should be easy and relaxing aren't. Sometimes I don't feel like she gets or responds to my emotions because she will continue pressing some stupid point even when I'm getting upset about it, and she sometimes feels that I don't understand her. We have different styles of communication and that can make things hard. We are both naturally dominant conversationally, so we sometimes feel like we're fighting for airtime. This has improved a LOT since the beginning, but it still sometimes nags at me. I feel (in a huge generalization/oversimplification) like a lot of couples have one dominant and one submissive person roles that make this sort of thing easier, but we each have trouble letting go sometimes. If we are disagreeing about where to go to dinner, neither of us cares a lot, and we don't want to fight, but we each wrestle with enjoying our preference and letting the other person get what they want. So this creates an annoying back-and-forth in which one says, 'where should we go for dinner' and the other says 'oh, we can do whatever you want' and the other says, 'well, how about X? do you want to go to X?' and then 'Well, I prefer Y, but X is fine' and then 'well, we don't have to go to X, we can go to Y' and then 'are you sure? X is ok' and then, 'well, I guess I do want to go to X' and then, 'but I am sort of in the mood for Y, I can't really find anything I like at X' and then 'what about dish Z? You'd like that' and then 'no, I don't like mushrooms' and then the argument starts. I let it go/give in a lot more often, but that creates some resentment over time. She frequently wrongly assumes that I'm criticizing her when I'm not (b/c of her family history) or that I'm upset about something just because I mention it, and I have to clarify my intentions a lot, but sometimes it comes too late and the argument has started. This has improved a lot over time but still happens when we're stressed.
Also, I am much more sexual than she is (this has been consistent over the whole relationship), in terms of frequency, general touchy-feely affection, and simple open-mindedness towards enjoying sex. We do have sex and we both enjoy it, but frequency is off (1:3 ratio) and she has trouble doing any sexual things for me when she's not feeling it. Also, we have diferent dispositions. She's totally outdoorsy and I'm more domestic. When we disagree on what to do, she'd rather we each do our own thing independently and I'd rather compromise or take turns to find ways to do things together. We have found some sorts of compromise, but sometimes I feel like she wishes I were different. If I agree to go on a hike with her, she might get upset on the hike because I'm not enjoying it enough and that means that I may refuse to go on hikes in the future or that I'm not who she imagined that she would be with at this point in her life. I often point out that she is getting upset because of some speculative concern about the future rather than focusing on the here-and-now. She usually agrees upon reflection, but it's a chore to remind her that I don't suck because hikes aren't my favorite thing. Finally, I don't feel a strong passion or spark. Even though she tells me she feels passionate towards me, I don't often feel that from her. There are times when we're together that I do feel a sweet emotional bond, and sometimes when that goes a few days in a row, I start to work up the gumption to propose. But then she'll act in a very insensitive way and I'll retreat. To complicate things, I'm not sure I've ever felt a spark like that past my first relationship. I can't really tell if my feelings are just how I am at this stage in my life or if it means that I'm not really in love and should leave to try to find someone new. Maybe I'm rationalizing not having the spark, and it's actually a really important indicator. I can't tell at this point. It's also hard because she's having such a tough time right now that she's not at her maximum appeal. It's hard to feel passionately attracted to someone who's constantly crying.
The macro/lifestyle things are all there, and some of the personal things are there, but some aren't. Some can be improved, and maybe some can't. We have done some counseling, and we are both in therapy--I've been in for a while and she just started a few weeks ago (she resisted for a long time). But I don't think the relationship will improve in the short term from its current state without me proposing because the longer things go on, the more stressed she becomes, and with good reason. Things are particularly hard now because she is really getting depressed and crying frequently. I feel awful about this. I have always been very honest with her regarding my feelings, so please don't beat me up for leading her on. (Reading some of the harsh answers to earlier questions was rough! Please remember that I am asking for help, not a smack in the face.) I also must admit a concern about finding someone else if we break up, because I can't really choose my geography due to my job, and I might stay in this small town where dating prospects are potentially slim.
I need to decide very soon whether to propose or break up. I am feeling sad. This is not where I wanted to be at this point in my life. I always imagined that I would propose to someone I was madly and unquestionably in love with. Part of me thinks, if you don't feel ready, you aren't ready. But breaking up feels wrong (not morally, but wrong in my gut). I don't want to lose something that could be really good based on an unrealistic fantasy of what love is but I also don't want to settle for something if I won't be happy long-term. We are not a natural fit and the relationship is work. We are working on it and it is improving but I can't tell if it is supposed to be this hard. We have these petty fights or conflicts about every other day at this point. They used to last hours. Now they are often over quickly or we are able to prevent them from escalating. I care about her and don't want to lose that.
She tells me that she thinks she is unconsciously holding back because she has not gotten a commitment from me. She says that sometimes she knows what I want but can't get herself to do it because she is trying to protect herself from being taken advantage of. She feels bad about this but is at the end of her rope and based on all of the factors, doesn't have more to give at this point. I believe these things are true. I believe that these areas will improve if I propose.
If I propose, she will really want to get married and try to start a family very soon, because of the biological clock and her concerns about fertility (I know people can conceive later these days, but I don't want more information on that right now). This raises the stakes for me because I do not want my child to have divorced parents.
Please help.
Throwaway email: mefi.email@gmail.com
posted by anonymous to human relations (59 comments total)
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Also, thinking that things will improve if you propose is a bad bet in my book.
posted by Squee at 9:55 PM on October 31, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]