[Abbaye15]

Hi April,

My boyfriend and I have been together for 2 years and are in a committed, loving relationship. We recently took on a mortgage together to buy a house in our home town which will be rented out. We both live separately with flatemates in a bigger city where rent is very expensive.

The issue is, we spend nearly every night with each other and I’d like to move in together, but my boyfriend is against it! He just doesn’t seem interested, and I’m wondering if he ever will be. So we are paying off a mortgage and also paying two seperate rents, while staying at each other’s pretty much every night, which is crazy.

I’m just wondering if he sees any long term future or if this is it. To me, living together is really important when things start to get serious. Also, he said he’s not interested in marriage for at least 10 years (making me 36)! This is a pretty big red flag to me. Other than all this, he’s a great guy.

I’ve started to cut back on seeing him because I’m just upset at the moment. Do you think we have any future?

[April Masini, your AskApril]

It sounds like you’ve been dating for two years and have a joint real estate investment commitment — but no romantic commitment, since you’re both living with roommates in separate flats. You want more, he likes things the way they are.

The good news is that he’s being clear with you. When he says he doesn’t want to get married for ten years, at least he’s not saying he doesn’t want to get married. He just doesn’t want to get married in this decade. And at least he’s not saying he does want to get married and acting like he doesn’t. That’s truly the most difficult! I’m nor sure if this pronouncement that he doesn’t want to get married for ten years is news to you, or if you’ve known this all along and now that you’re ready for marriage, it’s an issue. Lots of times women listen to guys — but they don’t hear them. They think they’ll change him, and it’s a tough road to take. Does that sound like you? I’m not insinuating — just asking. 🙂 Anyway, guys who marry are ready to marry. And what gets them ready may be a certain age that they have in their head (like he seems to have) or a certain amount of money in the bank, or a certain career goal met — or sometimes it’s because a parent dies or there’s some other catalyst. But as frustrating as this may be for you, he’s just not ready now.

The other piece of good news is that you know what you want. You want marriage and you want it before the decade ends. If the two of you can’t come together on that issue, after dating for two years, it’s time for you to prioritize your relationship goals and just because you love someone, if your needs aren’t being taken care of by them, because you don’t have compatible relationship goals, it may be time to move on.

I think that the real estate project may have created a bond that was not backed up with romance — and it may have allowed you to ignore or at least delay the fact that he wasn’t into marriage. You can keep the real estate project, because that’s just business. But I think you want something different for yourself in a relationship.

I hope that helps.

[Member]

Posts