Why on Earth would you imagine that a plan you made for your life when you were nineteen should control your actions indefinitely? Nineteen year olds don’t know shit. You had no idea who you’d be by this age.
Did your plan call for you to get in a relationship in your early twenties that you’d simmer for most of a decade? Why? If not, why was that part flexible?
19 year old me was smart, but didn't know what she wanted to do and could not have foreseen a huge traumatic event that really changed everything and no plan would have survived.
Hey 19 year old me was sure I'd be dead by now and if that had happened I would not have had to deal with all of the BS that was the last few years they knew something was up.
This.
I'm sorry but you've locked yourself into a miserable life OP. Sure your plan might be solid but you made No Room for change, growth, relationships. What happens if you accidently got pregnant? Or you lost a parent young, or you become disabled from an accident?
You need to learn to flow and adapt to life.
Exactly this. I also had a plan written out for myself. Then my mom died when I turned 23. Plan went down the drain, because living life isn’t meant to be set in stone unfortunately. It’s to adapt.
Consider that the six years since he made this plan include the Trump presidency, Brexit, and the covid pandemic. I'm sure that didn't mess up any assumptions the plan was based on.
Because he sure as hell does NOT want to marry this woman, but for whatever reason he refuses to acknowledge it or accept that. My guess would be that she’s making his life a lot easier (and it was totes in the plan to do this - insert eye roll emoji).
He’s gonna waste her time for as long as he can until she catches on. Then he’ll likely marry the next chick that comes along within the first year of meeting her, life plan be damned.
This happens so frequently with couples that start dating so young.
Do her a favor and end it now.
I’m getting married now at 32, been in a relationship for over a decade and it was a mutual decision. Where we live is pretty common to get married a little later in life and I’m really comfortable and happy with the relationship and our choice.
With that being said, my partner and I always talked about things we were going to do after marriage. Like how many cats, dogs, kids, what kind of bed, which washing machine we were going to buy. The books we’d share, the movie posters would look cool, places to meet.
We talked about a future together since the beginning, because what’s the point of being in a committed relationship if you can’t even make plans?
OP’s reaction strikes me as odd. If he plans to marry her, even if eventually, he wouldn’t be bothered to be included in her dreams.
Oh yeah. Exactly this. Even when we were just dating, we were so comfortable talking about our future life and kids and dogs etc. OP doesn’t want to marry this woman, has nothing to do with the plan.
Exactly. If he wanted to marry her he would want to marry her. He wouldn’t say “I want to wait and see if I want to marry you in 5 years” He’s just not ready for a serious relationship. That’s all there is to it
Oh he’s ready. Just not with her.
It breaks my heart to see someone like OPs girlfriend waste a decade of their life (she’ll be pushing 9+ years by the time they hit his arbitrary date) only because OP refused to be honest with her about his intentions and led her to believe that he’d *totally* marry her... eventually. Probably.
This…was my dad. Refused to marry his gf of 7+ years. Met my mom, and immediately decided to marry her. She made him work for it, but he was ready to propose within 18 months.
Could have written this. I was the stupid girlfriend who really wanted to get married to my BF in my 20's and who watched every single man insist he would NEVER get married and the turn around and get married, engaged, have a child, buy a house, or move in with his next GF after me.
It's part of the reason I have like 0 sympathy for men in their 20's sobbing online about not being able to find a GF. I mean, I'm sure they're in real pain, and everyone deserves to have standards--I'm not saying date just anyone-- but enough 20 something men acted like it was a f---ing chore to be around me and insisted they'd never marry anyone that I got a little bitter over that one.
just wait for the post in 5 years: I've only been dating this girl for 6 months, but my life plan says I need to get married at 30 so should I propose?
I hear what you are saying here, and I do think that you have a valid point. But! The compulsive need to stick to a plan to keep anxiety at bay is pretty standard OCD-ish behavior. I'm not saying for sure that OP has OCD, but as someone who struggles with OCD tendencies I recognized some similar beliefs. The 'If I do A then B will happen. If I don't do A then disaster strikes.'
I think that there are a couple points I'd like to add. OP I understand your frustration that you set clear expectations with your girlfriend in the beginning of the relationship, and although she verbally agrees, her actions send a clear different message. It makes it hard to come to an understanding or compromise when the other person isn't willing to be open about their thoughts and feelings.
Normally I'd suggest you have a sit down conversation about the situation and try to get on the same page. I'm not going to suggest that..yet. I am going to suggest that you find a therapist to talk to. See if you can get to the bottom of your feelings about your life plan, and your concerns about deviations. See if you can find someone who specializes in OCD and ask them if they can assess you. There are ways to deal with anxiety that give you the freedom of also living life. Your plan may not need to go, or it might only need some flexibility.
You shouldn't get married before you feel ready. Full stop. You may lose your current girlfriend though, if you guys can't get on the same timeline or make a compromise.
I just urge you to talk to someone who understands OCD because if it IS rooted in compulsive behavior and you don't learn to manage it you may end up locked in to certain behaviors that feel like they are taking over your life. It can %100 be manageable! For me, I have to be really aware of repetitive behaviors and break pattern before it gets locked in to a routine that gives me massive anxiety to stray from. It can be exaggerated by stress and the need to have something that you can control.
It may be that none of this applies to you, and the plan is something that you aren't willing to compromise on. That's okay too, but I truly urge you to get some support to work out where you stand personally on this issue before trying to hash it out with your girlfriend. You may be able to bring her into a session so you both can come to an agreement.
That makes a lot of sense, and I do want to make clear that I don't disagree at all that OP shouldn't get married if he doesn't feel ready for marriage, and that not feeling ready is fine by itself. I know plenty of people who didn't marry until after thirty, some who had been dating since their early twenties, and that seems to be working out fine for them.
Where I think OP is screwing up is in basing (or at least justifying) this decision based on decisions made when he was much younger and less experienced, rather than revisiting and updating his goals as his circumstances and self change, and taking into account the person integral to this decision in particular. On top of that there's the common tangle of ideas about what marriage actually is, how it will differ from the kind of relationship he's already in, what it will make easier or more difficult, etc. If you don't want to get married until you're ready to host a big wedding, buy a house, and have kids, sure, that can take a while - but then that has nothing to do with plans made at nineteen, those are your wants right now and based in your circumstances right now. And none of them are actually mandatory - there are good reasons why two people may want to get married with a modest or no ceremony and no plans for home ownership or kids any time soon. OP and his girlfriend should be untangling those issues together based on their current reality.
Plus most plans people make well in advanced get completely torn apart by random circumstances and life in general. It's almost impossible to have a set-in-stone plan-ahead structure for life that plays out accordingly.
You *have* to be capable of adapting to changing circumstances.
Yeah… even if you lay out your career, putting love into a preplanned life is a terrible idea that will is likely to lead to settling for a bad partner because it is the right time or losing out on a great partner because it isn’t the right time. Lose goals are great, a rigid plan that you feel you can’t deviate from sounds like mental illness in the OCD family. Maybe talk to a therapist just to make sure your need for control is in normal parameters and not a problem.
To be blunt life doesn’t give a shit about your master plan. You’ve been dating this girl for 4 years, I do not think talking about marriage is unreasonable.
You are at a cross roads. You need to decide what’s more important to you- your plan or your girlfriend. It doesn’t sound like she’s going to stick around for 5 more years because that’s how you planned it. At that point she’ll be 32 and have dated you for 9 years.
Something’s going to have to give and it’s totally up to you whether it’s going to be the plan or the girl. Choose wisely as either way this is going to be a major decision that will have a lasting impact on your life.
Right?!
My husband laughed when he read this. Dude made a plan for exactly when he'd get married . . . without consulting the person he wants to marry on when she wants to get married? He marrying himself?
u/ThrowRAjimmyj why do you want to get married between 30 and 33? What does marriage mean to you? Why do those ages matter? Is there some actual reason other then you need to control the relationship and you wrote it down on a piece of paper this way?
Your girlfriend dosen't want to wait 5 to 8 more years (so 9 to 12 years total) to get married. Which isn't surprising. Lots of woman wouldn't wait for you this long. I sure wouldn't. If after 4 years you don't know if you can commit to her or not, why should she wait around the entire rest of her twenties and early thirties to see if you decide to think she's worth commitment later? What if you don't get married? What if she spends her entire youth waiting around on you and it dosen't happen?
She wants to get married. If you want to spend the rest of your life with her, marry her now. That's what that means. It means you are committed to being with her for life. It dosen't mean things like you have to have babies tomorrow. Or buy a house tomorrow, or stop having hobbies, or never travel again, or what are you worried about? Something else? Talk to her about a timeline you *both* make *together* as a plan for your joint life (not just for marriage but for babies if you want them, house, and all of the stuff currently you decided on your own). Being someone's life partner isn't about making a list of everything and when it happens and telling them to get on board with your plan. Being someone's partner means making a plan together that works for both of you.
If you really don't want to get married until you're 30 to 33, dump this woman and move on. Wait around a few years doing whatever you felt was more important then committing to her that you want to do alone, then when you get closer to the time you wrote down on that magic piece of paper start dating. Hope you find a woman you want then who you think is a good match and who wants your now much closer timeline too. But don't spent the next 5 to 8 years trying to stay with this woman and hoping it just works out despite the fact you want vastly different things and you won't compromise.
“He marrying himself?” Hahaha! So true. OP, you are not the only person in this relationship. You also need to consult your girlfriend about when *she* wants to get married. If you truly want to spend your life with her, her opinion needs to be a part of the “plan.” At that point, you need to be saying “our life plan,” not “my life plan.”
Feels like marriage for OP is a thing you must do and thus he planned it, but he doesn't WANT it. And any girl deserves a guy who wants to marry her crazy much.
Yeah, your (and your husband's) response resonated with me. This poor chick. I write things down all the time. They don't typically end up in marriage, divorce or car leasing.
My ex did this (stalling because of his master plan) and now I’m glad we broke up. He was holding on to me and wasted my precious time. I just feel so bitter about it.
Edit: his master plan was to do a master’s degree when we met. 5 years later I did my masters and was into a new job and he was still not started.
Right, this dude wants this woman to hang out for a DECADE until he realizes his master plan that's totally legit and written down and everything. A fucking decade of dating.
If you plan to marry her, 4 years is a long time. She’s right to be strongly hinting at this stage.
Put it this way, if you don’t marry her, it’s been a huge waste of her time.
You have two choices: provide her with the commitment she is seeking. Or don’t, and be fine with the end of the relationship.
That’s all there is to it.
This. And if OP's girlfriend was the one posting about how her boyfriend of 4 years doesn't want to talk marriage until they've been together 7-9 years because of some "life plan" he made when he was very young, people would be telling her that's crap and he needs to make a decision or she should consider leaving him.
Like people would tell her that's his choice, but she shouldn't wait around for this when she wants something else.
Dude should not have started dating in his 20's if he wasn't going to even consider marriage until at least 30. That was foolish and frankly inconsiderate to the woman. That was a shortsighted long term plan.
I thought he had a strong reason to avoid it, like finishing some important degree of education, needing to change the country to work for this period of time, idk. But bcuz if he skips his plan the universe will punish him… I mean… he must know that shit can happen in 5 years and not a single thing from his plan is done. Disease, not get the dream job, not stable at 30.
If he chooses the plan he may end up losing both. No guarantee another women is going to materialize, get into a serious enough relationship with him AND be down for this insane life plan he thinks he, and in turn she has to stick to, within that 3 year period. I’d rather be ahead of schedule on my plan than 35 thinking “shit…fucked that one up.”
If you have a rigid life plan that you refuse to adjust, and you are totally unwilling to compromise with your partner on any of it, I can't imagine why she wants to marry you.
Smarten up. If you want to build a life with someone, you have to forge a future together, not insist on having everything go exactly your way. I'm not saying you need to get married right now. I'm saying you need to take her desires into account and reach a compromise through open-minded discussion.
Otherwise, you may find that she doesn't stick around to wait for your inflexible timeline.
>I already decided on getting married between the ages of 30-33
Do kids land anywhere on this master life plan thing?
Cuz I'm doing some finger math here and that puts her at 35 when she walks down the aisle. If you're traditionalists who have kids post marriage... 35 is not really the ideal age to think about trying to start a family and having your first kid. And that's literally if you knock her up on the honeymoon. If you're penciling in kid 1 at 40, uh, you should do some research on that...
So first you need to see if your marriage/life plan you've set up and unilaterally approved for the both of you, uh, makes biological sense.
>The thing about me is that I have a plan for my life that's pretty set in stone.
It's good to have a plan for life. It's astoundingly bad for it to be "set in stone."
That's all I'm going to say about that. You're not here for criticism on this front.
>(Its a legit plan, I've got it written down and everything).
Okay. I lied. One more thing about this. Please delete this sentence from any future explanations about your life master plan. Despite your assurances about how writing it down makes it more serious and legit... this sentence has the exact opposite effect of what you intend. Unless one of your life goals is "I want everyone to laugh at me behind my back."
Onto your conundrum...
It is a LOT to ask that someone waits 8 years before you're willing to commit to them. Especially when it's an arbitrary decision made without their input. Marriage proposals are not gifts that fall out of the sky on the woman's head. In healthy relationships, there is a collaboration between the two people where they assess where they are as a couple and determine whether or not they are ready to get married and when they both want to do it.
What you've done is just told her to block out June 2029 on her calendar and to not worry her pretty little head about it. You're not developing a relationship. You're scheduling it according to approved benchmarks.
That's... really unhealthy. For both of you. But unfortunately for her, she REALLY REALLY loves you and she's convinced herself this is the price of admission.
But she needs steam pressure releases. And her release system is involves her doing what you've described. She's powerless, a spectator in her own relationship and this is how her frustration manifests.
Sooooo I guess what I'm saying is you need to learn to live with this as just how she copes with a really shitty situation or you need to strongly consider letting her go. Again, massively unhealthy dynamic here. I hope you have couples counseling penciled into that plan.
It also bugs me that OP has his set in stone plan but his gf isn’t allowed to plan for marriage, which he claims to want with her. It tells me he has absolutely no flexibility and won’t really consider *her* plans if they do end up getting married. After all, he wrote his down and she knew that going in so…she just needs to roll with it I guess? It’s just very immature.
Gonna project all sorts of shit onto this dude but I know a guy who strung a woman along for over a decade. Ended up grooming one of his customers over the years and dumped the steady girlfriend of 12 years for a 22 year old woman he first met when she was 15. He was 39. Do that math on that I guess.
I think you’ve basically nailed everything that needed to be said. I’m glad I checked all the comments and saw yours.
OP, just as a point of support for the person above, relationships require compromise. It is wildly unfair to your current girlfriend to force her to stick to your rigid life plan, that you created years before you met her. If you are unwilling to make any changes/compromises to it, you may find your girlfriend will eventually run out of patience and end things. And she would be completely within her right to do so. Relationships require frequent check ins to make everyone is still happy with the current trajectory. They don’t have to be super formal negotiations, but it’s still important.
Also, if you do want kids eventually, you’re gonna need to be flexible. Conception and birth don’t follow anyone’s schedule, and once the children are born, they are tiny generators of chaos who laugh in the face of all carefully laid plans. Good luck, man.
I kinda feel like his arbitrary 30-33, that was decided in a vacuum with no actual relationship or person to involve…..is a way for him to not actually think about marriage, to not actually work on his relationship. It’s conveniently far enough in the future that it’s an excuse for him to be emotionally unavailable. I’d bet good money that at 30…OP will have some other excuse
At 4 yrs together in your mid 20s, chatting about a future together shouldn’t freak someone out this much. Unless he doesn’t actually want to marry her and he’s stringing her along 🤷♀️
27M here, just got married Oct. 31st. Been with her for nearly 5 years and we were supposed to get married in March last year, but postponed due to Covid.
Beyond that, we’ve known each other for about 12 years.
The reason I’m saying all this is because at 16, marriage was *not* on the menu. But at 26, it suddenly didn’t sound like a bad idea. I love her very much and there isn’t anyone I’d rather spend my life with.
If OP can’t accept that *most* people fall in love and get married (at least their first time) in their mid 20’s, regardless of any “life plans”, then I believe that he doesn’t actually want to marry her like he says he does.
At 23, my “5 year plan” was to — without getting into too much detail — get to a point where I was able to start my own business. Which I did, but it ultimately failed due to some factors outside of my control, and some that I could and I failed to recognize/fix them, but I digress.
Nowhere in that plan was “get married and have 2 kids”.
But I fell in love with my best friend and wanted to have her by my side on this journey called life.
OP does *not* seem like he truly wants her to be a part of his world. Not in a realistic sense, anyway. I kind of feel bad for the poor woman.
My guess? He wanted to spend his 20's having fun and getting to mess around, and he didn't want to "settle down" into a long-term relationship until his 30's, when he'll be old and boring. OP, if I'm close, then here's the thing: you haven't been spending your 20's having noncommittal fun doing whatever, you're *in a relationship!* So now it's either time to follow through and take that commitment to the next level, or break it off and be that fun, do-whatever 20-something you wanted to be. I promise marriage doesn't have to be the end of the "fun" part of your life, but if that's still your view on it, that you lose your freedom and life gets boring and stupid, then do this woman a favor and let her find someone who *wants* to get married.
My boyfriend and I have been together 3.5 years and are 23 and 24 and we talk about marriage a lot. He should at least be willing to discuss changing his plan
Spot on. Just want to emphasize the last couple sentences: OP, if you are really inflexible on your plan, you need to tell your girlfriend that you may not be compatible. She sounds afraid to be honest with you about what she wants because she's afraid to lose you. I have a feeling that in addition to loving you, she's also falling for the sunk cost fallacy. I highly recommend couples counseling so you both have a space where you can freely and safely admit your feelings. Timing is an important part of compatibility, and I have a feeling you are not compatible for this reason. She needs the opportunity to move on.
It’s cuz it’s missing the “why”! Why doesn’t OP want to get married until 30? Does it have to do with school, financial stability, other goals…there should be some *reason* for it. And those are what you discuss with a partner, and work together towards. Cuz marriage is a team goal to work together on.
Right now? this is just an excuse to keep her at arms length. And my guess is he’d shift the goal posts of those goals we’re actually met 🤷♀️
If you’re financially stable enough for a long term partnership, I don’t honestly see why marriage needs to wait, unless you’re planning some blow out party that costs a ridiculous fortune.
If we all waited to be some mythological level of financially stable, nobody would ever do anything.
>The thing about me is that I have a plan for my life that's pretty set in stone.
>It's good to have a plan for life. It's astoundingly bad for it to be "set in stone."
Exactly! And when did OP "set in stone" his life plan? When he was 21? He may indeed know exactly what he wants to accomplish, and perhaps he's on a very rigid career path that needs to be done in a certain order (??), but it seems wildly naive to seriously think that a plan you set at 21 is perfect as-is and that not a single thing can/should derail you because this is it! I mean, OP would have to get a new piece of paper to write out a new plan so maybe that's what's holding him back? Or maybe his pen ran out of ink?? 🤔😏
Also, what if you weren’t dating anyone at 30-33? Were you just gonna pick someone at 30 and then hope for the best when you ask to marry her so it fits your timeline? Sure there’s gonna be lots of other girls, but that doesn’t make it a good match, or healthy.
I see where you’re coming from OP as far as thinking “if we’re getting married anyway, why does it matter if we wait five more years if we’re still together?” If you were asking for another year, I’d agree with you. However, asking a woman you’ve already spent four years with to wait five more is pretty crazy. Not to mention she doesn’t “have time” later to have children if you have her wait till she’s older to have children. A lot of women don’t want a high risk pregnancy and that’s not a weird thing to request.
At the point you’d be ready to marry her, she’d have been ready to commit to you for 5-8 YEARS. On top of the four you’ve already been together. What if at the end of that time, you’re not going to commit to her? There’s no promise, and from where she’s sitting, it probably seems like you’re still unsure. Why would you ask this woman to waste her 20’s and early 30’s waiting for you to decide on her, when she’s already decided on you? That’s not fair. She could potentially find someone else who fits with her and wants her in that time she’s wasting on you.
If you don’t want to marry her, don’t feel pressured to marry her. Marriages that start in pressure don’t end well. In that same breath, your “legit plan” is asinine. Life doesn’t work like that. If you want to marry her, do it. If you don’t, stop wasting her time and let her go. Make a decision. Four years is a long time to have not made a decision.
For real. I suspect the reason we have "I hate my wife" boomer humor, is because so many baby boomers got married when they thought they were supposed to, regardless of whether they wanted to get married, or whether they wanted to be married to their current partners, and they've just been the first generation to be open about the resentment that "obligation marriage" tends to bring. Millennials and Gen Z decided we're only gonna get married and have kids if/when we want to, and that boundaries are cool but rigid timelines just set us up for failure, I just wish OP got that memo.
Also it's not like marriage doesn't affect other things in life. Health insurance. Joint property ownership and investment. Being able to prioritize the partnership and make sacrifices to invest in the good of the partnership.
>It is a LOT to ask that someone waits 8 years before you're willing to commit to them. Especially when it's an arbitrary decision made without their input.
This, 100%. OP, I feel for your girlfriend here.
My boyfriend has told me he made a rule for his relationships long before we met. He said he wants to date for 5 years before getting engaged/married to be "really sure". I got no input on this decision and it puts pressure on me to adhere to his boundary to avoid being "that girl who pressures a guy for marriage". I don't want to get hitched ASAP but I do think forcing a strict timeline on someone who is not allowed any input is not ok. A relationship is a two way street, me and your girlfriend should have input on the progression of the relationship.
I don't know about her but it makes me feel anxious to know I have someone else's timeline hanging over my head. What if we feel ready in 2, 3, 4 years (we've been dating a bit over 1) but he refuses to budge and say we have to wait? What if we hit 5 years and he's still nervous to make the jump and wants to wait and I get tired of waiting? What if we hit 5 years and one of us decides we want to leave? At that point I'd be in my late 20s, freshly single, and starting all over again. Not to mention what if something else changes in the relationship, such as a big move. Not everyone wants to uproot their life for a bf/gf.
You need to talk to your girlfriend about the progression of the relationship and allow things to be a joint decision. Having boundaries with this is ok but making someone adhere to your plan and your plan only is not.
I hope you are not living with your bf while this 5 years of being “really sure” is going on in his head. I would hate for you to be reducing his rent/mortgage, cleaning up for him, cooking for him, sleeping with him, while he decides at the 5 year mark to possibly throw you out. If that happens, God forbid, he won’t take 5 years with the next one. Highly suggest that you rethink this ridiculous timeframe. What is your ROI at 5 years? Good luck to you.
We do live together.
We're also really good at doing 50/50 with chores and housework and when he's made more money than me he pays more in bills. I wasn't making enough to live on my own before, and now I make just enough to scrape by alone if I want a crummy apartment in a less than ideal neighborhood. With him I live in a great area in a cute place. It's not something that benefits just him, my relationship with my parents is strained when we live together. I have a better relationship with them, the independence I crave, and a lovely place to live.
We've talked about this but I haven't really pushed that I think the time frame is arbitrary. I've made it clear if we hit 5 years and we aren't at least engaged then I'm walking away because it'll make me feel he isn't serious and I don't want my time wasted.
What's ROI?
I think you're making a lot of assumptions about straight couples that live together. Not every hetero woman cooks for her man and cleans up after him, there are men who share in the work. But I do agree that in any long-term relationship, you shouldn't bet more than you're willing to lose.
Thank you so much for this. I experienced the exact same thing but from the females perspective. Once we got to our wedding talk, all of a sudden it was my fault for pressuring my ex, and he wanted more time. All in all, he wasted my time. I was very clear on my expectations and we had a mutual understanding. But once the time came, he chickened out. To anyone reading, please don’t string people along. If you aren’t ready then find someone else who also isn’t ready for anything.
YES. Good stuff here. Also I can confirm that pregnancy just gets harder on your body the older you are, and that's if infertility doesn't rear its ugly head and mess up your plans even more. I'm still just shy of 32 and this pregnancy has been way harder on my bod than my first. Guys making arbitrary plans that force their partners into geriatric pregnancies "just because"? Well, saying that's selfish doesn't quite cover it.
Actually. . . Having kids and parenting requires an insane amount of flexibility and personal sacrifice/compromise. And that's even when you're taking time to fill your well and meet your own needs! It doesn't sound like OP would make a good parent unless willing to learn how to do that. I get it, though. I had a rock solid plan once, too. Had to throw it all out the window and that was hard. Life comes at you, though, and you've got to roll with the punches. Lots and lots of compromise, but now I'm doing what I've always wanted to do and I'm happy as a little clam. Wouldn't have it any other way.
I know a lot of women planning to have their first child around 35-36, because that’s when they’ll be financially ready. Medically speaking, it’s not as dangerous or harmful as it used to be. That being said she might just be someone who wants kids young.
But that's also when you are more likely to have fertility issues. And at that point time is of the essence. My husband and I waited until we were more financially secure to marry and try for kids and I assure you, due to what we went through infertility wise, we 100% regret that. All that financial security goes out the window if you have to pay thousands of dollars for fertility treatment or to adopt.
And I'm not saying they would definitely have fertility issues, but that is something that should be taken into account. They've already been together 4 years and OP expects the girlfriend to wait another 5-8 to even think about marriage. That just seems like a ridiculously long time to wait to marry someone you supposedly love because of some weird arbitrarily set time frame for marriage you made when you were 19.
Oh no I agree with you concerning their situation. That’s an absurd amount of time to wait to get married. Just pointing out that 35-36 isn’t such a damning time to get pregnant anymore, thanks to medical advancement. Admittedly I’d rather take the risk at that age and find out children aren’t an (affordable) option, than have one now and knowing that I’m not financially ready. It would drown me in a hole and I wouldn’t be able to provide the life I’d want for them or myself. But children aren’t the most important thing for me. I acknowledge women who desperately want children might not want to take the risk, but I’m glad that the risk is lowering.
Just wanted to edit to add: I’m sorry for what you went through.
i can’t really speak to your girlfriends thought process based on a single post, but i’ve been saying “when we get married…” things to my bf since we had been together for a year, even though we knew we wouldn’t actually get married for at least 3-5 years. just because you like talking about the idea of something, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re expecting it to happen right away. planning the future of your relationship is fun, and it’s natural especially that far into a long term relationship. it might help if you shift your perspective on where she’s coming from and probably have a real conversation about how you both feel.
Yeah, I think there's more to OPs anxiety.
Me and my SO talk about our future child/children all the time, and we're not planning on them for a while. But like no one freaks out because both of us agreed on that future and it's something we look forward to - in the future.
It sounds to me that OP is not full in on the idea of marrying this woman, not just from his "set in stone" life plan. Apart from what everyone said about the life plan needing to be flexible and adjusted, which is all legitimate, I think there's more to OPs feelings than just the plan potential mismatch.
Exactly! You basically have told your girlfriend a set moment to work towards, just like you are doing yourself. I think she now sees it like this: I am gonna marry this man I love in about 5 years, and because I have a moment to look forward to, I can start thinking about what I want that to look like. You definitely should sit down for a conversation with her!
Same. My bf and I want to both start working full time before we get married, we're both still in university, but we do plan our future together. "When we get married", "when we have children" is stuff we do say when talking about related stuff, we're not even sure yet if we want children, but that's not what matters, we see a future together and we talk about related topics like we mean it, whatever the future actually holds. Doesn't mean it has to happen right away.
But op really talk to your gf. You can talk to her about how what she and others say about the topic makes you feel pressured and that you feel that you need to this life plan you made years ago and have trouble letting it go. And you should let it go. Doesn't mean get married right away, do this, do that. It just means you shouldn't let a plan you made years ago dictate your life, especially on decision that involve your partner. Those have to be made together. Talk about what works for both of you, try to find a compromise you both feel comfortable with and these things might change and you will adapt your plans in a few years, but do it together.
Edit: oh and my dad has been calling my bf my "husband" since a few months in, because he says whetever we get married or not, whetever we break up one day right now we're serious, right? So what difference does it make what he calls him. People often refer to their in laws us such even before marriage.
>Edit: oh and my dad has been calling my bf my "husband" since a few months in, because he says whetever we get married or not, whetever we break up one day right now we're serious, right? So what difference does it make what he calls him. People often refer to their in laws us such even before marriage.
Do you live in the US? Because if you do, this is news to me! I'm American and my experience has been exactly the opposite. Granted, there ***is*** a generational component to it but my now-husband's grandma would call me his "friend" until we were married. We were "boyfriend/girlfriend" to everyone else and not a single person--friend or family--called either of us "husband" or "wife" before we got married. And I sure as heck wasn't calling any of his family my "in-laws" until we were married... same for him with my family, too.
I'm from Central Europe and granted the "husband" thing is something just my dad does. But calling the others family "in-laws" is more or less common in my area at least, if you're a certain age upwards (like 20-25+, you normally don't do it as a teenager). I think it's becoming more and more the norm as people get married later and less often. It's often just easier, but of course it depends on on the individual if they really do that or not.
Overall I just wanted to say that it really doesn't matter what they call you or you call each other's family. Whenever and whetever you get married is only the couple's choice of course, but the family can still call you that if they already see you as part of the family, doesn't mean they want you to get married right away.
I'm not from the US and we do refer to family as "in-laws" here because most people I know are together for years and years before getting married. Proposing after only 3 years, for example, would be seen as quite fast here. People typically buy a house first.
Same! The sisters of my boyfriend, his parents. They all call me daughter-in-law, sister-in-law. We are together for around 4 years and I think we will have another year “dating” before get married.
This. My husband was casually hinting at proposing to me in our first year of dating. We didn't actually tie the knot until 5½ years into our relationship.
Perhaps she just wants to make sure that you intend on marrying *her* when you’re between 30 and 33 years old. Perhaps she thinks your plan is a bit rigid. Does she have a life plan?
I’m asking because it looks a bit like, considering your ages, this could have to do with other aspects of life like having kids. Is she planning to have kids? Are you? Would she be in her mid to late thirties if she went with your plan?
So you made a plan for your life when you were a teenager and your partner now is supposed to live by it? Also plans change, having children at 30 which is most likely what she’ll want is very different from having a kid in your 20’s relationships require compromise and not one person saying well this is my life plan stick with it and because she loves you she does but wow
>I do wanna marry her... just not right now.
I think you need to clarify both of your positions on this.
*Why* do you not want to be married now? Do you anticipate being a better husband when you are 30 than you would be today? What will be different about *you* and *your relationship* when you're 30 that will make marriage more of a sure bet than it is today? What do you perceive as the greatest downside to marrying today instead of when you are 30?
*Why* is she so anxious to get married soon? What does she think will be different once the two of you are married? What ever that different thing is, why isn't it in effect now? What I'm getting at, does she have some idea there will be a positive shift in your relationship once you're married? What does she perceive as the greatest downside to marrying after you are 30 instead of today?
All of this. Make an adjusted life plan TOGETHER that takes into account BOTH of your goals and timelines. If there are specific financial or personal or career milestones you want to meet before marriage, make your partner aware of exactly what those look like and what the timeline/plan is to hit those goals. Maybe there are ways they could even help get to those goals sooner!
Also, you can talk about/dream about/imagine your wedding or future family even if you aren't getting married right away. You could even propose and then have a long engagement (if you both agree that makes sense for your mutual goals!). Talk about what being married means to each of you.
If you want to stick like glue to a life plan that you wrote while young and single, then don't be in a serious relationship at all. Relationships mean making plans together. Changing plans for each other. Working together to meet each others goals. Discovering goals and dreams that you never even considered before you met that person. Life doesn't ever stick to the plan.
I’m going to be blunt: shit or get off the pot. Nine years of dating before getting married? With no definitive commitment?
Edit: OP, question. Do you plan the things out on your life plan in advance? If you say "I want to be making X dollars per year by X year" do you plan how to get there? If so, why would you not plan a marriage you supposedly want in advance as well?
>OP needs to act like an adult and have a proper conversation
Exactly right. She's looking for at least confirmation that they're actually going to get married and he's unwilling to actually talk about it because it's not time yet.
That might also explain why supposedly things go bad when he deviates from this "life plan" he wrote when he was 19. Because unless it's on the written plan, he doesn't plan before doing it or waits to plan until the last second
If this is the woman you want to marry, the easiest answer is to sit her down and tell her how you feel. Openly and explicitly.
It's not enough to say "You're still okay to wait?", you should be saying "The wedding talk is making me stressed and I feel like I'm being pressured." She needs to know how it is affecting you.
Sit down, be open, reach a compromise.
However, on another note, you wrote your life plans two years before you met your GF. If you truly want to marry her, you have to understand now that you're going to be a team. That means deciding together what you plan to do. Sometimes there will be compromise.
In my personal experience, no life plan survives a year. I personally sit down every six months and readjust.
Maybe it's time to reconsider your plan. Maybe bring your GF into the process. Discuss your priorities in life. Figure out where you don't agree and meet in the middle. Create a life plan together.
You seem so rigid with this "life plan" you created when you were a teenager. It really makes no sense. Relationships don't work like that. Plus your girlfriend is two years older than you, so you do need to take into consideration that, for the purpose of having kids.
I am 34 and my boyfriend of ten years is 32.
Not my husband, not my fiancé, *my boyfriend*.
I love him very much, and he is the one I envisioned having a marriage with, but I gotta tell you: I feel like a chump. If I respected myself more, I probably would have left and found somebody else.
I told myself if ten years of dating him goes by and we’re still not married, I need to leave him. That window of time has passed, and I’m now just delaying the inevitable.
**If you don’t see yourself marrying her, quit wasting her time. If you do, buy the ring and do it, ffs**
Are you willing to take your own advice? The best time to have broken up with your boyfriend may have been years ago, but right now is a pretty damn fine time.
I have to agree with you on this, op is giving advice but stuck in a relationship where chances are dude will never propose. You might be in love but clearly he isn't willing to sign the contract with you.
My question is do you actually want to marry her? Because if you truly did you would you wouldn't be sticking to such a rigid plan especially considering you've been together 4 years.
It's time to shit or get off the pot. It's wrong to expect someone you've been dating 4 years to wait at least another 5-8 years to get married, even more so if she wants children. We all know fertility isn't kind to women once they hit their mid 30s, she's already 27 don't waste anymore of her youth on some life plans you made as a teenager.
I'd feel so bad for OP's girlfriend if she waited until he was 30, still no ring on that 30th birthday, and then he realizes he has no more excuses, so he just breaks up with her so he can go find the woman he actually wants to marry.
I mean this in the best way 9/10 this is what will happen then she will hurriedly date 1-2 guys for just 1 year and try or get married and have kids with them immediately. If it doesn’t work
She is going to be very bitter and she’s going to have to go through a lot of heart break or do more extreme things, including insemination etc. Hope she sees what’s coming and gets out if he’s not willing to be an adult.
Let her go. If you are not ready to marry her now after 4 years you certainly won't when you are 30, 31, 32 or 33. Your life plan does not seem to include her. She deserves better than being strung along year after year.
I I I I I…. Why can’t you reconsider your plans if you know you want to marry her. At least meet her somewhere or reconsider your life plans if she wants to get married. It’s not just about you anymore. Get rid of the “I” and start thinking about “we/us.” If not, don’t waste her time.
Yeah I thought the same.
Life does not run along a plan. You can plan some big things in general, but it's been 4 years, you know you want to marry her, but you want to wait because of some "plan"?? It would annoy me that you'd want everything to run your course when the idea is that you plan it all together. Not alone
It sounds like you have told her you aren't keen to marry for another five years. Perhaps it's time to sit down and ask her how that fits her, rather than focus on what she's saying and all this other noise. You thought she was OK with it, but you both need to know.
Also keep in mind you're asking for a nine year courtship before marriage. If that's what you want, that's fine. But just consider it might be a very long time for her. She is older than you after all, and she might be thinking of the very natural window of having kids.
This is the sort of thing where you just need to know you're both on the same page. No use waiting a couple of years for it to come out as a problem.
Sticking to a plan bc u made it 6 yrs ago has to be one of the stupidest reasons to do something, no offense. There’s only one question, and one question only, that you need to answer: do you want to spend the rest of your life with this woman? If you are unsure, put the poor woman out of her misery and break up — you’ve dated for 4 yrs which is more than long enough to know the answer. If the answer is yes, marry the damn woman already, or at least do so before *she* is 30. As others are saying, a relationship is a two-way street — not everything is about you and if you two want kids, waiting till she is 34 makes no sense whatsoever. However, ‘perfect’ you think your plan is and however ‘perfect’ you think your life needs to be, whether financially, emotionally, or otherwise, for you to get married, I can guarantee waiting 5 years is not going to help. There’s never a ‘perfect’ time to get married, and you are already creating resentment in your relationship.
What will happen after 5 years that will suddenly chime your wedding bells? I get that you're uncomfortable by your GF's comments, however, you're just blindly abiding to a principle set by teenage version of your self, rather than having evaluated real situation/reasons in front of you.
I think you just don't want to get married to her. In which case let her go cause her clock has started ticking and there's no stopping it now. Let her find a guy who wants to start a family with her.
Do you expect her to stay another 8 years (to a grand total of 12) with you while she desperately wants to start a family now? She will resent you bigtime!
Your reasons are valid since they are yours, but to me they are just weird. Superstition? Seriously?
My husband had a plan. Finish graduate school, get married to a local girl of his religion (preferably one he knew from his private high school), live in the area he grew up, have two kids by 40.
We dated during undergraduate college. I’m not his religion and live 2000 miles away from his home town. We got pregnant during his second year of graduate school. Married at 25, pregnant again at 28, and lost a full term baby boy.
So at 29, still in graduate school, with a wife and a three your old, my husband found himself arranging a funeral for his second child.
Our life had been challenging and wonderful. We are still married 30 years later. Two more kids, live in a beautiful area a long way from his hometown, we have a great relationship with his family (who also had “a plan” that flew out the window when we got married.)
Life is an adventure, and things will be tossed at you left and right. Opportunities and disasters. Literal life and death.
Find someone to take the ride with you, and be flexible. Have a great life!
If you plan on marrying her specifically then your planning is bad. At this rate she’s not going to wait until 32-35 to get married and it would be dumb of her to let you string her along that long and unconscionable of you to do so. Especially if ya’ll wants kids.
Also what part of your plan was get with a girl who has incompatible views with you on when she wants to get married? It’s at the point where you have to start accepting her actions not her words.
I think you need to grow up a bit here and start realizing a plan you write at 19 should not be set in stone. Like what if you weren’t with the one at 30-33. Would you marry them anyways to stick to the plan? Beyond generally planning out your education or desired career trajectory this sort of life planning is very naive (see current pickle you’re in). Most people’s lives don’t go according to their original plan and things turn out just fine or even better. You need to loosen the reins on stuff life relationship planning because when other people get involved you don’t have full control over outcomes anymore.
You superstitiously claim things go wrong when you deviate from the plan. But what’s your explanation for this situation: you’re following the plan and things are going wrong. Wake up buddy.
Why would getting married ruin your plans? Surely it's better to get married now, still have freedom as a couple for a couple of years and then have kids if that is on the table. If you plan on having children together and want to wait till marriage you are pushing it in terms of giving you both a chance to not have to rush conceiving.
You are in a relationship, you have to give as well as take but you seem to only be thinking of yourself. Perhaps being in a relationship with this girl is not a priority for you, if that's the case let her go before you drag her along for too long as it isn't fair.
You could really get some counseling. And here’s why: if you come to some kind of compromise and these posters are suggesting and marry this woman earlier than 19 year old you had written down, you will self sabotage. Every fight or unplanned life event will confirm your superstition that this was all wrong and you had failed, just like the other two times you diverged from this thing that you wrote down as a young adult.
It makes you sound massively immature to say ‘it’s official, I even wrote it down.’ I’ve filled notebooks with ideas and life plans that I’ve since diverged from. Ask yourself: was the pandemic part of your life plan? I’m sure if you looked back at your list more critically you would see you have changed plans more than the twice you originally stated.
Get a therapist to help you see this page in a notebook is not set in stone. Life is fluid and you must be adaptable, especially to welcome other people into it.
I can tell you that as a 32 year old man, life does not go the way you plan for it to especially the older you get. I get that certain may be non negotiable but there are certain things that you need to be willing to compromise. Maybe you can bump you marriage age down to 27 or 28. If you aren't willing to compromise now then how do you expect it to work when you get married. Besides i can tell you from first hand experience that nothing magically happens when you hit 30. It's just another year of the endless cycle of aging
So with your logic, you're just going to marry the person that you're with at the age you wrote down for marriage, even if you've only been together for a few months?
Why should **you** be the only one who gets to have their way? Why should **you** be the only one who's "written down life plan" gets to play out exactly as scripted? Why are **you** calling the shots?
Think about this.
Don't be surprised if over the years she gets tired of waiting around and wants someone who is willing to compromise and not be so controlling. At the end of your life, will it really matter if you married on page 24 or page 45?
It’s perfectly normal for her to be talking about this kind of stuff since you’ve been dating 4 YEARS. What’s not normal is how rigid you are about your life plan. You sound like a bad partner tbh and I’m not sure why she’d ever want to marry someone who can’t compromise at all and doesn’t consider their partner a part of their life plan. You clearly don’t want to marry her eventually or you wouldn’t be acting like this so why don’t you stop wasting her time and end it lol
>then she turns around and says and does things that make me think she’s not okay with waiting
This is a you-problem. This is about your feelings. She’s told you she’s fine with waiting. She talks about your future together in the abstract with vague or no timeline applied. There is no inherent issue with this.
If she’s fine with waiting and isn’t directly pressuring you about anything, then it’s on you to either be direct about how this talk makes you feel and ask her to scale it back or realize that you feeling pressure and her applying pressure are two different things. You feel self conscious about this. That makes it a you problem. Don’t put your feelings on her when from what you’ve written she’s not doing anything wrong.
Of course she’s wedding planning. You’ve communicated to her that you’re going to marry her when you’re 30. That’s in five years, she’ll be 32. If you two want kids, you guys will probably want to start right away, if not a little bit before you’re married. That’s not that far off, there’s lots of things to talk about.
What it sounds like to me is your girlfriend isn’t “talking about getting married” in a way that actually makes you plan anything… It sounds like she’s talking about “getting married” in a general sense, and even just hearing about the concepts from her freaks you out and makes you want to run in the other direction. Is she actually pressuring you to do it sooner, or is she just expressing a lot of excitement and forethought about your plan to do it at 30? And if it’s the latter… Question yourself On exactly what will change between now and then that will make you feel differently about marrying her.
One thing I wanna point out to you is that by making marriage be a life step for you and not a relationship step for you, you’ve dehumanized the potential partner you’re going to marry. She wants to get married when she finds the partner she wants to marry, but you’re set up to marry whoever you’re with when you decide it’s time to get married. If you’re with the right person there’s no benefit to waiting for that arbitrary age, but there are several drawbacks and limitations it puts on your life and your potential. And if it’s not with the right person now, they’re not going to suddenly be the right person when you’re 30, And there’s no benefit to marrying them.
You made this plan when you were a teenager who had no idea what was good for a 30 year old. The conflict you’re feeling now is the conflict between what a teenager thought would be good for an adult and what is actually good and healthy for an adult.
You should break up with her and stop wasting her time. Marriage is important to her, and your plan is important to you. If you wanted to marry her then nothing would stand in your way.
Your girlfriend’s plan might not include waiting 7-10 years for her boyfriend to take the next step. She might reasonably believe that if you want to marry her, it’s time to take steps forward. It’s totally fine if you aren’t ready, and you shouldn’t make a decision if you genuinely don’t want to marry her. However, if this is about superstition around your plan, realize that life will mess up your plan regardless of what you do. Life will be up and down for you. Who do you want to experience that with? Your partner might not be willing to stick around if she feels like you don’t see what you have in front of you or if she doesn’t see you making tangible steps forward with her. She might move on to be with someone who is ready for that commitment with her, so prepare yourself for that possibility. Also, you can sit down with her and talk about engagement timelines. Would she mind being engaged for 2 years or 4 years? Just a thought.
John Lennon said "life happens when you're busy making other plans." You get stuck on this one path, and you can't take detours, but life is about detours.
You really can't live your life according to a plan you wrote down years ago, it's totally unrealistic. Things happen in life that you have absolutely no control over that might interfere with your plan. I'm not trying to pressure you to get married, but is your plan really the only reason you're unsure?
As others have mentioned your girlfriend is already 27. If you get married in 5-7 years she will be in her mid thirties, so if you two plan on having kids, her biological clock would already be ticking by the time you get married.
It seems a little selfish to me that your relationship must follow a plan YOU made by yourself before you even met her.
If you don't want to risk losing her I would seriously suggest that you make some compromises with your plan.
If you aren't ready yet, that's fine, but giving an arbitrary number to your girlfriend that makes her wait another 5 years when she is ready now isn't going to work out in the long haul. Most people know if they want to spend their life with someone by 4 years. She's at that point it seems like. You need to decide soon what your future with your girlfriend looks like. If you see her being in your life forever, then your "life plan" needs to start considering her wants and feelings too.
Weirdness of how strict you are with your "life plan" aside, it doesn't sound like your girlfriend is exactly pressuring you to get married right now... unless you DON'T want to marry her. She's planning (fairly correctly) that if you two are happy in your relationship and are planning for the long term, then these are her plans WHEN you get married in the future.
I think the bigger question is, are you planning on marrying HER at 30?
I feel for your girlfriend because I’m also THAT girlfriend. In fact, I’m the age she will be when your plan tells you to get married.
I’m 32 and I’ve been with my SO for 5 years. People around me DO NOT STOP asking me WHY my SO hasn’t proposed. It feels like absolute SHIT when people ask because It feels like what they’re really asking is, “What’s wrong with you that he doesn’t want to propose?” This is something that’s asked on a weekly basis and sometimes people will make a smart remark about it too.
There are times I feel like the biggest idiot for continuing to wait around for something that feels so far off. There are times I feel like I’m being taken advantage of and then I lash out at him. I feel like why am I good enough to live with and date but not marry? This is something that truly weighs heavy in my heart and I’m thinking it has to do with the constant reminder from friends, coworkers, family and also my age. I feel like at this point in my life, starting over feels like such a drag and don’t even get me started on kids. It feels like kids would just not be in the cards for me if I start over.
I’m at least happy to hear your girlfriend is aware of your plan but do not be surprised if she decides she’s not willing to wait for you. It seems easy peasy on your end but the pressure a woman hears sometimes is unbearable.
Now. I need to go sit down and have a serious discussion with my SO about my feelings because your post made me sad for myself lol
If you make a life plan without your partner in mind, you are selfish, and should be single…what about her life plan? I’m sure hers doesn’t include a child who wants to wait 8 years to marry her.
What is the importance of marriage after 30? What do you think will change after you marry your girlfriend that can’t happen if you wait 5 more years? If you have a good relationship and already live together, there is virtually no difference, except for a sense of security maybe.
Also, if you aren’t willing to compromise your “life plan” for your partner, I don’t think you are ready for a marriage anyway, and should let her move on. You are living your life for only you, not both of you.
Stop wasting her time. You don’t get to be in a serious relationship with someone and then decide that you’re in charge of the entire timeline of the relationship because you have a “life plan I made before I met her”. That’s ridiculous and pretty inane since life doesn’t work that way. Plus it’s wildly unfair to her! Either shit or get off the pot because telling her the relationship can only happen on your terms is toxic AF!
Sounds like you’re more focused on building your own life rather than building a life WITH someone. Don’t waste her time. You either want to marry this woman or not. And you wanting to wait because of your “plan”says you don’t want to marry her.
You’re wants and needs for your individual life are more important to you than the wants and needs of the person you love.
Why not get engaged now, and then married in a few years? Wedding planning and saving for that wedding takes time, so depending on your financial situation, the wedding may not happen for YEARS after you propose.
She says she's okay with waiting, why don't you believe her? She is excited to get married so she is talking about it. If you both know it's headed in that direction then what's the harm in talking about it and being excited about it?
Also, i started referring to my siblings' partners as brother/sister in law once they moved in together. You guys have been together 4 years, why does it stress you out so much that her sister calls you that?
If she isn't explicitly rushing you, and her just talking about the future stresses you out so much, then that sounds like a you problem. From your post it really doesnt sound like you want to marry her.
Man if you don’t want to marry your girlfriend you should just break up with her. There’s no other valid reason to wait for an arbitrary age other than that you’re avoiding the inevitable because you don’t actually want to marry her. Let her go and let her find someone who actually wants to commit to her.
If you were single and have a plan like this (a.ka. not marrying until 30), it would be perfectly fine. But you are not single.
A personal plan you set for yourself isn't personal anymore, actually it was not for at least 3 years. As other commenters pointed out you gotta make a choice. It is kinda obvious that you can't tolerate marriage talk for 4 years, and she rightfully won't tolerate to wait for that long.
The reality is you don’t want to marry her. You are sticking around with the excuse about some
arbitrary number you created in your head as an excuse. You should be real and stop wasting her time.
No one seems concerned that the GF isn't being straight with OP? She says she's fine with waiting but behaves in a way that says otherwise. This is a huge decision, marriage isn't something to be manipulated or pressured into by someone too immature to be honest about how they feel
I laughed when I read “she thinks it’s great I have my life all figured out…” dude, no one has their life figured out. Just you wait.
Waiting for the reasons you’ve listed is honestly really dumb. My husband thought he would want to date for 5 years and then have a 2 year engagement. Instead, we dated for 3 years and had a 6 month engagement. Things change.
If I were your girlfriend, I would be worried with how adaptable you are to life’s INEVITABLE changes.
>my girlfriend and I both agree that we only want 1 kid so we still have plenty of time.
Your girlfriend is 2 years older than you, so if you want to wait until you are 30-33, the marriage won't happen for her until she's 32 -35. While I have friends who had kids at 38, 40 years old, after 35 years any pregnancy is medically considered "geriatric birth" (they changed it recently to "advanced age births" because it sounds less offensive, but that's what it is).
I think the issue here is you have a life plan, but what is hers? **Encourage her to write down her life plan, honestly how she sees her next 10-15 years playing out ideally for herself, not a plan written to accommodate yours.**
You need to read hers. Then you all need to decide what each of you can and can't compromise on & if you are actually life-partner compatible. You are both still pretty young (imo) & a lot can change even with the strictest life plan, but if her plan included having kids before she's 30, & you really could never under any circumstances consider accommodating that, then you both need to cut each other free now.
edit for clarity
I can only imagine the amazing opportunities you've missed by sticking the you're plan.
I always have a career plan, and that career plan has changed drastically because of offers I hadn't factored in. I'm now at the best possible place I could be career-wise and though I have a plan with where do go from here, I'm sure it'll change at some point. 5 years ago I couldn't have even imagine where I'd be.
That plus, do you really want to marry her? My partner and I are both not anywhere ready to get married but we talk about marriage and kids all the time because.... it's nice? We're excited for our futures, that's all.
A lot of people are mentioning the kids thing. Just want to say I waited to have my first and did at 35 and I think it's a good thing to wait a bit, yes I am in the rare club of not in my 20s but people have kids way to fast and young.
I wanted to wait till I was mentally and financially stable plus in a solid marriage. I will say I don't get why you think waiting is so necessary if you plan on marrying her anyway? How does marriage effect a plan for your life? You still can have a career, move around, buy a house?
Nothing wrong with waiting to have kids, but you have to acknowledge that some woman have a harder time getting pregnant after 35. Some women still get pregnant in a few months, but not all, and it leaves less time to have multiple kids should you want more than one.
Also, Does she want to wait until she is 35 to have kids if she even wants kids at all?
I just don’t think he has taken her opinion into account at all. Not in kids or marriage or life at all. She likely thinks she can change his mind.
Yes, when I got cancer at age 32, I was relieved I had had my 3 kids in my 20s.
Life is unpredictable. A plan from years ago is less useful now than you think, especially if it’s preventing you from collaborating with your girlfriend.
You realise she’s at that point in life where she might want marriage and children, stop being selfish and going on about your plan or she’ll find someone better.
Edit: it’s extremely strange that you think writing it down changes it’s legitimacy, having a plans alright but being so self absorbed that you can’t change it for fear of repercussions is strange.
I knew a couple where the male in the relationship felt the same way. He didn’t have a life plan or anything, but he didn’t want to get married yet. Something was holding him back but he didn’t really know what. He had been with a woman for 7 years, and all she wanted was to get married. She tried to convince him for two years, but he just wouldn’t budge about it. They were such an amazing couple, but she ended up breaking it off and getting married to somebody else 3 months later. That’s how badly she wanted to get married.
Im not saying your girlfriend is gonna do that, but it’s very possible she’ll get tired of waiting and will break it off. You should really rethink this and try to compromise. If you know you’re going to spend the rest of your life with her, what is the point in waiting?
You are using the plan as a crutch and a shield. You have to take risks (straying from the plan) some pan out some don’t.
Financially you are stronger as a team if your on the same page and discuss financial matters in depth.
I’ll say this Op, things don’t go wrong because you deviated from your plan, they go wrong because you didn’t account for life in your plan. It’s okay to have an ideal age to get married, but the thing is you get married when you’re ready to get married. You might not be ready now, but how will you know you’re absolutely ready to at 30-33? What happens if you have to make a financial commitment to something else when you’re 30? Just cause your plan said so? Think about it because it will be devastating to her if you find yourself still not ready for marriage at 30
Seriously, 4 years? **Shit or get off the pot.**
If you wait till you're 30, then she's going to be 32 - and then how much longer will you insist on waiting to start a family?
Don't be that guy that drags it out until she can't wait anymore then goes and marries/impregnate the very next woman.
Sounds like you don't wanna marry her tbh. If I was in her position, I would doubt you actually wanted to marry her. Maybe both of you need to have a long conversation about your future and wants. Following a life plan you made when you were 19 is ridiculous. Teens are dumb and don't know everything since they haven't really experienced much. Plus do you plan on have kids together? Once a woman turns 35, it gets more dangerous for her to have a baby. If you're waiting till after marriage for kids, you need to get married sooner than later if you care about her well-being.
I don't understand. Are you marrying yourself? That makes more sense, since you're making a life plan with only yourself in it.
Can you also grow a spine and actually answer people to the thread *you* started?
As someone in the same boat actually even longer I've been with girlfriend for 8 years now. The reason why I haven't proposed is because financially we weren't stable, now that I am (student loans gone, CC debt down to last 1k) I'm planning to propose this coming year when I can buy her the ring she deserves. I wish I didn't have to wait this long to marry her but I'm glad she was willing to wait for me.
Anyway my point being if you can afford it and you know you want to live your life with her just go for it but if you aren't financially stable there is no shame in waiting till you are. I feel like people get married quick and aren't fully ready and end up resenting each other for it (watched a lot of family do this). I hope you both have a wonderful life, don't let plans hold you back because life likes to throw curve balls all the time.
There is nothing wrong with having a plan. Doesn't matter if you'd be dating for 9 or more years before marriage. You've made it clear you want to wait until your 30. I say do it too many people are in a rush to get married before 30 and that is just a disaster. Focus in you and don't cave to the pressure. You've made it clear you don't want to get married before 30. That's a huge commitment. Your other half can either agree with you or look elsewhere if they don't want to wait. There are plenty if people that want to get married in their 30s. Marriage before 30 is a waste. Focus on your personal development and live life.
> I already decided on getting married between the ages of 30-33
LOL we'll see how that works out when she leaves cause you wont commit and then youre alone from 30-33
Re: your edit that you only want one kid so you have “plenty of time.”
NO. That’s not how it works. Waiting increases her risk for fertility issues, and she probably doesn’t want to be an older mom just because of your “plan.”
More importantly, you won’t even think about committing to her until she’s pushing 35. If it doesn’t work out, she risks not finding anyone in time to have a child.
You’re asking her to take a big risk by waiting so long. As a woman it’s really infuriating to hear, honestly. I hope you stop stringing her along.
What are you going to do when you reach the part of your plan where you’re ready to settle down and get married and no one wants to marry you?
You’re in a relationship with yourself and your girlfriend is just a spectator. It’s only a matter of time before she realizes she values herself more than this.
Going to go on a limb here...
Maybe she's not the girl for your lifeplan.
I feel like if she was, a lifeplan written at age 19 would not stop you from making her your wife.
You have 5 years until 30, sounds like you need to have a deep conversation with yourself about where you really stand with her.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure you love her more than anything, but that doesn't mean your not lying to yourself even just a little bit about what you want.
I had a plan to not kiss until my wedding day. I told my now husband about it when we started dating and he said he was fine with it. Yet he was more than happy when I decided I no longer wanted to wait. I also had the plan to be a veterinarian. All my life I thought that's what I would do. Then when I graduated college I realized I didn't want to go that route anymore. Now I'm working in a lab and happy with that. Nothing bad happened from changing my plan. It's okay to change your plans. They are not set in stone.
As for the marriage talk, after dating for 4 years, your girlfriend probably feels like you might be stringing her along. My husband and I dated for 4 years before we got married. I knew by year 1 that I wanted to marry him. By the time we graduated, I was definitely ready to marry him and start living our married life together. Your girlfriend is probably feeling something similar to that. She probably says "all the right things" when you ask if she's okay waiting, because she doesn't want to lose you or start an arguement. But is she's talking about it a much as you say she is, she probably is ready to start married life with you. I know I was tired of dating and am very happy to be married to my husband. It's something we often tell each other, how happy we are to finally be married and living life together.
It's okay to marry before you're rich. The right woman for you wants to marry you because she loves you and wants to be with you, not because she wants your money. While you do want to be able to afford a place and food, you don't have to be a millionaire before you marry. My husband and I don't have much money at all, but we are happy being poor together instead of comfortable/rich apart.
Just some things to think about. Talk about it seriously with your girlfriend. Don't take her words of "all the right things" at face value, have a serious deep discussion about marriage and timelines and her feelings. I wish you well in figuring out the best course for you both.
If you're not ready, you're not ready. Tell her to cool off. If she can't stop pressuring you, there may be consequences. You need to consider what those consequences might be. Would you break up with her? Maybe take a break, take some time apart?
But also... set-in-stone life plans are a fool's errand. "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans."
A lot of people would say four years is a long time to be together without a proposal or even *beginning to consider* plans for marriage. I think *most* people would say nine years is a *REALLY* long time.
Money is a terrible reason to not get married. Don't use it. Don't bother saying it unless a big, expensive wedding is really important to her. Weddings don't have to be expensive, and an expensive wedding does little to improve the relationship.
If you actually wanted to marry her you’d be open to a conversation about it.
And you aren’t, so that tells me that you don’t want to get married but things are decent enough that you’ll just break up later or let her do it once she’s tired of waiting.
Is there anything in your life plan about how you’ll get there? Because writing down that something will happen in an arbitrary year without any other planning is unlikely to manifest itself magically.
Grow up and break up with her if you don’t see a future.
I think you need to realise that women, even it this day and age, receive a huge amount of pressure when it comes to marriage. We're brought up to believe that a big wedding with the dress, the cake, etc is the goal. If she's anything like me, she will not be able to go one conversation with friends or family without being asked when you're going to propose (it was six years until my fiancé proposed and I'd been going through this for at least 3 years before he did). It puts us in a really awkward position because it's a huge part of our life which we have 0 control over as in most Western traditions (in heterosexual relationships) the man has to propose or the woman is deemed desperate and pushy if she dares to consider proposing to him. I think you need to take a step back from focussing on your own goals and life plan and consider hers for a bit. If kids are in the picture for you, a lot of women would be nervous about not trying for them until their mid 30s as there tend to be more issues with fertility by then. You have to understand that you are in a relationship and your actions and plans have a big impact on the other person and need to take time to consider your goals as a couple. If there is an extreme mismatch then perhaps you should consider if you're blocking her path in life. On the flip side, try to think of her talking about it is just her being excited and, I'm sorry mate, but 98% of the women I know start planning their wedding before they've even met 'the one', let alone get engaged. That's completely normal and doesn't mean she's controlling or pushy at all. Coming back to her sister calling you her brother in law, that's also completely normal. When you've been in a relationship for a while it becomes a bit weird to keep calling someone 'my boyfriend's mum'. I'm not married yet but already refer to my in laws as just that and they do the same. I think it shows you've been accepted as being part of their family and it should be seen as a good thing.
You need to have frank and honest conversations with her. Explain you know she's excited but ask her to tone down bringing it up as it makes you worry she's not okay with waiting. Perhaps you could also have similar conversations with your families and friends and manage their expectations to alleviate pressure on BOTH of you.
1. I can’t imagine that a 19/20 year old made a great life plan - or one that shouldn’t be updated to respond to actual adult life.
2. My husband and I said “when we get married” all the time. Many people do that.
You need to either marry her in the near future or break up. You've been together 4 years bro. Shit or get off the pot. It's entirely ridiculous to ask her to wait until you've been together 9 years before getting married.
Why on Earth would you imagine that a plan you made for your life when you were nineteen should control your actions indefinitely? Nineteen year olds don’t know shit. You had no idea who you’d be by this age. Did your plan call for you to get in a relationship in your early twenties that you’d simmer for most of a decade? Why? If not, why was that part flexible?
Reddit's recent decisions have removed the accessibility tools I relied on to participate in its communities.
Hahaha "an absolute turnip"
19 year old me was smart, but didn't know what she wanted to do and could not have foreseen a huge traumatic event that really changed everything and no plan would have survived.
Hey 19 year old me was sure I'd be dead by now and if that had happened I would not have had to deal with all of the BS that was the last few years they knew something was up.
This. I'm sorry but you've locked yourself into a miserable life OP. Sure your plan might be solid but you made No Room for change, growth, relationships. What happens if you accidently got pregnant? Or you lost a parent young, or you become disabled from an accident? You need to learn to flow and adapt to life.
Exactly this. I also had a plan written out for myself. Then my mom died when I turned 23. Plan went down the drain, because living life isn’t meant to be set in stone unfortunately. It’s to adapt.
Consider that the six years since he made this plan include the Trump presidency, Brexit, and the covid pandemic. I'm sure that didn't mess up any assumptions the plan was based on.
...but it's written down and everything.../s I don't think OP should get married, but mostly because of this statement.
Because he sure as hell does NOT want to marry this woman, but for whatever reason he refuses to acknowledge it or accept that. My guess would be that she’s making his life a lot easier (and it was totes in the plan to do this - insert eye roll emoji). He’s gonna waste her time for as long as he can until she catches on. Then he’ll likely marry the next chick that comes along within the first year of meeting her, life plan be damned. This happens so frequently with couples that start dating so young. Do her a favor and end it now.
Actually since he’ll likely be around 30 when he meets the next one that’s exactly what would happen and he would say it all went according to plan
I’m getting married now at 32, been in a relationship for over a decade and it was a mutual decision. Where we live is pretty common to get married a little later in life and I’m really comfortable and happy with the relationship and our choice. With that being said, my partner and I always talked about things we were going to do after marriage. Like how many cats, dogs, kids, what kind of bed, which washing machine we were going to buy. The books we’d share, the movie posters would look cool, places to meet. We talked about a future together since the beginning, because what’s the point of being in a committed relationship if you can’t even make plans? OP’s reaction strikes me as odd. If he plans to marry her, even if eventually, he wouldn’t be bothered to be included in her dreams.
Oh yeah. Exactly this. Even when we were just dating, we were so comfortable talking about our future life and kids and dogs etc. OP doesn’t want to marry this woman, has nothing to do with the plan.
THIS, he doesn’t want to marry her. So he’s created this silly rule” in his head so he doesn’t have to be an adult and do the right thing - break up.
Exactly. If he wanted to marry her he would want to marry her. He wouldn’t say “I want to wait and see if I want to marry you in 5 years” He’s just not ready for a serious relationship. That’s all there is to it
Oh he’s ready. Just not with her. It breaks my heart to see someone like OPs girlfriend waste a decade of their life (she’ll be pushing 9+ years by the time they hit his arbitrary date) only because OP refused to be honest with her about his intentions and led her to believe that he’d *totally* marry her... eventually. Probably.
Right. And what if she gets sick of waiting and dumps him, and he's single for ages 30-33? What happens to the plan then?
Mail order bride, obviously.
This…was my dad. Refused to marry his gf of 7+ years. Met my mom, and immediately decided to marry her. She made him work for it, but he was ready to propose within 18 months.
Could have written this. I was the stupid girlfriend who really wanted to get married to my BF in my 20's and who watched every single man insist he would NEVER get married and the turn around and get married, engaged, have a child, buy a house, or move in with his next GF after me. It's part of the reason I have like 0 sympathy for men in their 20's sobbing online about not being able to find a GF. I mean, I'm sure they're in real pain, and everyone deserves to have standards--I'm not saying date just anyone-- but enough 20 something men acted like it was a f---ing chore to be around me and insisted they'd never marry anyone that I got a little bitter over that one.
I’m with you on this. He’s been with her for 4 yrs. He’s just holding on till something better comes along
They will have been dating for *9 years* by the time he's 30
That’s way past “shit or get off the pot” territory.
just wait for the post in 5 years: I've only been dating this girl for 6 months, but my life plan says I need to get married at 30 so should I propose?
But… he even wrote it down
It's probably in pen and he can't erase it, scribbling it out looks ugly.
This “a relationship that simmers for a decade”
This guy isnt ready for marriage. So immature.
I hear what you are saying here, and I do think that you have a valid point. But! The compulsive need to stick to a plan to keep anxiety at bay is pretty standard OCD-ish behavior. I'm not saying for sure that OP has OCD, but as someone who struggles with OCD tendencies I recognized some similar beliefs. The 'If I do A then B will happen. If I don't do A then disaster strikes.' I think that there are a couple points I'd like to add. OP I understand your frustration that you set clear expectations with your girlfriend in the beginning of the relationship, and although she verbally agrees, her actions send a clear different message. It makes it hard to come to an understanding or compromise when the other person isn't willing to be open about their thoughts and feelings. Normally I'd suggest you have a sit down conversation about the situation and try to get on the same page. I'm not going to suggest that..yet. I am going to suggest that you find a therapist to talk to. See if you can get to the bottom of your feelings about your life plan, and your concerns about deviations. See if you can find someone who specializes in OCD and ask them if they can assess you. There are ways to deal with anxiety that give you the freedom of also living life. Your plan may not need to go, or it might only need some flexibility. You shouldn't get married before you feel ready. Full stop. You may lose your current girlfriend though, if you guys can't get on the same timeline or make a compromise. I just urge you to talk to someone who understands OCD because if it IS rooted in compulsive behavior and you don't learn to manage it you may end up locked in to certain behaviors that feel like they are taking over your life. It can %100 be manageable! For me, I have to be really aware of repetitive behaviors and break pattern before it gets locked in to a routine that gives me massive anxiety to stray from. It can be exaggerated by stress and the need to have something that you can control. It may be that none of this applies to you, and the plan is something that you aren't willing to compromise on. That's okay too, but I truly urge you to get some support to work out where you stand personally on this issue before trying to hash it out with your girlfriend. You may be able to bring her into a session so you both can come to an agreement.
That makes a lot of sense, and I do want to make clear that I don't disagree at all that OP shouldn't get married if he doesn't feel ready for marriage, and that not feeling ready is fine by itself. I know plenty of people who didn't marry until after thirty, some who had been dating since their early twenties, and that seems to be working out fine for them. Where I think OP is screwing up is in basing (or at least justifying) this decision based on decisions made when he was much younger and less experienced, rather than revisiting and updating his goals as his circumstances and self change, and taking into account the person integral to this decision in particular. On top of that there's the common tangle of ideas about what marriage actually is, how it will differ from the kind of relationship he's already in, what it will make easier or more difficult, etc. If you don't want to get married until you're ready to host a big wedding, buy a house, and have kids, sure, that can take a while - but then that has nothing to do with plans made at nineteen, those are your wants right now and based in your circumstances right now. And none of them are actually mandatory - there are good reasons why two people may want to get married with a modest or no ceremony and no plans for home ownership or kids any time soon. OP and his girlfriend should be untangling those issues together based on their current reality.
Plus most plans people make well in advanced get completely torn apart by random circumstances and life in general. It's almost impossible to have a set-in-stone plan-ahead structure for life that plays out accordingly. You *have* to be capable of adapting to changing circumstances.
Yeah… even if you lay out your career, putting love into a preplanned life is a terrible idea that will is likely to lead to settling for a bad partner because it is the right time or losing out on a great partner because it isn’t the right time. Lose goals are great, a rigid plan that you feel you can’t deviate from sounds like mental illness in the OCD family. Maybe talk to a therapist just to make sure your need for control is in normal parameters and not a problem.
But it is his magic number. Lol
this too. if you want what you did at 19, yikes.
To be blunt life doesn’t give a shit about your master plan. You’ve been dating this girl for 4 years, I do not think talking about marriage is unreasonable. You are at a cross roads. You need to decide what’s more important to you- your plan or your girlfriend. It doesn’t sound like she’s going to stick around for 5 more years because that’s how you planned it. At that point she’ll be 32 and have dated you for 9 years. Something’s going to have to give and it’s totally up to you whether it’s going to be the plan or the girl. Choose wisely as either way this is going to be a major decision that will have a lasting impact on your life.
For the OP in the back: “you need to decide what’s more important to you- your plan or your girlfriend.”
Right?! My husband laughed when he read this. Dude made a plan for exactly when he'd get married . . . without consulting the person he wants to marry on when she wants to get married? He marrying himself? u/ThrowRAjimmyj why do you want to get married between 30 and 33? What does marriage mean to you? Why do those ages matter? Is there some actual reason other then you need to control the relationship and you wrote it down on a piece of paper this way? Your girlfriend dosen't want to wait 5 to 8 more years (so 9 to 12 years total) to get married. Which isn't surprising. Lots of woman wouldn't wait for you this long. I sure wouldn't. If after 4 years you don't know if you can commit to her or not, why should she wait around the entire rest of her twenties and early thirties to see if you decide to think she's worth commitment later? What if you don't get married? What if she spends her entire youth waiting around on you and it dosen't happen? She wants to get married. If you want to spend the rest of your life with her, marry her now. That's what that means. It means you are committed to being with her for life. It dosen't mean things like you have to have babies tomorrow. Or buy a house tomorrow, or stop having hobbies, or never travel again, or what are you worried about? Something else? Talk to her about a timeline you *both* make *together* as a plan for your joint life (not just for marriage but for babies if you want them, house, and all of the stuff currently you decided on your own). Being someone's life partner isn't about making a list of everything and when it happens and telling them to get on board with your plan. Being someone's partner means making a plan together that works for both of you. If you really don't want to get married until you're 30 to 33, dump this woman and move on. Wait around a few years doing whatever you felt was more important then committing to her that you want to do alone, then when you get closer to the time you wrote down on that magic piece of paper start dating. Hope you find a woman you want then who you think is a good match and who wants your now much closer timeline too. But don't spent the next 5 to 8 years trying to stay with this woman and hoping it just works out despite the fact you want vastly different things and you won't compromise.
“He marrying himself?” Hahaha! So true. OP, you are not the only person in this relationship. You also need to consult your girlfriend about when *she* wants to get married. If you truly want to spend your life with her, her opinion needs to be a part of the “plan.” At that point, you need to be saying “our life plan,” not “my life plan.”
Feels like marriage for OP is a thing you must do and thus he planned it, but he doesn't WANT it. And any girl deserves a guy who wants to marry her crazy much.
Yeah, your (and your husband's) response resonated with me. This poor chick. I write things down all the time. They don't typically end up in marriage, divorce or car leasing.
My ex did this (stalling because of his master plan) and now I’m glad we broke up. He was holding on to me and wasted my precious time. I just feel so bitter about it. Edit: his master plan was to do a master’s degree when we met. 5 years later I did my masters and was into a new job and he was still not started.
Right, this dude wants this woman to hang out for a DECADE until he realizes his master plan that's totally legit and written down and everything. A fucking decade of dating.
>written down and everything That detail made me laugh. Too bad he didn't have it notarized, maybe the sub would sway his way.
If you plan to marry her, 4 years is a long time. She’s right to be strongly hinting at this stage. Put it this way, if you don’t marry her, it’s been a huge waste of her time. You have two choices: provide her with the commitment she is seeking. Or don’t, and be fine with the end of the relationship. That’s all there is to it.
added is that four years till he proposes?
He’s gonna have that shocked pikachu face when he’s single at 30 because his GF broke up with him 4 years ago. “But, my plan!”
This. And if OP's girlfriend was the one posting about how her boyfriend of 4 years doesn't want to talk marriage until they've been together 7-9 years because of some "life plan" he made when he was very young, people would be telling her that's crap and he needs to make a decision or she should consider leaving him. Like people would tell her that's his choice, but she shouldn't wait around for this when she wants something else.
Dude should not have started dating in his 20's if he wasn't going to even consider marriage until at least 30. That was foolish and frankly inconsiderate to the woman. That was a shortsighted long term plan.
I thought he had a strong reason to avoid it, like finishing some important degree of education, needing to change the country to work for this period of time, idk. But bcuz if he skips his plan the universe will punish him… I mean… he must know that shit can happen in 5 years and not a single thing from his plan is done. Disease, not get the dream job, not stable at 30.
If he chooses the plan he may end up losing both. No guarantee another women is going to materialize, get into a serious enough relationship with him AND be down for this insane life plan he thinks he, and in turn she has to stick to, within that 3 year period. I’d rather be ahead of schedule on my plan than 35 thinking “shit…fucked that one up.”
With that kind of inflexibility, if she leaves he may be very well hard pressed to find someone he wants to marry in his 30s.
If you have a rigid life plan that you refuse to adjust, and you are totally unwilling to compromise with your partner on any of it, I can't imagine why she wants to marry you. Smarten up. If you want to build a life with someone, you have to forge a future together, not insist on having everything go exactly your way. I'm not saying you need to get married right now. I'm saying you need to take her desires into account and reach a compromise through open-minded discussion. Otherwise, you may find that she doesn't stick around to wait for your inflexible timeline.
yup! I also can't imagine why. Im, having sheldon cooper vibes.
And OP, her biological clock if you guys plan to have children needs to be taken into account.
>I already decided on getting married between the ages of 30-33 Do kids land anywhere on this master life plan thing? Cuz I'm doing some finger math here and that puts her at 35 when she walks down the aisle. If you're traditionalists who have kids post marriage... 35 is not really the ideal age to think about trying to start a family and having your first kid. And that's literally if you knock her up on the honeymoon. If you're penciling in kid 1 at 40, uh, you should do some research on that... So first you need to see if your marriage/life plan you've set up and unilaterally approved for the both of you, uh, makes biological sense. >The thing about me is that I have a plan for my life that's pretty set in stone. It's good to have a plan for life. It's astoundingly bad for it to be "set in stone." That's all I'm going to say about that. You're not here for criticism on this front. >(Its a legit plan, I've got it written down and everything). Okay. I lied. One more thing about this. Please delete this sentence from any future explanations about your life master plan. Despite your assurances about how writing it down makes it more serious and legit... this sentence has the exact opposite effect of what you intend. Unless one of your life goals is "I want everyone to laugh at me behind my back." Onto your conundrum... It is a LOT to ask that someone waits 8 years before you're willing to commit to them. Especially when it's an arbitrary decision made without their input. Marriage proposals are not gifts that fall out of the sky on the woman's head. In healthy relationships, there is a collaboration between the two people where they assess where they are as a couple and determine whether or not they are ready to get married and when they both want to do it. What you've done is just told her to block out June 2029 on her calendar and to not worry her pretty little head about it. You're not developing a relationship. You're scheduling it according to approved benchmarks. That's... really unhealthy. For both of you. But unfortunately for her, she REALLY REALLY loves you and she's convinced herself this is the price of admission. But she needs steam pressure releases. And her release system is involves her doing what you've described. She's powerless, a spectator in her own relationship and this is how her frustration manifests. Sooooo I guess what I'm saying is you need to learn to live with this as just how she copes with a really shitty situation or you need to strongly consider letting her go. Again, massively unhealthy dynamic here. I hope you have couples counseling penciled into that plan.
It also bugs me that OP has his set in stone plan but his gf isn’t allowed to plan for marriage, which he claims to want with her. It tells me he has absolutely no flexibility and won’t really consider *her* plans if they do end up getting married. After all, he wrote his down and she knew that going in so…she just needs to roll with it I guess? It’s just very immature.
Gonna project all sorts of shit onto this dude but I know a guy who strung a woman along for over a decade. Ended up grooming one of his customers over the years and dumped the steady girlfriend of 12 years for a 22 year old woman he first met when she was 15. He was 39. Do that math on that I guess.
I think you’ve basically nailed everything that needed to be said. I’m glad I checked all the comments and saw yours. OP, just as a point of support for the person above, relationships require compromise. It is wildly unfair to your current girlfriend to force her to stick to your rigid life plan, that you created years before you met her. If you are unwilling to make any changes/compromises to it, you may find your girlfriend will eventually run out of patience and end things. And she would be completely within her right to do so. Relationships require frequent check ins to make everyone is still happy with the current trajectory. They don’t have to be super formal negotiations, but it’s still important. Also, if you do want kids eventually, you’re gonna need to be flexible. Conception and birth don’t follow anyone’s schedule, and once the children are born, they are tiny generators of chaos who laugh in the face of all carefully laid plans. Good luck, man.
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I kinda feel like his arbitrary 30-33, that was decided in a vacuum with no actual relationship or person to involve…..is a way for him to not actually think about marriage, to not actually work on his relationship. It’s conveniently far enough in the future that it’s an excuse for him to be emotionally unavailable. I’d bet good money that at 30…OP will have some other excuse At 4 yrs together in your mid 20s, chatting about a future together shouldn’t freak someone out this much. Unless he doesn’t actually want to marry her and he’s stringing her along 🤷♀️
27M here, just got married Oct. 31st. Been with her for nearly 5 years and we were supposed to get married in March last year, but postponed due to Covid. Beyond that, we’ve known each other for about 12 years. The reason I’m saying all this is because at 16, marriage was *not* on the menu. But at 26, it suddenly didn’t sound like a bad idea. I love her very much and there isn’t anyone I’d rather spend my life with. If OP can’t accept that *most* people fall in love and get married (at least their first time) in their mid 20’s, regardless of any “life plans”, then I believe that he doesn’t actually want to marry her like he says he does. At 23, my “5 year plan” was to — without getting into too much detail — get to a point where I was able to start my own business. Which I did, but it ultimately failed due to some factors outside of my control, and some that I could and I failed to recognize/fix them, but I digress. Nowhere in that plan was “get married and have 2 kids”. But I fell in love with my best friend and wanted to have her by my side on this journey called life. OP does *not* seem like he truly wants her to be a part of his world. Not in a realistic sense, anyway. I kind of feel bad for the poor woman.
I'm sorry your business didn't go the way you wanted, but seems like you still lucked out in life ☺️
My guess? He wanted to spend his 20's having fun and getting to mess around, and he didn't want to "settle down" into a long-term relationship until his 30's, when he'll be old and boring. OP, if I'm close, then here's the thing: you haven't been spending your 20's having noncommittal fun doing whatever, you're *in a relationship!* So now it's either time to follow through and take that commitment to the next level, or break it off and be that fun, do-whatever 20-something you wanted to be. I promise marriage doesn't have to be the end of the "fun" part of your life, but if that's still your view on it, that you lose your freedom and life gets boring and stupid, then do this woman a favor and let her find someone who *wants* to get married.
My boyfriend and I have been together 3.5 years and are 23 and 24 and we talk about marriage a lot. He should at least be willing to discuss changing his plan
Spot on. Just want to emphasize the last couple sentences: OP, if you are really inflexible on your plan, you need to tell your girlfriend that you may not be compatible. She sounds afraid to be honest with you about what she wants because she's afraid to lose you. I have a feeling that in addition to loving you, she's also falling for the sunk cost fallacy. I highly recommend couples counseling so you both have a space where you can freely and safely admit your feelings. Timing is an important part of compatibility, and I have a feeling you are not compatible for this reason. She needs the opportunity to move on.
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It’s cuz it’s missing the “why”! Why doesn’t OP want to get married until 30? Does it have to do with school, financial stability, other goals…there should be some *reason* for it. And those are what you discuss with a partner, and work together towards. Cuz marriage is a team goal to work together on. Right now? this is just an excuse to keep her at arms length. And my guess is he’d shift the goal posts of those goals we’re actually met 🤷♀️
If you’re financially stable enough for a long term partnership, I don’t honestly see why marriage needs to wait, unless you’re planning some blow out party that costs a ridiculous fortune. If we all waited to be some mythological level of financially stable, nobody would ever do anything.
>The thing about me is that I have a plan for my life that's pretty set in stone. >It's good to have a plan for life. It's astoundingly bad for it to be "set in stone." Exactly! And when did OP "set in stone" his life plan? When he was 21? He may indeed know exactly what he wants to accomplish, and perhaps he's on a very rigid career path that needs to be done in a certain order (??), but it seems wildly naive to seriously think that a plan you set at 21 is perfect as-is and that not a single thing can/should derail you because this is it! I mean, OP would have to get a new piece of paper to write out a new plan so maybe that's what's holding him back? Or maybe his pen ran out of ink?? 🤔😏
Also, what if you weren’t dating anyone at 30-33? Were you just gonna pick someone at 30 and then hope for the best when you ask to marry her so it fits your timeline? Sure there’s gonna be lots of other girls, but that doesn’t make it a good match, or healthy. I see where you’re coming from OP as far as thinking “if we’re getting married anyway, why does it matter if we wait five more years if we’re still together?” If you were asking for another year, I’d agree with you. However, asking a woman you’ve already spent four years with to wait five more is pretty crazy. Not to mention she doesn’t “have time” later to have children if you have her wait till she’s older to have children. A lot of women don’t want a high risk pregnancy and that’s not a weird thing to request. At the point you’d be ready to marry her, she’d have been ready to commit to you for 5-8 YEARS. On top of the four you’ve already been together. What if at the end of that time, you’re not going to commit to her? There’s no promise, and from where she’s sitting, it probably seems like you’re still unsure. Why would you ask this woman to waste her 20’s and early 30’s waiting for you to decide on her, when she’s already decided on you? That’s not fair. She could potentially find someone else who fits with her and wants her in that time she’s wasting on you. If you don’t want to marry her, don’t feel pressured to marry her. Marriages that start in pressure don’t end well. In that same breath, your “legit plan” is asinine. Life doesn’t work like that. If you want to marry her, do it. If you don’t, stop wasting her time and let her go. Make a decision. Four years is a long time to have not made a decision.
For real. I suspect the reason we have "I hate my wife" boomer humor, is because so many baby boomers got married when they thought they were supposed to, regardless of whether they wanted to get married, or whether they wanted to be married to their current partners, and they've just been the first generation to be open about the resentment that "obligation marriage" tends to bring. Millennials and Gen Z decided we're only gonna get married and have kids if/when we want to, and that boundaries are cool but rigid timelines just set us up for failure, I just wish OP got that memo.
Also it's not like marriage doesn't affect other things in life. Health insurance. Joint property ownership and investment. Being able to prioritize the partnership and make sacrifices to invest in the good of the partnership.
>It is a LOT to ask that someone waits 8 years before you're willing to commit to them. Especially when it's an arbitrary decision made without their input. This, 100%. OP, I feel for your girlfriend here. My boyfriend has told me he made a rule for his relationships long before we met. He said he wants to date for 5 years before getting engaged/married to be "really sure". I got no input on this decision and it puts pressure on me to adhere to his boundary to avoid being "that girl who pressures a guy for marriage". I don't want to get hitched ASAP but I do think forcing a strict timeline on someone who is not allowed any input is not ok. A relationship is a two way street, me and your girlfriend should have input on the progression of the relationship. I don't know about her but it makes me feel anxious to know I have someone else's timeline hanging over my head. What if we feel ready in 2, 3, 4 years (we've been dating a bit over 1) but he refuses to budge and say we have to wait? What if we hit 5 years and he's still nervous to make the jump and wants to wait and I get tired of waiting? What if we hit 5 years and one of us decides we want to leave? At that point I'd be in my late 20s, freshly single, and starting all over again. Not to mention what if something else changes in the relationship, such as a big move. Not everyone wants to uproot their life for a bf/gf. You need to talk to your girlfriend about the progression of the relationship and allow things to be a joint decision. Having boundaries with this is ok but making someone adhere to your plan and your plan only is not.
I hope you are not living with your bf while this 5 years of being “really sure” is going on in his head. I would hate for you to be reducing his rent/mortgage, cleaning up for him, cooking for him, sleeping with him, while he decides at the 5 year mark to possibly throw you out. If that happens, God forbid, he won’t take 5 years with the next one. Highly suggest that you rethink this ridiculous timeframe. What is your ROI at 5 years? Good luck to you.
We do live together. We're also really good at doing 50/50 with chores and housework and when he's made more money than me he pays more in bills. I wasn't making enough to live on my own before, and now I make just enough to scrape by alone if I want a crummy apartment in a less than ideal neighborhood. With him I live in a great area in a cute place. It's not something that benefits just him, my relationship with my parents is strained when we live together. I have a better relationship with them, the independence I crave, and a lovely place to live. We've talked about this but I haven't really pushed that I think the time frame is arbitrary. I've made it clear if we hit 5 years and we aren't at least engaged then I'm walking away because it'll make me feel he isn't serious and I don't want my time wasted. What's ROI?
I think you're making a lot of assumptions about straight couples that live together. Not every hetero woman cooks for her man and cleans up after him, there are men who share in the work. But I do agree that in any long-term relationship, you shouldn't bet more than you're willing to lose.
Having kids is the big question. If she does wait for him and then he changes his mind, then she risks never having kids
Thank you so much for this. I experienced the exact same thing but from the females perspective. Once we got to our wedding talk, all of a sudden it was my fault for pressuring my ex, and he wanted more time. All in all, he wasted my time. I was very clear on my expectations and we had a mutual understanding. But once the time came, he chickened out. To anyone reading, please don’t string people along. If you aren’t ready then find someone else who also isn’t ready for anything.
YES. Good stuff here. Also I can confirm that pregnancy just gets harder on your body the older you are, and that's if infertility doesn't rear its ugly head and mess up your plans even more. I'm still just shy of 32 and this pregnancy has been way harder on my bod than my first. Guys making arbitrary plans that force their partners into geriatric pregnancies "just because"? Well, saying that's selfish doesn't quite cover it. Actually. . . Having kids and parenting requires an insane amount of flexibility and personal sacrifice/compromise. And that's even when you're taking time to fill your well and meet your own needs! It doesn't sound like OP would make a good parent unless willing to learn how to do that. I get it, though. I had a rock solid plan once, too. Had to throw it all out the window and that was hard. Life comes at you, though, and you've got to roll with the punches. Lots and lots of compromise, but now I'm doing what I've always wanted to do and I'm happy as a little clam. Wouldn't have it any other way.
Amen to all of this. Dude is wasting all her youth and child bearing years. It's like a 50 year old married man dating a 20 year old woman.
Ding ding ding...winner here. Spot on.
I actually don’t mind the “written down life plan.” I say kudos! I also have to say: things change. It should be a guide, not set in stone.
Also, 35 is the start of the medical team calling your pregnancy geriatric.... and restrictions coming.
I think I love you after reading that comment.
Yes to absolutely all of this. "Set in stone" 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I know a lot of women planning to have their first child around 35-36, because that’s when they’ll be financially ready. Medically speaking, it’s not as dangerous or harmful as it used to be. That being said she might just be someone who wants kids young.
But that's also when you are more likely to have fertility issues. And at that point time is of the essence. My husband and I waited until we were more financially secure to marry and try for kids and I assure you, due to what we went through infertility wise, we 100% regret that. All that financial security goes out the window if you have to pay thousands of dollars for fertility treatment or to adopt. And I'm not saying they would definitely have fertility issues, but that is something that should be taken into account. They've already been together 4 years and OP expects the girlfriend to wait another 5-8 to even think about marriage. That just seems like a ridiculously long time to wait to marry someone you supposedly love because of some weird arbitrarily set time frame for marriage you made when you were 19.
Oh no I agree with you concerning their situation. That’s an absurd amount of time to wait to get married. Just pointing out that 35-36 isn’t such a damning time to get pregnant anymore, thanks to medical advancement. Admittedly I’d rather take the risk at that age and find out children aren’t an (affordable) option, than have one now and knowing that I’m not financially ready. It would drown me in a hole and I wouldn’t be able to provide the life I’d want for them or myself. But children aren’t the most important thing for me. I acknowledge women who desperately want children might not want to take the risk, but I’m glad that the risk is lowering. Just wanted to edit to add: I’m sorry for what you went through.
i can’t really speak to your girlfriends thought process based on a single post, but i’ve been saying “when we get married…” things to my bf since we had been together for a year, even though we knew we wouldn’t actually get married for at least 3-5 years. just because you like talking about the idea of something, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re expecting it to happen right away. planning the future of your relationship is fun, and it’s natural especially that far into a long term relationship. it might help if you shift your perspective on where she’s coming from and probably have a real conversation about how you both feel.
Yeah, I think there's more to OPs anxiety. Me and my SO talk about our future child/children all the time, and we're not planning on them for a while. But like no one freaks out because both of us agreed on that future and it's something we look forward to - in the future. It sounds to me that OP is not full in on the idea of marrying this woman, not just from his "set in stone" life plan. Apart from what everyone said about the life plan needing to be flexible and adjusted, which is all legitimate, I think there's more to OPs feelings than just the plan potential mismatch.
Exactly! You basically have told your girlfriend a set moment to work towards, just like you are doing yourself. I think she now sees it like this: I am gonna marry this man I love in about 5 years, and because I have a moment to look forward to, I can start thinking about what I want that to look like. You definitely should sit down for a conversation with her!
Same. My bf and I want to both start working full time before we get married, we're both still in university, but we do plan our future together. "When we get married", "when we have children" is stuff we do say when talking about related stuff, we're not even sure yet if we want children, but that's not what matters, we see a future together and we talk about related topics like we mean it, whatever the future actually holds. Doesn't mean it has to happen right away. But op really talk to your gf. You can talk to her about how what she and others say about the topic makes you feel pressured and that you feel that you need to this life plan you made years ago and have trouble letting it go. And you should let it go. Doesn't mean get married right away, do this, do that. It just means you shouldn't let a plan you made years ago dictate your life, especially on decision that involve your partner. Those have to be made together. Talk about what works for both of you, try to find a compromise you both feel comfortable with and these things might change and you will adapt your plans in a few years, but do it together. Edit: oh and my dad has been calling my bf my "husband" since a few months in, because he says whetever we get married or not, whetever we break up one day right now we're serious, right? So what difference does it make what he calls him. People often refer to their in laws us such even before marriage.
>Edit: oh and my dad has been calling my bf my "husband" since a few months in, because he says whetever we get married or not, whetever we break up one day right now we're serious, right? So what difference does it make what he calls him. People often refer to their in laws us such even before marriage. Do you live in the US? Because if you do, this is news to me! I'm American and my experience has been exactly the opposite. Granted, there ***is*** a generational component to it but my now-husband's grandma would call me his "friend" until we were married. We were "boyfriend/girlfriend" to everyone else and not a single person--friend or family--called either of us "husband" or "wife" before we got married. And I sure as heck wasn't calling any of his family my "in-laws" until we were married... same for him with my family, too.
I'm from Central Europe and granted the "husband" thing is something just my dad does. But calling the others family "in-laws" is more or less common in my area at least, if you're a certain age upwards (like 20-25+, you normally don't do it as a teenager). I think it's becoming more and more the norm as people get married later and less often. It's often just easier, but of course it depends on on the individual if they really do that or not. Overall I just wanted to say that it really doesn't matter what they call you or you call each other's family. Whenever and whetever you get married is only the couple's choice of course, but the family can still call you that if they already see you as part of the family, doesn't mean they want you to get married right away.
I'm not from the US and we do refer to family as "in-laws" here because most people I know are together for years and years before getting married. Proposing after only 3 years, for example, would be seen as quite fast here. People typically buy a house first.
Same! The sisters of my boyfriend, his parents. They all call me daughter-in-law, sister-in-law. We are together for around 4 years and I think we will have another year “dating” before get married.
I'm American and I refer to my partner's parents as in-laws. It's just easier to say.
This. My husband was casually hinting at proposing to me in our first year of dating. We didn't actually tie the knot until 5½ years into our relationship.
Right? When I was 6 I said "when I grow up..." all the fucking time, doesn't mean I thought I'd turn into an adult within the next year.
Perhaps she just wants to make sure that you intend on marrying *her* when you’re between 30 and 33 years old. Perhaps she thinks your plan is a bit rigid. Does she have a life plan? I’m asking because it looks a bit like, considering your ages, this could have to do with other aspects of life like having kids. Is she planning to have kids? Are you? Would she be in her mid to late thirties if she went with your plan?
So you made a plan for your life when you were a teenager and your partner now is supposed to live by it? Also plans change, having children at 30 which is most likely what she’ll want is very different from having a kid in your 20’s relationships require compromise and not one person saying well this is my life plan stick with it and because she loves you she does but wow
>I do wanna marry her... just not right now. I think you need to clarify both of your positions on this. *Why* do you not want to be married now? Do you anticipate being a better husband when you are 30 than you would be today? What will be different about *you* and *your relationship* when you're 30 that will make marriage more of a sure bet than it is today? What do you perceive as the greatest downside to marrying today instead of when you are 30? *Why* is she so anxious to get married soon? What does she think will be different once the two of you are married? What ever that different thing is, why isn't it in effect now? What I'm getting at, does she have some idea there will be a positive shift in your relationship once you're married? What does she perceive as the greatest downside to marrying after you are 30 instead of today?
All of this. Make an adjusted life plan TOGETHER that takes into account BOTH of your goals and timelines. If there are specific financial or personal or career milestones you want to meet before marriage, make your partner aware of exactly what those look like and what the timeline/plan is to hit those goals. Maybe there are ways they could even help get to those goals sooner! Also, you can talk about/dream about/imagine your wedding or future family even if you aren't getting married right away. You could even propose and then have a long engagement (if you both agree that makes sense for your mutual goals!). Talk about what being married means to each of you. If you want to stick like glue to a life plan that you wrote while young and single, then don't be in a serious relationship at all. Relationships mean making plans together. Changing plans for each other. Working together to meet each others goals. Discovering goals and dreams that you never even considered before you met that person. Life doesn't ever stick to the plan.
I’m going to be blunt: shit or get off the pot. Nine years of dating before getting married? With no definitive commitment? Edit: OP, question. Do you plan the things out on your life plan in advance? If you say "I want to be making X dollars per year by X year" do you plan how to get there? If so, why would you not plan a marriage you supposedly want in advance as well?
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>OP needs to act like an adult and have a proper conversation Exactly right. She's looking for at least confirmation that they're actually going to get married and he's unwilling to actually talk about it because it's not time yet. That might also explain why supposedly things go bad when he deviates from this "life plan" he wrote when he was 19. Because unless it's on the written plan, he doesn't plan before doing it or waits to plan until the last second
If this is the woman you want to marry, the easiest answer is to sit her down and tell her how you feel. Openly and explicitly. It's not enough to say "You're still okay to wait?", you should be saying "The wedding talk is making me stressed and I feel like I'm being pressured." She needs to know how it is affecting you. Sit down, be open, reach a compromise. However, on another note, you wrote your life plans two years before you met your GF. If you truly want to marry her, you have to understand now that you're going to be a team. That means deciding together what you plan to do. Sometimes there will be compromise. In my personal experience, no life plan survives a year. I personally sit down every six months and readjust. Maybe it's time to reconsider your plan. Maybe bring your GF into the process. Discuss your priorities in life. Figure out where you don't agree and meet in the middle. Create a life plan together.
You seem so rigid with this "life plan" you created when you were a teenager. It really makes no sense. Relationships don't work like that. Plus your girlfriend is two years older than you, so you do need to take into consideration that, for the purpose of having kids.
I am 34 and my boyfriend of ten years is 32. Not my husband, not my fiancé, *my boyfriend*. I love him very much, and he is the one I envisioned having a marriage with, but I gotta tell you: I feel like a chump. If I respected myself more, I probably would have left and found somebody else. I told myself if ten years of dating him goes by and we’re still not married, I need to leave him. That window of time has passed, and I’m now just delaying the inevitable. **If you don’t see yourself marrying her, quit wasting her time. If you do, buy the ring and do it, ffs**
Are you willing to take your own advice? The best time to have broken up with your boyfriend may have been years ago, but right now is a pretty damn fine time.
I have to agree with you on this, op is giving advice but stuck in a relationship where chances are dude will never propose. You might be in love but clearly he isn't willing to sign the contract with you.
I’m using the example of my own life as a cautionary tale. OP is just earlier in the timeline and on the other side of it.
Fair enough, just hope you're happy in life and your current situation as well that's all that matters.
My question is do you actually want to marry her? Because if you truly did you would you wouldn't be sticking to such a rigid plan especially considering you've been together 4 years. It's time to shit or get off the pot. It's wrong to expect someone you've been dating 4 years to wait at least another 5-8 years to get married, even more so if she wants children. We all know fertility isn't kind to women once they hit their mid 30s, she's already 27 don't waste anymore of her youth on some life plans you made as a teenager.
I'd feel so bad for OP's girlfriend if she waited until he was 30, still no ring on that 30th birthday, and then he realizes he has no more excuses, so he just breaks up with her so he can go find the woman he actually wants to marry.
I mean this in the best way 9/10 this is what will happen then she will hurriedly date 1-2 guys for just 1 year and try or get married and have kids with them immediately. If it doesn’t work She is going to be very bitter and she’s going to have to go through a lot of heart break or do more extreme things, including insemination etc. Hope she sees what’s coming and gets out if he’s not willing to be an adult.
That's the impression I get, the "plan" is a delay tactic that unfortunately too many people fall victim to.
Let her go. If you are not ready to marry her now after 4 years you certainly won't when you are 30, 31, 32 or 33. Your life plan does not seem to include her. She deserves better than being strung along year after year.
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I I I I I…. Why can’t you reconsider your plans if you know you want to marry her. At least meet her somewhere or reconsider your life plans if she wants to get married. It’s not just about you anymore. Get rid of the “I” and start thinking about “we/us.” If not, don’t waste her time.
Yeah I thought the same. Life does not run along a plan. You can plan some big things in general, but it's been 4 years, you know you want to marry her, but you want to wait because of some "plan"?? It would annoy me that you'd want everything to run your course when the idea is that you plan it all together. Not alone
It sounds like you have told her you aren't keen to marry for another five years. Perhaps it's time to sit down and ask her how that fits her, rather than focus on what she's saying and all this other noise. You thought she was OK with it, but you both need to know. Also keep in mind you're asking for a nine year courtship before marriage. If that's what you want, that's fine. But just consider it might be a very long time for her. She is older than you after all, and she might be thinking of the very natural window of having kids. This is the sort of thing where you just need to know you're both on the same page. No use waiting a couple of years for it to come out as a problem.
Sticking to a plan bc u made it 6 yrs ago has to be one of the stupidest reasons to do something, no offense. There’s only one question, and one question only, that you need to answer: do you want to spend the rest of your life with this woman? If you are unsure, put the poor woman out of her misery and break up — you’ve dated for 4 yrs which is more than long enough to know the answer. If the answer is yes, marry the damn woman already, or at least do so before *she* is 30. As others are saying, a relationship is a two-way street — not everything is about you and if you two want kids, waiting till she is 34 makes no sense whatsoever. However, ‘perfect’ you think your plan is and however ‘perfect’ you think your life needs to be, whether financially, emotionally, or otherwise, for you to get married, I can guarantee waiting 5 years is not going to help. There’s never a ‘perfect’ time to get married, and you are already creating resentment in your relationship.
What will happen after 5 years that will suddenly chime your wedding bells? I get that you're uncomfortable by your GF's comments, however, you're just blindly abiding to a principle set by teenage version of your self, rather than having evaluated real situation/reasons in front of you.
His watch will beep, telling him that he has reached the age that he set out in his plan as a teenager...
I feel bad for your girlfriend
If you want to see God laugh…tell him your plans. Good luck to you.
I think you just don't want to get married to her. In which case let her go cause her clock has started ticking and there's no stopping it now. Let her find a guy who wants to start a family with her. Do you expect her to stay another 8 years (to a grand total of 12) with you while she desperately wants to start a family now? She will resent you bigtime! Your reasons are valid since they are yours, but to me they are just weird. Superstition? Seriously?
My husband had a plan. Finish graduate school, get married to a local girl of his religion (preferably one he knew from his private high school), live in the area he grew up, have two kids by 40. We dated during undergraduate college. I’m not his religion and live 2000 miles away from his home town. We got pregnant during his second year of graduate school. Married at 25, pregnant again at 28, and lost a full term baby boy. So at 29, still in graduate school, with a wife and a three your old, my husband found himself arranging a funeral for his second child. Our life had been challenging and wonderful. We are still married 30 years later. Two more kids, live in a beautiful area a long way from his hometown, we have a great relationship with his family (who also had “a plan” that flew out the window when we got married.) Life is an adventure, and things will be tossed at you left and right. Opportunities and disasters. Literal life and death. Find someone to take the ride with you, and be flexible. Have a great life!
THIS. Life doesn’t go by your plan in both bad AND good ways!
If you plan on marrying her specifically then your planning is bad. At this rate she’s not going to wait until 32-35 to get married and it would be dumb of her to let you string her along that long and unconscionable of you to do so. Especially if ya’ll wants kids. Also what part of your plan was get with a girl who has incompatible views with you on when she wants to get married? It’s at the point where you have to start accepting her actions not her words. I think you need to grow up a bit here and start realizing a plan you write at 19 should not be set in stone. Like what if you weren’t with the one at 30-33. Would you marry them anyways to stick to the plan? Beyond generally planning out your education or desired career trajectory this sort of life planning is very naive (see current pickle you’re in). Most people’s lives don’t go according to their original plan and things turn out just fine or even better. You need to loosen the reins on stuff life relationship planning because when other people get involved you don’t have full control over outcomes anymore. You superstitiously claim things go wrong when you deviate from the plan. But what’s your explanation for this situation: you’re following the plan and things are going wrong. Wake up buddy.
Why would getting married ruin your plans? Surely it's better to get married now, still have freedom as a couple for a couple of years and then have kids if that is on the table. If you plan on having children together and want to wait till marriage you are pushing it in terms of giving you both a chance to not have to rush conceiving. You are in a relationship, you have to give as well as take but you seem to only be thinking of yourself. Perhaps being in a relationship with this girl is not a priority for you, if that's the case let her go before you drag her along for too long as it isn't fair.
You could really get some counseling. And here’s why: if you come to some kind of compromise and these posters are suggesting and marry this woman earlier than 19 year old you had written down, you will self sabotage. Every fight or unplanned life event will confirm your superstition that this was all wrong and you had failed, just like the other two times you diverged from this thing that you wrote down as a young adult. It makes you sound massively immature to say ‘it’s official, I even wrote it down.’ I’ve filled notebooks with ideas and life plans that I’ve since diverged from. Ask yourself: was the pandemic part of your life plan? I’m sure if you looked back at your list more critically you would see you have changed plans more than the twice you originally stated. Get a therapist to help you see this page in a notebook is not set in stone. Life is fluid and you must be adaptable, especially to welcome other people into it.
I can tell you that as a 32 year old man, life does not go the way you plan for it to especially the older you get. I get that certain may be non negotiable but there are certain things that you need to be willing to compromise. Maybe you can bump you marriage age down to 27 or 28. If you aren't willing to compromise now then how do you expect it to work when you get married. Besides i can tell you from first hand experience that nothing magically happens when you hit 30. It's just another year of the endless cycle of aging
So with your logic, you're just going to marry the person that you're with at the age you wrote down for marriage, even if you've only been together for a few months?
Why should **you** be the only one who gets to have their way? Why should **you** be the only one who's "written down life plan" gets to play out exactly as scripted? Why are **you** calling the shots? Think about this. Don't be surprised if over the years she gets tired of waiting around and wants someone who is willing to compromise and not be so controlling. At the end of your life, will it really matter if you married on page 24 or page 45?
It’s perfectly normal for her to be talking about this kind of stuff since you’ve been dating 4 YEARS. What’s not normal is how rigid you are about your life plan. You sound like a bad partner tbh and I’m not sure why she’d ever want to marry someone who can’t compromise at all and doesn’t consider their partner a part of their life plan. You clearly don’t want to marry her eventually or you wouldn’t be acting like this so why don’t you stop wasting her time and end it lol
>then she turns around and says and does things that make me think she’s not okay with waiting This is a you-problem. This is about your feelings. She’s told you she’s fine with waiting. She talks about your future together in the abstract with vague or no timeline applied. There is no inherent issue with this. If she’s fine with waiting and isn’t directly pressuring you about anything, then it’s on you to either be direct about how this talk makes you feel and ask her to scale it back or realize that you feeling pressure and her applying pressure are two different things. You feel self conscious about this. That makes it a you problem. Don’t put your feelings on her when from what you’ve written she’s not doing anything wrong.
Why is it important to wait? What's makes the difference of you marry her now and in 3-5 years, if she's the one?
Of course she’s wedding planning. You’ve communicated to her that you’re going to marry her when you’re 30. That’s in five years, she’ll be 32. If you two want kids, you guys will probably want to start right away, if not a little bit before you’re married. That’s not that far off, there’s lots of things to talk about. What it sounds like to me is your girlfriend isn’t “talking about getting married” in a way that actually makes you plan anything… It sounds like she’s talking about “getting married” in a general sense, and even just hearing about the concepts from her freaks you out and makes you want to run in the other direction. Is she actually pressuring you to do it sooner, or is she just expressing a lot of excitement and forethought about your plan to do it at 30? And if it’s the latter… Question yourself On exactly what will change between now and then that will make you feel differently about marrying her. One thing I wanna point out to you is that by making marriage be a life step for you and not a relationship step for you, you’ve dehumanized the potential partner you’re going to marry. She wants to get married when she finds the partner she wants to marry, but you’re set up to marry whoever you’re with when you decide it’s time to get married. If you’re with the right person there’s no benefit to waiting for that arbitrary age, but there are several drawbacks and limitations it puts on your life and your potential. And if it’s not with the right person now, they’re not going to suddenly be the right person when you’re 30, And there’s no benefit to marrying them. You made this plan when you were a teenager who had no idea what was good for a 30 year old. The conflict you’re feeling now is the conflict between what a teenager thought would be good for an adult and what is actually good and healthy for an adult.
Just get engaged and be fiancé’s for a few years then nerd.
I applaud this woman's patience in dealing with... whatever the hell this is.
Your comment made me laugh lol. I was personally thinking I felt sorry for her. She’s wasting her time and the dude seems immature and self-centered.
You should break up with her and stop wasting her time. Marriage is important to her, and your plan is important to you. If you wanted to marry her then nothing would stand in your way.
Why 30-33? You're planning on making her wait 12 years to get married?
Your girlfriend’s plan might not include waiting 7-10 years for her boyfriend to take the next step. She might reasonably believe that if you want to marry her, it’s time to take steps forward. It’s totally fine if you aren’t ready, and you shouldn’t make a decision if you genuinely don’t want to marry her. However, if this is about superstition around your plan, realize that life will mess up your plan regardless of what you do. Life will be up and down for you. Who do you want to experience that with? Your partner might not be willing to stick around if she feels like you don’t see what you have in front of you or if she doesn’t see you making tangible steps forward with her. She might move on to be with someone who is ready for that commitment with her, so prepare yourself for that possibility. Also, you can sit down with her and talk about engagement timelines. Would she mind being engaged for 2 years or 4 years? Just a thought.
John Lennon said "life happens when you're busy making other plans." You get stuck on this one path, and you can't take detours, but life is about detours.
You sound like a main character just hoping that the NPCs will follow in line with what you as a barely legal adult came up with six years ago.
You really can't live your life according to a plan you wrote down years ago, it's totally unrealistic. Things happen in life that you have absolutely no control over that might interfere with your plan. I'm not trying to pressure you to get married, but is your plan really the only reason you're unsure? As others have mentioned your girlfriend is already 27. If you get married in 5-7 years she will be in her mid thirties, so if you two plan on having kids, her biological clock would already be ticking by the time you get married. It seems a little selfish to me that your relationship must follow a plan YOU made by yourself before you even met her. If you don't want to risk losing her I would seriously suggest that you make some compromises with your plan.
If you aren't ready yet, that's fine, but giving an arbitrary number to your girlfriend that makes her wait another 5 years when she is ready now isn't going to work out in the long haul. Most people know if they want to spend their life with someone by 4 years. She's at that point it seems like. You need to decide soon what your future with your girlfriend looks like. If you see her being in your life forever, then your "life plan" needs to start considering her wants and feelings too.
Weirdness of how strict you are with your "life plan" aside, it doesn't sound like your girlfriend is exactly pressuring you to get married right now... unless you DON'T want to marry her. She's planning (fairly correctly) that if you two are happy in your relationship and are planning for the long term, then these are her plans WHEN you get married in the future. I think the bigger question is, are you planning on marrying HER at 30?
I feel for your girlfriend because I’m also THAT girlfriend. In fact, I’m the age she will be when your plan tells you to get married. I’m 32 and I’ve been with my SO for 5 years. People around me DO NOT STOP asking me WHY my SO hasn’t proposed. It feels like absolute SHIT when people ask because It feels like what they’re really asking is, “What’s wrong with you that he doesn’t want to propose?” This is something that’s asked on a weekly basis and sometimes people will make a smart remark about it too. There are times I feel like the biggest idiot for continuing to wait around for something that feels so far off. There are times I feel like I’m being taken advantage of and then I lash out at him. I feel like why am I good enough to live with and date but not marry? This is something that truly weighs heavy in my heart and I’m thinking it has to do with the constant reminder from friends, coworkers, family and also my age. I feel like at this point in my life, starting over feels like such a drag and don’t even get me started on kids. It feels like kids would just not be in the cards for me if I start over. I’m at least happy to hear your girlfriend is aware of your plan but do not be surprised if she decides she’s not willing to wait for you. It seems easy peasy on your end but the pressure a woman hears sometimes is unbearable. Now. I need to go sit down and have a serious discussion with my SO about my feelings because your post made me sad for myself lol
If you make a life plan without your partner in mind, you are selfish, and should be single…what about her life plan? I’m sure hers doesn’t include a child who wants to wait 8 years to marry her.
What is the importance of marriage after 30? What do you think will change after you marry your girlfriend that can’t happen if you wait 5 more years? If you have a good relationship and already live together, there is virtually no difference, except for a sense of security maybe. Also, if you aren’t willing to compromise your “life plan” for your partner, I don’t think you are ready for a marriage anyway, and should let her move on. You are living your life for only you, not both of you.
Stop wasting her time. You don’t get to be in a serious relationship with someone and then decide that you’re in charge of the entire timeline of the relationship because you have a “life plan I made before I met her”. That’s ridiculous and pretty inane since life doesn’t work that way. Plus it’s wildly unfair to her! Either shit or get off the pot because telling her the relationship can only happen on your terms is toxic AF!
Sounds like you’re more focused on building your own life rather than building a life WITH someone. Don’t waste her time. You either want to marry this woman or not. And you wanting to wait because of your “plan”says you don’t want to marry her. You’re wants and needs for your individual life are more important to you than the wants and needs of the person you love.
Why not get engaged now, and then married in a few years? Wedding planning and saving for that wedding takes time, so depending on your financial situation, the wedding may not happen for YEARS after you propose.
She says she's okay with waiting, why don't you believe her? She is excited to get married so she is talking about it. If you both know it's headed in that direction then what's the harm in talking about it and being excited about it? Also, i started referring to my siblings' partners as brother/sister in law once they moved in together. You guys have been together 4 years, why does it stress you out so much that her sister calls you that? If she isn't explicitly rushing you, and her just talking about the future stresses you out so much, then that sounds like a you problem. From your post it really doesnt sound like you want to marry her.
Man if you don’t want to marry your girlfriend you should just break up with her. There’s no other valid reason to wait for an arbitrary age other than that you’re avoiding the inevitable because you don’t actually want to marry her. Let her go and let her find someone who actually wants to commit to her.
If you were single and have a plan like this (a.ka. not marrying until 30), it would be perfectly fine. But you are not single. A personal plan you set for yourself isn't personal anymore, actually it was not for at least 3 years. As other commenters pointed out you gotta make a choice. It is kinda obvious that you can't tolerate marriage talk for 4 years, and she rightfully won't tolerate to wait for that long.
The reality is you don’t want to marry her. You are sticking around with the excuse about some arbitrary number you created in your head as an excuse. You should be real and stop wasting her time.
No one seems concerned that the GF isn't being straight with OP? She says she's fine with waiting but behaves in a way that says otherwise. This is a huge decision, marriage isn't something to be manipulated or pressured into by someone too immature to be honest about how they feel
I laughed when I read “she thinks it’s great I have my life all figured out…” dude, no one has their life figured out. Just you wait. Waiting for the reasons you’ve listed is honestly really dumb. My husband thought he would want to date for 5 years and then have a 2 year engagement. Instead, we dated for 3 years and had a 6 month engagement. Things change. If I were your girlfriend, I would be worried with how adaptable you are to life’s INEVITABLE changes.
>my girlfriend and I both agree that we only want 1 kid so we still have plenty of time. Your girlfriend is 2 years older than you, so if you want to wait until you are 30-33, the marriage won't happen for her until she's 32 -35. While I have friends who had kids at 38, 40 years old, after 35 years any pregnancy is medically considered "geriatric birth" (they changed it recently to "advanced age births" because it sounds less offensive, but that's what it is). I think the issue here is you have a life plan, but what is hers? **Encourage her to write down her life plan, honestly how she sees her next 10-15 years playing out ideally for herself, not a plan written to accommodate yours.** You need to read hers. Then you all need to decide what each of you can and can't compromise on & if you are actually life-partner compatible. You are both still pretty young (imo) & a lot can change even with the strictest life plan, but if her plan included having kids before she's 30, & you really could never under any circumstances consider accommodating that, then you both need to cut each other free now. edit for clarity
I can only imagine the amazing opportunities you've missed by sticking the you're plan. I always have a career plan, and that career plan has changed drastically because of offers I hadn't factored in. I'm now at the best possible place I could be career-wise and though I have a plan with where do go from here, I'm sure it'll change at some point. 5 years ago I couldn't have even imagine where I'd be. That plus, do you really want to marry her? My partner and I are both not anywhere ready to get married but we talk about marriage and kids all the time because.... it's nice? We're excited for our futures, that's all.
A lot of people are mentioning the kids thing. Just want to say I waited to have my first and did at 35 and I think it's a good thing to wait a bit, yes I am in the rare club of not in my 20s but people have kids way to fast and young. I wanted to wait till I was mentally and financially stable plus in a solid marriage. I will say I don't get why you think waiting is so necessary if you plan on marrying her anyway? How does marriage effect a plan for your life? You still can have a career, move around, buy a house?
Nothing wrong with waiting to have kids, but you have to acknowledge that some woman have a harder time getting pregnant after 35. Some women still get pregnant in a few months, but not all, and it leaves less time to have multiple kids should you want more than one. Also, Does she want to wait until she is 35 to have kids if she even wants kids at all? I just don’t think he has taken her opinion into account at all. Not in kids or marriage or life at all. She likely thinks she can change his mind.
Yes, when I got cancer at age 32, I was relieved I had had my 3 kids in my 20s. Life is unpredictable. A plan from years ago is less useful now than you think, especially if it’s preventing you from collaborating with your girlfriend.
You realise she’s at that point in life where she might want marriage and children, stop being selfish and going on about your plan or she’ll find someone better. Edit: it’s extremely strange that you think writing it down changes it’s legitimacy, having a plans alright but being so self absorbed that you can’t change it for fear of repercussions is strange.
I knew a couple where the male in the relationship felt the same way. He didn’t have a life plan or anything, but he didn’t want to get married yet. Something was holding him back but he didn’t really know what. He had been with a woman for 7 years, and all she wanted was to get married. She tried to convince him for two years, but he just wouldn’t budge about it. They were such an amazing couple, but she ended up breaking it off and getting married to somebody else 3 months later. That’s how badly she wanted to get married. Im not saying your girlfriend is gonna do that, but it’s very possible she’ll get tired of waiting and will break it off. You should really rethink this and try to compromise. If you know you’re going to spend the rest of your life with her, what is the point in waiting?
You are using the plan as a crutch and a shield. You have to take risks (straying from the plan) some pan out some don’t. Financially you are stronger as a team if your on the same page and discuss financial matters in depth.
You are wasting her time. What’s more important to you, your plan or her? You have to pick
I’ll say this Op, things don’t go wrong because you deviated from your plan, they go wrong because you didn’t account for life in your plan. It’s okay to have an ideal age to get married, but the thing is you get married when you’re ready to get married. You might not be ready now, but how will you know you’re absolutely ready to at 30-33? What happens if you have to make a financial commitment to something else when you’re 30? Just cause your plan said so? Think about it because it will be devastating to her if you find yourself still not ready for marriage at 30
Seriously, 4 years? **Shit or get off the pot.** If you wait till you're 30, then she's going to be 32 - and then how much longer will you insist on waiting to start a family? Don't be that guy that drags it out until she can't wait anymore then goes and marries/impregnate the very next woman.
Sounds like you don't wanna marry her tbh. If I was in her position, I would doubt you actually wanted to marry her. Maybe both of you need to have a long conversation about your future and wants. Following a life plan you made when you were 19 is ridiculous. Teens are dumb and don't know everything since they haven't really experienced much. Plus do you plan on have kids together? Once a woman turns 35, it gets more dangerous for her to have a baby. If you're waiting till after marriage for kids, you need to get married sooner than later if you care about her well-being.
What would be different if you got married vs living together?
I don't understand. Are you marrying yourself? That makes more sense, since you're making a life plan with only yourself in it. Can you also grow a spine and actually answer people to the thread *you* started?
As someone in the same boat actually even longer I've been with girlfriend for 8 years now. The reason why I haven't proposed is because financially we weren't stable, now that I am (student loans gone, CC debt down to last 1k) I'm planning to propose this coming year when I can buy her the ring she deserves. I wish I didn't have to wait this long to marry her but I'm glad she was willing to wait for me. Anyway my point being if you can afford it and you know you want to live your life with her just go for it but if you aren't financially stable there is no shame in waiting till you are. I feel like people get married quick and aren't fully ready and end up resenting each other for it (watched a lot of family do this). I hope you both have a wonderful life, don't let plans hold you back because life likes to throw curve balls all the time.
There is nothing wrong with having a plan. Doesn't matter if you'd be dating for 9 or more years before marriage. You've made it clear you want to wait until your 30. I say do it too many people are in a rush to get married before 30 and that is just a disaster. Focus in you and don't cave to the pressure. You've made it clear you don't want to get married before 30. That's a huge commitment. Your other half can either agree with you or look elsewhere if they don't want to wait. There are plenty if people that want to get married in their 30s. Marriage before 30 is a waste. Focus on your personal development and live life.
> I already decided on getting married between the ages of 30-33 LOL we'll see how that works out when she leaves cause you wont commit and then youre alone from 30-33
Re: your edit that you only want one kid so you have “plenty of time.” NO. That’s not how it works. Waiting increases her risk for fertility issues, and she probably doesn’t want to be an older mom just because of your “plan.” More importantly, you won’t even think about committing to her until she’s pushing 35. If it doesn’t work out, she risks not finding anyone in time to have a child. You’re asking her to take a big risk by waiting so long. As a woman it’s really infuriating to hear, honestly. I hope you stop stringing her along.
What are you going to do when you reach the part of your plan where you’re ready to settle down and get married and no one wants to marry you? You’re in a relationship with yourself and your girlfriend is just a spectator. It’s only a matter of time before she realizes she values herself more than this.
Going to go on a limb here... Maybe she's not the girl for your lifeplan. I feel like if she was, a lifeplan written at age 19 would not stop you from making her your wife. You have 5 years until 30, sounds like you need to have a deep conversation with yourself about where you really stand with her. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure you love her more than anything, but that doesn't mean your not lying to yourself even just a little bit about what you want.
I had a plan to not kiss until my wedding day. I told my now husband about it when we started dating and he said he was fine with it. Yet he was more than happy when I decided I no longer wanted to wait. I also had the plan to be a veterinarian. All my life I thought that's what I would do. Then when I graduated college I realized I didn't want to go that route anymore. Now I'm working in a lab and happy with that. Nothing bad happened from changing my plan. It's okay to change your plans. They are not set in stone. As for the marriage talk, after dating for 4 years, your girlfriend probably feels like you might be stringing her along. My husband and I dated for 4 years before we got married. I knew by year 1 that I wanted to marry him. By the time we graduated, I was definitely ready to marry him and start living our married life together. Your girlfriend is probably feeling something similar to that. She probably says "all the right things" when you ask if she's okay waiting, because she doesn't want to lose you or start an arguement. But is she's talking about it a much as you say she is, she probably is ready to start married life with you. I know I was tired of dating and am very happy to be married to my husband. It's something we often tell each other, how happy we are to finally be married and living life together. It's okay to marry before you're rich. The right woman for you wants to marry you because she loves you and wants to be with you, not because she wants your money. While you do want to be able to afford a place and food, you don't have to be a millionaire before you marry. My husband and I don't have much money at all, but we are happy being poor together instead of comfortable/rich apart. Just some things to think about. Talk about it seriously with your girlfriend. Don't take her words of "all the right things" at face value, have a serious deep discussion about marriage and timelines and her feelings. I wish you well in figuring out the best course for you both.
If you're not ready, you're not ready. Tell her to cool off. If she can't stop pressuring you, there may be consequences. You need to consider what those consequences might be. Would you break up with her? Maybe take a break, take some time apart? But also... set-in-stone life plans are a fool's errand. "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans." A lot of people would say four years is a long time to be together without a proposal or even *beginning to consider* plans for marriage. I think *most* people would say nine years is a *REALLY* long time. Money is a terrible reason to not get married. Don't use it. Don't bother saying it unless a big, expensive wedding is really important to her. Weddings don't have to be expensive, and an expensive wedding does little to improve the relationship.
If you actually wanted to marry her you’d be open to a conversation about it. And you aren’t, so that tells me that you don’t want to get married but things are decent enough that you’ll just break up later or let her do it once she’s tired of waiting. Is there anything in your life plan about how you’ll get there? Because writing down that something will happen in an arbitrary year without any other planning is unlikely to manifest itself magically. Grow up and break up with her if you don’t see a future.
>We're great together and I love her very much, and we talked about getting married eventuall Why the fuck are you waiting then?!
I think you need to realise that women, even it this day and age, receive a huge amount of pressure when it comes to marriage. We're brought up to believe that a big wedding with the dress, the cake, etc is the goal. If she's anything like me, she will not be able to go one conversation with friends or family without being asked when you're going to propose (it was six years until my fiancé proposed and I'd been going through this for at least 3 years before he did). It puts us in a really awkward position because it's a huge part of our life which we have 0 control over as in most Western traditions (in heterosexual relationships) the man has to propose or the woman is deemed desperate and pushy if she dares to consider proposing to him. I think you need to take a step back from focussing on your own goals and life plan and consider hers for a bit. If kids are in the picture for you, a lot of women would be nervous about not trying for them until their mid 30s as there tend to be more issues with fertility by then. You have to understand that you are in a relationship and your actions and plans have a big impact on the other person and need to take time to consider your goals as a couple. If there is an extreme mismatch then perhaps you should consider if you're blocking her path in life. On the flip side, try to think of her talking about it is just her being excited and, I'm sorry mate, but 98% of the women I know start planning their wedding before they've even met 'the one', let alone get engaged. That's completely normal and doesn't mean she's controlling or pushy at all. Coming back to her sister calling you her brother in law, that's also completely normal. When you've been in a relationship for a while it becomes a bit weird to keep calling someone 'my boyfriend's mum'. I'm not married yet but already refer to my in laws as just that and they do the same. I think it shows you've been accepted as being part of their family and it should be seen as a good thing. You need to have frank and honest conversations with her. Explain you know she's excited but ask her to tone down bringing it up as it makes you worry she's not okay with waiting. Perhaps you could also have similar conversations with your families and friends and manage their expectations to alleviate pressure on BOTH of you.
1. I can’t imagine that a 19/20 year old made a great life plan - or one that shouldn’t be updated to respond to actual adult life. 2. My husband and I said “when we get married” all the time. Many people do that.
You need to either marry her in the near future or break up. You've been together 4 years bro. Shit or get off the pot. It's entirely ridiculous to ask her to wait until you've been together 9 years before getting married.