Set For Marriage Blog Relationship advice from the experts at SetForMarriage.com

Love at a Crossroads

While out to dinner recently, the group I was dining with included a couple who were experiencing relationship gridlock.  Somewhere around her second margarita, the woman in the relationship announced that she was tired of waiting for her boyfriend to produce an engagement ring.

The couple has been together for five years, and living together for the last four.  She told us that she is very much ready to get married, but he is dragging his feet.   She even went into detail about what the ring should look like – the cut, carat size, and style.  Frustrated after years of waiting for him to be ready to take the next step, she also told us how she really wanted to have children in the next couple of years.  Meanwhile, her boyfriend looked like he wanted to disappear under the table.  This girl had their future all planned out, but her man didn’t seem to be on the same page.

This got me thinking… how could this couple have possibly avoided this situation?

First, it’s important to have some really honest conversations with your partner before deciding to move in together.  Do you expect to get married someday?  Does the other person feel the same?  What is a reasonable timeline of that happening?  Do you agree on the issue of having children and when?  How will you handle splitting household finances and chores?  Ask those tough questions, and be willing to hold off on moving in together if you can’t agree on the issues that are important to you.

Don’t assume you can just deal with these issues later, because the longer you spend with someone and the more your lives intertwine, the more painful it will be if things don’t work out.  It’s also a mistake to move in together thinking that your partner will change their mind later on an issue you don’t agree on, such as wanting to get married.  You deserve to have everything you want out of a relationship, and you shouldn’t have to convince someone to give you that.