In society, people look at you differently when you’re wearing a ring on your finger, and in some aspects of life, you do get more respect and people take you seriously. But if you’re not ready for marriage, don’t jump into it for these reasons. And definitely don’t jump into it because it will make your partner happy. Say yes only when you’re ready. If the two people in the relationship are not on the same page about marriage and their view points are poles apart, trouble will brew and problems will begin to arise between them. If he/she doesn’t want to get married, there’s no point in convincing him/her. You just have to accept that this is not the time.
I Want To Get Married But She Doesn’t
You can tell parents, your friends, your colleagues, you can even tell the whole wide world ‘I want to get married’, but it doesn’t matter as long as your partner is still hesitant. Being in a relationship is great, but when you make things legal by getting married, there are several things that come into play. For one, your families get involved. And when you’re married, you can’t just walk away after a fight, no, you have to deal with things like adults and learn to compromise. Are you ready for commitment? Are you now understanding why your girlfriend doesn’t want to get married? Do you still want to get married?
The transition to becoming a city person
I have always been a no-nonsense person. Talking is not my strong point, and I prefer to live in my own little world of thoughts and emotions. Coming from a small town, right from the suburbs, it had been difficult for me to adjust to my new life in the bustling city of LA. The city took me by the collar and pushed me into an abyss of new friends, new colleagues and new acquaintances. I could hardly breathe and find my own space in the big, dark city. But I had promised myself that I would survive.
I found love
Ashley was everything that I was not. She was open, friendly and outgoing. These personality traits came to her as easily as nursery rhymes come to us even when we are 30. She had everything that I had always wanted in a woman. I remember how excited I was when she asked me out for the first time. After 6 months of dating, she decided that it was time for her to move in with me. I knew I would never have had the guts to do the things that came to her so easily. I simply agreed with everything she wanted, only because I loved her and wanted to make her happy. We shared a beautiful relationship. She learned to like the books I loved. We even started buying couples books to read together. I learned to like her passion for cosplay and visited Comic Cons with her. We would spend hours discussing books, and many more hours discussing costumes and the comic characters she loved.
Things were getting serious
Looking back now, I wonder what went wrong between us. Was it because we were so different from each other? Or was it because we were not ready to take the next big step? Or perhaps it was because what each of us construed as ‘the next big step’, was not the same. For me, it had been marriage. I wished to marry her. But then, I figured she didn’t want to marry me. She said she was not ready. For her, the next big step was to tell my mother about our live-in relationship. But then, I was not ready. Her mom was more modern and understanding, but I didn’t know how to explain to her that my parents were not the same way.
Our differences began to show
I knew my mother would never accept her if she found out that we had been living together. For a woman who lived in a small town all her life, such a thing was blasphemy. Ashley wanted me to be honest with my family. She wanted to know my family better before deciding on anything else. She wished to visit my home and understand how life would be if she ever married me. She herself had no such issues. Her parents knew about us living together and they never had a problem with it. Her mother used to come and stay with us whenever she visited LA. My mother on the other hand, would only look at the disadvantages of live-in relationships and why they were detrimental to society. I tried to dissuade her from going to see my family and explained what kind of chaos it would cause. But she refused to understand. One day I overheard her telling her mom, “I don’t want to get married but my boyfriend does. Why can’t we just continue living this way?” I knew she wouldn’t get it.
We realized we we couldn’t make things work
Ashley hated the fact that she had to move to some friend’s house when people from home visited me. She felt she had to erase herself from my life each time my family visited. As if even a trace of her would be a cause for my family’s unhappiness. We had huge rows because of this. It felt like we had forgotten how much we understood each other. There were days when we wouldn’t talk to each other at all. And when we did talk, we ended up arguing and fighting with each other. Life felt strange and out of sync. That was when we decided that we couldn’t live together. Our family backgrounds are very different and bringing them together would only be catastrophic. Once again I heard her telling her mom, “He wants to get married, but how can I if he’s too embarrassed to even introduce me to his family?” She had once told me that marriage was not just about us, but about our families too. When I had told her initially I wanted to get married, I was too excited and jumpy to understand her point then, but now I do. I now realize that our marriage would have been difficult, if not an impossible ride towards happiness. We therefore had to give up on ‘us’ to save ourselves from unhappiness.
