Rom-com without the com.

[frenzy]

[note: are reddit relationship threads allowed? I'm operating under the assumption they are, but I can remove if it is not. If they're allowed, can we get a reddit tag, please?]

Actual Title: My [27F] boyfriend [27 M] of two years thought we've been engaged for four months. I had no idea.

Body: My [27F] boyfriend [27M] and I have been together for two years. We were very casually dating for the first year or so, and then when lockdowns started happening, since my lease was month-to-month and his place has three bedrooms, I moved in with him. So we've been living together since March.

I work a job that involves a lot of projects, that necessitate me planning, budgeting and organising and I have been doing this from home. He works in a different industry but also has been working from home, and we each have our own office, and we both wander in to see each other during the day to chat when we have a moment.

Yesterday afternoon, we were sitting watching TV when he said "oh by the way, my mom wants to come dress shopping with you." I don't have any events or anything coming up (obviously) so I was confused and asked him "For what?" He said, "Haha very funny," and after a bit of back and forth he clarified that she wants to come wedding dress shopping!

I'll spare the details of the ensuing argument but apparently back in August when we were watching a romantic movie and he said, "Hey do you think you would marry me?" And I said "sure," he took that as an engagement. Since it was our first time ever discussing marriage, I assumed he was just feeling it out.

Since then, I guess he's assumed I've been wedding planning and whenever he's wandered into my office and said things like "How's it going?" "Have you worked out the budget?" "Everything coming together?" He's been talking about the wedding and not about my job like I'd assumed he was.

We had a long fight about this. He's furious that I apparently pay so little attention I didn't realise he'd proposed, but also that he's told his whole family about our engagement and doesn't want to backtrack now. I'm furious because a) I feel like this is a huge miscommunication on his end and b) if he genuinely thought we were engaged, he's put in absolutely no effort to anything. I haven't got a ring, he hasn't got a ring, he hasn't contributed a single opinion about this "planning" I've been doing. Sure, I like planning but I have no interest in planning an entire wedding 100% by myself and if he expects that, I'm not sure if this is the right move.

I just don't know how to move forward here. He thinks we should just "stay" engaged and move forward with the wedding and never tell anyone, but I'm questioning everything now.

tl;dr: My boyfriend thought he proposed to me but I had no idea. Since then, he assumed I was wedding planning while contributing nothing and not helping at all while I thought things were continuing as normal. He wants to go ahead with the "engagement" but I'm questioning if the relationship is for me. How do we move forward? How do I get past this?

Edit I'm trying really hard to reply to everyone but comments are coming in thick and fast! I swear every time I reply there's another 20 in the inbox so I'm sorry that I'm missing some!!

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Best comment:

Sounds like the script to a bad rom-com. Usually there is a ring thing to avoid such confusion. With such failure of communicating, there needs to be a reset.

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source: https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/klsp7u/my_27f_boyfriend_27_m_of_two_years_thought_weve/

Comments

[frenzy]

This would be hilarious if it weren't so rage inducing. Imagine just thinking, despite the fact that two people get married, that only one person does any work? and generic platitudes like "hows it going" and "have you worked out the budget" were ... specific to anything... Wow.

[petra]

Hello, Whole Man Disposal Service? Yes, I'd like you to make a pickup.

[frenzy]

Like, this relationship /could/ have been salvageable if his response had been completely different. It could have been the start of the com in the rom-com, but instead he... demands they pretend this didn't happen??? beep beep- whole man disposal service.

[petra]

If rom-com were short for romantic communication, it would be a very different genre, and the soi-disant fiancé would be failing at both.

[jamoche]

Trying to picture the conversation with the family:
"So me and OP are getting married!"
"Great, when?"
"I don't know."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
"Big wedding? Small?"
"I don't know."
"What kind of ring did you get?"
"Ring?"

And so on. If that were my relative, I wouldn't be surprised at all to get a "well, actually we aren't engaged".

[frenzy]

Or an even more concerning response "idk, ask my partner" ad infinitum.

like... uh... buddy... i got some news for you.

[jamoche]

Although you'd hope that if he'd said "ask my partner" they would've done so by now - but then, if he had and they didn't, it would explain a lot about him.

[frenzy]

gosh, your right. or, like if he even said "ask my partner" he would... in turn... maybe ask his partner himself too. idk this whole thing is just wild.

[oursin]

While I regularly deplore the excesses of performative public proposals, I think this one was rather too far in the opposite direction - not quite in the subjunctive, but almost.

And 'casually dating for a year'? Then moving in together because lockdown? It sounds as though they have not had sufficient time to get to know one another?

[frenzy]

Yeah, I heard somewhere that the engagement should be a surprise, but the answer absolutely should not. Hell, several couples (myself included) talked about if they want to even get married before, you know, the actual proposal/engagement.

There are several people that do low-key proposals and thats great, but, like, you'd even think he would have responsed to an actual proposal with... "thats great! im so excited" or literally ANYTHING to acknowledge the engagement from there on forward.

And yeah, I reckon they probably don't really know each other /really/ well. Moving in with someone will show you who someone really is. and wow. look at them go. lol

[rosefox]

What I'm hearing is that his "proposal" didn't involve him expressing any emotion at any point. Like, if I casually asked my partner to marry me and they said yes, I'd get teary-eyed and say "Oh my gosh, REALLY?" or "Eeeee I'm so excited!" or have any reaction at all beyond sitting back, smugly satisfied, to watch the rest of the movie and then call my mom.

Also, he's been telling his whole family about this but not on social media where she could see it at all? Just quietly, in little private conversations that she doesn't overhear even though they live together?

Something really is not right here.

Mod Note: Reddit Threads

[cereta]

As far as I can tell, people enjoy the reddit threads, so I'm fine with them. If anyone has concerns about their inclusion, feel free to send them my way.

Re: Mod Note: Reddit Threads

[frenzy]

thanks so much! The only big argument I could see against reddit was that a lot of reddit threads could be creative writing exercises (this one included), but I reckon that same skepticism can be used for any letter written to an advice column.

Re: Mod Note: Reddit Threads

[eva_rosen]

I recently read a column where they said something like 'there are letters you know aren't true, some you suspect aren't true, and some you hope aren't true', and I think that applies to everything an anonymous party tells in a public forum?

Re: Mod Note: Reddit Threads

[cereta]

Yeah, I sort of figure that's a universal issue.

Re: Mod Note: Reddit Threads

[oursin]

I was reading a book(or it might have been an interview) by a well-known British advice columnist, who said, among other things, that even if a letter was made up, answering it would very likely speak to somebody's very real problem.

[heavenscalyx]

Having been the subject of one such "engagement" with no ring and simply telling people we were engaged, I'm glad she's standing up for herself on this and questioning everything. In my case, the guy who did it was abusive in a lot of other ways, and just wanted to add some kind of weird legitimacy to things I guess (and also to establish me more firmly as his beard)? I went along with it because to refuse to do so would be to invite more abuse, etc etc etc. I don't think my family ever heard about it, but his family certainly did.

Whole Man Disposal, indeed.

[frenzy]

Im so sorry you had to experience that. Thats awful.

[tielan]

Do you have a habit of “being dramatic” or are your real emotions just inconvenient for others?

Oh, that's one in the gut.

My instinct is WholeManDisposal, but at the very minimum a conversation is needed about expectations of a relationship going into marriage.

[liv]

So I am currently learning a section of Talmud about what constitutes a valid betrothal (more of a commitment than a modern engagement, short of an actual marriage). Ideally, the man needs to propose by reciting a specific form of words. OK, but what if he uses a dialect word for 'betrothed' - still counts. OK, but what if he uses some kind of general locution that seems vaguely related to relationship commitment? Does that count as betrothal? I'm not quite sure how rabbis of the fifth century and earlier fall on the scale of useful advice-givers compared to Reddit, but in this case they say, well, it's a betrothal if he clearly establishes a context where they're definitely talking about marriage, it's not a betrothal if he just randomly drops a vaguely relationship-related question into a conversation about the price of cabbages. I'm pretty certain the "proposal" described doesn't meet this bar.

[watersword]

I love this. Both in general and as a response to this post.

[ingridmatthews]

I'm pretty sure Beyonce ("Single Ladies") answered this years ago.

[mommy]

Just what did this man think his "fiancée" did all day when she was supposed to be working? Did he think she was getting paid to not work? "Ah, my fiancée is planning our wedding for the fifteenth day this month. What a generous job she has!" And why didn't he ever ask her what her planned budget was, or did he expect her to just pay for everything without him? I just don't understand him at all.

How does this guy's knees not hurt with all the jumping to conclusions he was doing?

[starfleetbrat]

Sounds a little gaslight-ish and manipulative/controlling to me. She only has his word that the conversation even took place and if she decides to go along with this, then what else can he get her to go along with?

I say run for the hills and don't look back.

Also, the reddit post has been removed and comments locked. Not important for this community I guess, but mentioning it in case people go looking for it.

[green_grrl]

"Hey do you think you would marry me?"

Uh, sorry buddy, that’s a conditional. You need a declarative to lock it down. And a ring. (I actually was in a conversation where I said, “I would marry you.” And the conversation continued. And by the end of it we had both decided we did want to do it, and had made a plan for ring shopping and other next steps.)

[lavendertook]

He’s furious she “pays so little attention” she didn’t realize he proposed to her? With his what if statements? This is abuse and classic gaslighting. And he didn’t mention once the word “marriage in all his questions that she assumed were about work--honey, the problem isn’t you, and he knows it. He’s furious and he’s also determined that the wedding that he wants her to plan should go on--that doesn’t fit together. He’s definitely testing all the ways she will allow him to control and abuse her. Do not bother with therapy--get out now.

[melannen]

Do you still like this guy? Are you still happy in the relationship as it is, with the vague possibility of "sure, we'll get married some day" on the horizon? Or are there other warning signs that he is not The One?

...there are probably other warning signs. But he could just be a bit of a twit who likes you so much he is nervous and overcompensating and screwing everything up.

But OP, if you still think this guy is worth a try, this seems like an ideal situation. You can just say "Okay, well, my answer to your original question hasn't changed, sure, I would still probably marry you," and then drop the subject.

If, some day, a wedding happens with no farther effort on your part, he will have shown he's learned better from where he is now, and it's probably fine to go ahead and show up!

If no wedding planning starts happening, well, you certainly don't have to do any either! You can just keep going as you are until something else changes. The difference between "couple who lives together" and "engaged couple who live together but with no rings and no active wedding planning" basically only matters to his great-aunts. If you do get relatives wanting to dress-shop etc, not passed via him, the answer is, "Oh, it's a bit early for that, I don't think he's even picked a date yet, but you can check with him."