Does it feel like your boyfriend is too slow to propose? You have been together for a while now and you think it’s high time he takes things to the next level but there he is doing nothing about it. He does not even like to want to think about or have a discussion that has to do with the proposal.
Many young women have experienced this at some point in their emotional, and you are not alone if you are one of them. While we look at things you can do when your boyfriend is too slow to propose to you, we will also see some reasons why he is slow to propose in this post. These will help you know what exactly to do to address the issue at hand.
Here is a typical scenario of a boyfriend who is too slow to propose
Alice (28 years old) met John (31 years old) about a year ago at the mall. Alice was one of the customer attendants at the mall, and John was a clerk who worked for a newspaper company. They were both single.
Alice’s last relationship was about 2 years ago. Her relationship with her ex ended very unexpectedly and the experience was brutal. This is mainly because she thought that was going to be her last relationship before she gets married. The relationship lasted for 11 months and it blossomed beautifully.
John, on the other hand, has never been in any serious relationship. He has been busy pursuing his career., even though he has had some close moments with several ladies. During these periods, he made efforts to woo one lady or another at different times. After about a week or two, the ladies would turn him down for reasons best known to them.
Alice has had her own fair share of bad dating experiences too but meeting John felt like a turning point for her, and no doubt John felt the same way too.
Today, at the time of writing this, they have spent 11 months and 15 days in the relationship but John has not proposed to her despite knowing she loves him so much.
- Why is John too slow to propose?
- Is Alice just too impatient? What is the right time to propose?
- How will Alice be affected?
- How can she respond to the situation?
- Is there a way Alice can make John propose faster?
While we discover answers to these questions in this article, they will also be addressing all your concerns about why your boyfriend is too slow to propose to you and what you can do about the situation.
Why your boyfriend is too slow to propose
There are several reasons why your boyfriend might be too slow to propose. They could be related to his readiness for marriage, his fear of commitment, or other factors related to you and your expectations from the relationship.
Let me list some of the reasons why he might be too slow to propose.
He has a different understanding of marriage
What if he doesn’t want to get married to anyone ever? Have you discussed marriage with him yet? What was his response?
Marriage is a beautiful thing. I personally subscribe fully to the idea of marriage, and you are here reading this because you probably do too. Your partner might not share the same beliefs as you about marriage. This could be one important reason why you have not gotten a proposal from him yet.
He might not be directly against marriage, but he could be one of those people who believe there is no need for serious commitments and ceremonies before two people perform the roles of husband and wife.
Thirdly, he might have the understanding that getting to the peak of one’s career must always come before the decision to get married. This might make him pursue his career instead of considering making a marriage proposal to you.
He doesn’t think it is the right time for him
The right time for marriage is different for different people. People get married at different ages. And even sometimes, marriage doesn’t happen at the exact age we desire it; there could be delays and catalysts.
On the basis of what the ideal age to marry is, Carrie Krawiec, a marriage and family therapist at Birmingham Maple Clinic, Michigan, says 28 to 32 years is the ideal timeline period to get married. She added that marriage during this period has the least likelihood of a divorce within the first five years.
While those may be true or not, individuals have their desired time to get married. If your boyfriend thinks it’s not the right time to get married, he might not feel the pressure as much as you do. This can be one important reason why he is slow to propose to you.
Fear of commitment or loss of freedom/change
There are many phobias in the world, gamophobia is one of them. Gamophobia refers to a pathological fear of marriage and commitment. Why would your boyfriend be afraid of commitments? Does it mean he doesn’t love you enough or is unsure about your relationship together?
Several reasons make people fear commitment. One of them is their experiences from the past, especially those relating to hurt and heartbreak. He might be too scared to make the move to propose to you because he is scared of some consequences he thinks about.
Fear of commitment is not a very good thing for two people in a relationship. He might need to hear this from someone he respects, so he can begin working on this phobia.
You are on different timelines
Shortly in this article, you will learn more about the biological clock that controls our reproductive system capabilities as we advance in age. For a young girl of 21, there is not so much pressure to get married. But this is not the case for a young lady at 29.
On the other hand, a young man at 29 may not experience the same pressure as a young lady of the same. This is because timelines are different for men and women.
Depending on the age of your boyfriend – he could be younger, the same age as you, or just a few years older – his timeline might be different from yours. He might still be more inclined to focus on other things aside from marriage. As a general observation, marriage timelines between men and women truly coincide when the man is older than the woman by at least 5 years.
He thinks he is not ready, financially and otherwise
Proposing to you for marriage might not be such a difficult thing for him. The responsibilities of marriage and father might be his problems here. Your boyfriend is unlikely to propose early if he thinks he is not financially ready, or otherwise, for the responsibilities of marriage and fatherhood.
Your expectations are overwhelming
Maybe you are unconsciously too covetous of him; placing overwhelming expectations on him can make him slow in proposing to you.
For example, you may have told him severally about how your engagement ring must be a diamond or 24-Karat Gold. And if he doesn’t engage you properly that way, you would not accept his proposal. You may also have hinted to him how you want an elaborate wedding that must occur within 5 months of the proposal. These can be way too much for him if he is just struggling to establish his career.
He isn’t yet sure about the relationship
You might find this very weird and that’s totally expected. How a man after an 11-month relationship with the woman he loves would be unsure about the relationship is something anyone might find hard to grapple with. It is difficult to put this in clear statements but as far as commitment and marriage are concerned, there are no impossibilities.
He could be having conflicts about who to settle with, particularly if someone else showed up along the way. It could be that he has seen certain aspects of you that he is not so comfortable with. All of these can be the reasons why he is this slow in proposing to you.
No one is perfect, and if he is looking for someone perfect, he might never find such. He should go ahead to propose to the woman who has shown him commitment and love and watch things unveil in the forward direction. I hope someone tells him that.
When is the right time to propose? When can we say he is too slow?
There is no right or wrong timeframe to propose. It could happen just a month after meeting each other, it could be after a year, and for some people, it could take up to a year. What is important, however, is that you and your partner are on the same page about your future together.
Some couples may feel ready to marry after one year of dating, for others, this may seem way too fast. Either way, it is important that you understand your partner’s needs about when to take the relationship to the next level.
Good communication is also important in determining when to propose. If you both feel comfortable talking about future plans, such as having kids, buying a house, and growing old together, it could be a sign that you are both getting more ready to take things forward.
Irrespective of what your boyfriend thinks about you, or when he thinks the right time to propose should be, it is normal to begin to feel that it is taking him too long to propose when the pressure to marry begins to hit you harder.
What happens when your boyfriend is too slow to propose?
Just to be clear that I understand exactly what you are going through, here I will show you some of the feelings you may experience when your boyfriend is too slow to propose to you. These feelings are perfectly normal. The longer you have been together without getting a proposal from him, the worse you might feel about the relationship, especially whenever you have thoughts that he is yet to propose.
While these feelings are very relatable, the aim of sharing them here is to reassure you that you are not alone and that there is a way out of the situation. Here is a list of common feelings you might experience when your boyfriend is too slow to propose to you.
- You might begin to regret committing to him.
- You feel resentful and begin to lose interest.
- You feel like looking elsewhere.
- You might feel stuck particularly if you have shared so much with him.
- You might begin to doubt his interest in the union as well.
Why do women worry more about proposals?
You might have already figured out that women tend to feel the impact of delayed proposals and marriage more. The reasons are not far-fetched.
There is something called the biological clock. The biological clock is a natural cycle of life for everyone in the world, assuming we all lived long enough to experience all the stages. First, we are born, then we grow into young children, then into adolescents, young adults, and grown-ups. Finally, we age even more and die.
The biological clock concept describes that everything that happens within our body is governed by an inbuilt clock that makes things happen in our body when it’s their time to happen. In our reproductive life, the biological clock is most commonly used to emphasize the changes women’s reproductive system undergoes as they age.
It has been shown that the older a woman becomes, the less her reproductive potentials become. She sheds off one or more eggs during her menstrual cycle and this continues until she eventually shed off all her eggs at about age 40-45 years.
This natural progression, as well as the additional changes that occur in a woman’s body throughout her reproductive life, puts women on the higher-pressure side when it comes to marriage, childbearing, and proposals.
How to respond when your boyfriend is too slow to propose
How do you respond when you observe that your boyfriend is perpetually slow in proposing to you? It might make you feel resentful, frustrated, or disappointed, but here are some ways you can handle it maturely without letting it get to you hardly.
Breathe! Relax!!
Anxiety can easily overwhelm you when you let the pressure of marriage get to you. To avoid overworking yourself unnecessarily because your boyfriend has not proposed to you, take a deep breath and relax your mind.
Engage in things that give you joy and live your best life. Stay open for more relationships with friends, family, and the like. When he sees that you are not unnecessarily worked up, it might make him realize that it is high time he proposed.
Have patience
You need to exercise patients when you figure out your boyfriend is taking it too slow in proposing to you. In absolute terms, you might truly be overreacting. Sometimes, it is not the best time to ask for your hand in marriage but because you are desperate, you may not understand this clearly.
Practice self-love
Self-love has several benefits for the body and the heart. Self-love reflects your willingness to take care of yourself instead of allowing the problems around you to affect how you think or perform. To be able to prove that you love yourself, you need to take adequate rest, sleep, and exercise indeed.
Go out by yourself sometimes. Distract yourself by focusing on other things outside your relationship. focus on your own dreams and aspirations. Caring about yourself is more important than worrying over someone else who refused to do the right thing. Just live your life.
Get yourself a digital detox
When you hear people say they are getting a detox, it usually means they are having some form of body cleansing. We live in a digital world and coupled with all the good things this age brings, digital platforms also bring along with them some amount of distractions and frustrations.
You might need to stay away from social media for a while. Constantly seeing media of people who are proposing and being proposed to might mount more pressure on you. This process of staying off social media for a while is what we could refer to as getting a digital detox.
What to do to make him propose marriage faster
How do you make your boyfriend propose faster? If there was a way to achieve this, wouldn’t it be something you’d like to know?
There are a few ways you can express your seriousness to your boyfriend on the basis of his poor will to propose. If you feel you are ready for marriage but you are unsure what your partner thinks, engage him in a conversation about how you feel. If he comes up with a reasonable reason to wait a little while, there would be no need to rush things.
Also, you can continue to drop hints about your readiness for commitment and possibly, marriage. For example, asking him about how he wants your wedding to be will indirectly send a subtle message to his brain that you are saying something pretty more serious than implied.
In extreme cases, you might want to give him an ultimatum, by asking him where his interests are in the relationship. Ask him to redefine the relationship with you clearly and let him decide if he wants to be with you or not. Separation during these times does not feel so much like conventional breakups. So you would expect it to go peacefully if either of you decides to call it a break.
It is not fair to string your partner along if you have no intention to propose to them unless you are both okay with not getting married. Again, good open communication will help speed up things between you a bit.
Summary
There is something like being too slow to propose. There is no specific timeframe for a guy to propose in a relationship but the older the relationship gets, the more pressure one or both of the partners experience as it relates to the proposal, marriage, and/or childbearing.
there are several reasons why a guy might be too slow to propose to you. These may be related to his financial capability, his subjective feeling of readiness to settle down, as well as his fear of commitment, a phenomenon referred to as gamophobia.
Here in this post, you not only see some important reasons why your boyfriend may be too slow to propose, but you also see what to do to deal with it and how to make him propose to you faster than it could have been.
