Good people, I do not even know whether he loves me or not! We have been together a good number of years now. 10 to be exact. We have met each other’s families. We have four beautiful children together and are in a happy, stable relationship. The problem is I want to make it official, but he doesn’t seem ready. At all. There’s always an excuse – our friends should go first, there’s not enough money to cover the wedding, etc. What should I do to make him give me the ring? Marjorie Nakibuuka
Dear Marjorie,
This is quite an uphill task for you.
From experience with relationships, things agreed upon earlier on before moving in are much easier to achieve than when you have compromised from the start.
From the look of things the relationship seems to be going on well and you are happy except for the commitment part. Meaning that you have to choose between following your values of an official wedding versus your happy relationship at the moment.
It is also true that a mutual commitment empowers a relationship and makes it more resilient against life’s potential struggles.
So I like that you want to be legally married. You mentioned that whenever you bring the topic of official marriage, he reasons you out, therefore I would advise you to try and do it differently.
Sometimes the way we communicate might turn into a tantrum or even nagging instead of a discussion where one speaks and the other listens.
Psychologically men are not so good at dealing with emotions and so might easily find a good reason to put the matter at rest.
Have that talk
My advice is for you to plan a serious talk with the father of your children, spend some time writing down what marriage means to you on a practical and deeply personal level.
List why being married officially is important to you, and what it means to you emotionally and culturally. You might also write about what marriage has meant to you in the past, perhaps consider your parent’s marriage and how that felt stable and safe to you.
It might be true that your boyfriend has no money to hold a wedding but it can also mean that he does not value a wedding depending on what he saw as a young boy.
You might come to realise that you two are living together but with parallel ideas about marriage. Having spent 10 years together might mean to your husband that you were okay with it but are changing due to peer pressure. Click to read more…
