woe is me! (jealousy and self pity)

Just wanted to say ? don't blame you. i wouldn't be able to stop myself from dropping passive aggressive hints - probably not the best path to a proposal ?

edited to add - you could always point out to him that you would like to get on with your life, which includes commitment to him, so if he could please get his head round it you'd be happier. or if he has issues that are going to take a while to overcome, you'd like to be kept in the loop. i'm sure other people may have better advice, but i think there's always something to be said for being upfront.

I know exactly how you feel and have been there. H and I met at Uni (me 18, he 20) and have been together 13 years in November. I watched so many friends get married and start families and it really drove me mad. In the end I felt like I had to make the decision did we really want the same things from life or not. And if not, did I really want to be with him. I decided I did and if that meant no marriage or kids then I would have taken that (it would hurt, but I couldn't imagine life without him).

Eventually he got there and proposed and we had an amazing wedding and our first baby is due in less than 2 weeks. Watching him on our wedding day and seeing him so excited now about the impending arrival makes me glad we waited until he was ready. I can't imagine how hard it would be to have forced him into a corner and I think we would have both suffered the consequences.

I hope you get your happy ending.

I completely understand.

I have a best friend who I have known since we were 5. We shared the same interests, same life paths up until I went to Uni and she went to work. We both starting dating our H's around about the same time, but within 18 months they were engaged, then they got married 5 years ago. I was her chief bridesmaid and the proudest friend ever...but I was also jealous that she was getting married and I wasn't. Then 14 months later they announced that they were pregnant, again I was so happy but then the day I got the call to say she'd had her daughter I was so upset I cried for hours. I was happy for her but I still felt I was jealous that she had everything I wanted. Yes, we had our house but I wanted marriage and babies but H wasn't budging at the time.

I think it finally got to the point where I just said to myself "well I'd prefer he'd ask me to marry him because he wants to rather than my forcing him" that he finally popped the question and it felt so much better because I had no doubts that he didn't truely mean it. We got married 15 months later with my best friend and her daughter as my matron of honour and flowergirl. My friend has since had her second daughter and yes I still am a little jealous, but I also realise that I can't force things. We have talked about babies but we know that we can't think about having them for a least another 3 years due to H's medication and whlist it is hard on me to know that, I'm prepared to wait.

I understand how you feel. It took my H 4 years to propose and during that time another friend of mine had met and married her H. We went through a few rough patches where he was saying he didn't want to get married and wasn't sure about children (his parents and brother had both gone through breakups while we were together which seemed to knock him for six), but in the end we could never quite split up as couldn't imagine a life without each other.

When we got to 4 years I half jokingly told him he had a year to propose. But even though I was joking, deep down I was serious becasue if we didn't want the same things then I didn't want to "waste" any more time with him. Whether I would have left him I'm not sure. However 3 months later he surprised me with a romantic proposal and we got married in August and we'll have been together for 6 years next month.

He told me what finally prompted him to pop the question was nothing I'd said, but when one of his married friends asked him when he was getting married he suddenly saw there was nothing stopping him and he got around to organising it.

It's a horrible time when you see everyone around you having what you want, but the fact your OH has talked about it seems to me that it will happen for you, it's just a case of biding your time. Good luck x