I sometimes hear of women who were ecstatic a short time ago thinking that they had finally reached their ultimate goal. Her boyfriend has finally proposed to them and they think they finally got what they wanted. Many want to start planning their weddings and their future right away. But sometimes, the fiancé doesn’t share this sense of urgency. At times, it is very obvious that she is procrastinating or dragging her feet about having a wedding and marriage.
I heard from a woman who said, “After three years of pushing him to marry me, I finally succeeded. My fiancé proposed to me about eighteen months ago. I was so happy. I thought this was a wonderful new phase of my life.” “. He didn’t expect to start planning a wedding right away, but he certainly expected to be married by now. My fiance seems obviously stuck. When I first asked him about this, he would say shortly. , we started. And then the weeks went by and nothing happened. Finally last week I confronted him and asked why he was stalling, all he would usually say is that the timing really wasn’t right and he didn’t do it. I don’t know when he would be okay. I feel like I’m back to where I started. I worked very hard for him to propose it to me thinking that this was my final goal. But now I realize that the end goal is really to get him down. the hall. And I’m starting to think it’s never going to happen.”
This woman’s confusion was very obvious and I felt deeply for her. But it was also obvious that she was about to take a path that could make things worse. Because it was fairly clear that her plan was to apply the same kind of pressure that she used when she wanted to commit. Yes, she had apparently been successful, but not enough. Because the same doubts that she had about the marriage proposal were still potentially present and were making him reluctant to set a date to get married. I’ll discuss what I think is the best way to handle this now.
Try to find out what really stops you: It was a safe bet that the problem that caused the delay in an engagement was also causing the current delay in getting married. Sometimes the people involved know what the problem is, and sometimes they don’t. This woman wasn’t sure why he was reluctant. The truth was, her fiancée had only had a few serious relationships in his entire life. Due to a difficult childhood, trusting people seemed to be a difficult thing for him. So even though he loved her girlfriend, it was hard for him to trust her enough to share her life with her.
And though she had gotten over some of her reservations, this old theme was coming up again. And I felt like it was potentially coming up again because there might be some underlying resentment of being pushed into commitment a little bit. So while her inclination was to let him know how impatient and disappointed she was, this probably wouldn’t be her best call. Instead, I suggested that she back off a bit and focus on strengthening the relationship so that he would feel more comfortable.
Show compassion instead of impatience: Of course, this was not what she wanted to hear. She wanted a wedding as soon as possible and no one could blame her for it. But if she could see past her impatience, she would realize that what she really wanted was to share her life with this man. She wanted to show him that having a happy and secure marriage was possible, even if this was not a reality for her own parents.
To achieve this goal, it is important that you show him compassion, patience, and love. You have to show him that the most important thing for you is him and your relationship. Sure, having the peace of mind of a compromise would be nice. But really, what you want is to spend your life with him. Once he understands this, he should relax a bit and be receptive to any positive changes you need to make in your relationship.
This situation is definitely not hopeless. But it’s important that you don’t keep pushing when you meet resistance. Because when you do, you risk losing the most important thing to you, which is him.
