Promised but not engaged
I got the ring in the mail, so being me and impatient, rather than waiting till this Friday like I had planned to, I asked Jason this past Friday.
I did surprise him. He didn’t give me a yes however. He feels like he doesn’t know himself well enough to marry anyone yet. So he accepted the ring as a promise ring. Rather than a traditional promise ring of “a promise to get engaged or married” we both held the ring and promised to ourselves and each other to grow as individuals first. He promised to find out what he wants in life and to be more honest with me about his feeling instead of doing things because he thinks it would make me happy. I promised to be more aware of the times when I am what may be misconstrued as controlling. My ultimate goal with the proposal was to make him aware of how serious I am about this relationship and to forward this relationship to any degree. I feel that now that he is aware of how I feel and that I do intend to marry him, that he will make strides to keep the promises he made to me. That to me is success. That to me is just as good as him accepting my proposal.
We both realized that some of the “problems” we may have with communication are beyond our realm of experience and he agreed to take corrective action with me. We are going to buy a book and read it together to try to better our communication and if that doesn’t work we are going to go to couple’s counseling. We also realized how important “us” time is and that Jason is happiest in this relationship when we get “us” time away from our lives. This prompted us to also promise that we would make a point of going out of town, just the two of us, at least once every three months, hopefully more. We haven’t had an out of town get away in almost a year, which is why he admitted, that he has felt out of sorts in this relationship, something I was not entirely privy to (although I probably should have known).
I talked to him about the influence his mother has over him and asked if he thought he would really be able to “find” himself living under her roof. He admitted that he would not. Our solution to this was simply to fix the mechanics on the car ASAP and then he would immediately look for a roommate and move out. I think this would be good for him, to live on his own without his parents or me.
I think I still need to talk to him about our expectations in this relationship. If we are now in an area of this relationship where we are moving forward, then we need to know what we expect out of each other. I am still not clear on what actions of me he perceives as controlling and why he feels they are controlling and I need to know that if I am to fix that. I think that now we should seriously start to talk about the types of things we expect when we get married. I was just so eager for him to know how I felt and to move this relationship from “weekend girlfriend plus a little more” to “this is serious” that I glazed over some of that stuff. I think it is good that we are not engaged yet. Now that I think about it… he really is not ready for that step, but it seems like even before I proposed he was making strides in the right direction. He was already trying to implement time management at home and beginning to keep his check register on a normal basis. He was even setting personal goals with his sculpting and make-up.
This is better for him, I think.
I did surprise him. He didn’t give me a yes however. He feels like he doesn’t know himself well enough to marry anyone yet. So he accepted the ring as a promise ring. Rather than a traditional promise ring of “a promise to get engaged or married” we both held the ring and promised to ourselves and each other to grow as individuals first. He promised to find out what he wants in life and to be more honest with me about his feeling instead of doing things because he thinks it would make me happy. I promised to be more aware of the times when I am what may be misconstrued as controlling. My ultimate goal with the proposal was to make him aware of how serious I am about this relationship and to forward this relationship to any degree. I feel that now that he is aware of how I feel and that I do intend to marry him, that he will make strides to keep the promises he made to me. That to me is success. That to me is just as good as him accepting my proposal.
We both realized that some of the “problems” we may have with communication are beyond our realm of experience and he agreed to take corrective action with me. We are going to buy a book and read it together to try to better our communication and if that doesn’t work we are going to go to couple’s counseling. We also realized how important “us” time is and that Jason is happiest in this relationship when we get “us” time away from our lives. This prompted us to also promise that we would make a point of going out of town, just the two of us, at least once every three months, hopefully more. We haven’t had an out of town get away in almost a year, which is why he admitted, that he has felt out of sorts in this relationship, something I was not entirely privy to (although I probably should have known).
I talked to him about the influence his mother has over him and asked if he thought he would really be able to “find” himself living under her roof. He admitted that he would not. Our solution to this was simply to fix the mechanics on the car ASAP and then he would immediately look for a roommate and move out. I think this would be good for him, to live on his own without his parents or me.
I think I still need to talk to him about our expectations in this relationship. If we are now in an area of this relationship where we are moving forward, then we need to know what we expect out of each other. I am still not clear on what actions of me he perceives as controlling and why he feels they are controlling and I need to know that if I am to fix that. I think that now we should seriously start to talk about the types of things we expect when we get married. I was just so eager for him to know how I felt and to move this relationship from “weekend girlfriend plus a little more” to “this is serious” that I glazed over some of that stuff. I think it is good that we are not engaged yet. Now that I think about it… he really is not ready for that step, but it seems like even before I proposed he was making strides in the right direction. He was already trying to implement time management at home and beginning to keep his check register on a normal basis. He was even setting personal goals with his sculpting and make-up.
This is better for him, I think.