This post may contain affiliate links and Corporette® may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
FYI, guys — there are a LOT of Boden pieces on sale at Nordstrom right now — and not only are most of them 40% off, but they've still got delivery by Christmas Eve if you're thinking of getting anything as a gift. Some favorites for work, pictured above:
- Blue dress (in four colors!) now $83 (lined, machine washable)
- Cashmere sweater (in five prints and colors), now $90
- Ribbon trim navy tweed dress (sizes 2-18), now $137
This post contains affiliate links and Corporette® may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. For more details see here. Thank you so much for your support!
Anon for This
Please help. Over the holidays I’m going to be visiting my inlaws and my DH is going to go to his parents’ store each weekday all day while I stay at their house and take care of my kids and DH’s grandma. Grandma is weak and needs help eating, going to the bathroom, etc. She does not leave the house. I did not grow up near my grandparents so this is all new to me. DH’s parents normally have a caregiver visit once a day but that won’t be the case. I thought one of the other siblings or their wives would be there with me, but I just found out that they will not be there at the same time. This is making me anxious. Any advice or tips? Oh and we are visiting for 2 weeks.
Idea
Is not going an option?
Can you realistically be trained to do this in this short amount of time?
Have you told your DH that you feel uncomfortable/don’t want to do this?
I guess each weekday is 10 days or less – is that OK for you? Do you want to do this? Do you want to be compensated? What will you do if an emergency arises?
Are you asking for help with your anxiety, talking to your DH about the situation, or help for doing the caretaking or what?
I think your first step should be, “DH I have a lot of anxiety about caretaking your grandmother while watching the kids and also traveling and being in a new situation.” Can you safely say this to your husband?
Mrs. Jones
What? Why won’t the caregiver be there? Grandma needs one, and I would not be it. You’ll be busy enough caring for kids.
Anonymous
This. I’m a caregiver to a bedbound relative and taking care of kids + Grandma is not an option. She needs her normal caregiver.
Ellen
FOOEY on this! Rent a babysitter, or an au pair. If this is supposed to be a holiday, then tell DH you do NOT want to be around the house all day with your inlaws and their kids. It’s kind of like the movie VACATION, where the uncle and aunt and their weird kids kind of take over when they visit your place, and then give you their decesed Grandma to carry cross country on top of the car. DOUBEL FOOEY!
Hang in there
Did they cancel the caregiver because you will be there or for the holiday (or some other reason)? Can you schedule them to come, or get a different person for a few hours each day (like your kids naptime or late afternoon busy time)? I’d also put out a direct ask to the other siblings to make a schedule for them helping out.
Anonymous
This is absolutely out of bounds. Your husband should go alone. Even if the caregiver were around, you shouldn’t be stuck in the house with grandma and the kids for two weeks.
Anonymous
Tell DH to arrange for a temporary caregiver to come in – preferably full time but at least 4 hours a day. You will be exhausted at the end of this otherwise.
Anonymous
Can you frame this as a safety issue in pushing back? If it were me, I would be happy to help with cooking and helping grandma eat, and in keeping her company during the day. If she is anything like my grandma was, she will be happy to watch the kids run around her and watch them play. However, helping her to the bathroom could be a whole other thing. If she is independent enough to just need help walking over there, that is one thing but if she needs help out of bed and onto and off of the toilet, that requires much more. My grandma was a small, frail woman, but I did not want to try and help her to the bathroom for fear of dropping her. She was too weak and any fall would have probably broken her bones. Additonally, her skin was fragile and tore easily. Her home health care workers were trained in how to safely move her. Plus I think this helped with her dignity.
Vicky Austin
Is it not more dangerous to have you, an untrained person, taking care of Grandma’s complex needs than it is to pay for the caregiver to come? If the caregiver is unavailable, why did they not provide the family with possible substitutes?
coffee bean
Helll to the no. If the normal caretaker can’t come, then they need to find a substitute. I would be very very uncomfortable being asked to be a caretaker for *anyone* much less someone who requires specialized care and is not actually a relative of mine.
coffee bean
Wait one clarifying question – are you helping her just walk to the bathroom or with all aspects of the uhh visit? I would personally be fine walking her there to make sure she doesn’t trip and fall on the way, but that would be my limit (i.e. waiting outside the closed bathroom door). I guess we should clarify what exactly you mean.
Anonymous
Honestly, I’m not even confident I could prevent a grown adult from tripping and falling without any training unless they were very small and light. And falls can be so dangerous. I’m uncomfortable with all of this.
coffee bean
You’re right – I was thinking of my own 4’10” 90 pound grandmother. Anyone larger than that would be a huge challenge because falls are so dangerous for the elderly and frail.
Idea
You’re actually not even supposed to stop an elderly adult from falling (learned this in a fall safety course at Grandma’s assisted living center). If you try and stop them from falling, they could fall worse or hit you and hurt both of you! You’re supposed to obviously prevent the actual fall in the first place, but once the fall is happening, just let her fall.
Anonymous
That is interesting. My daughter is a gymnast, and my understanding is that gymnastics coaches are trained not so much to catch kids who fall (although I have seen that happen with some of the itty bitties) as to direct the fall so the athlete doesn’t land on her head or neck and some of the energy of the fall is dissipated. They also teach the kids to fall safely, which I would hope the assisted living center is teaching its residents. Tuck your head in, don’t ever put your hands down, safety roll, etc. They practice safe falling techniques for various scenarios, and any kid who falls improperly during practice is punished with 50 or 100 drills on falling technique.
anon
This sounds like an awful situation and I don’t have kind thoughts about your DH right now. Asking you to provide elder care while watching your own children seems is absolutely unreasonable. Why won’t the caregiver be around, and can his parents find backup if your SILs are unable to help?
Anonymous
To play devils advocate- my grandmother might be described as “needing help to eat and go to the bathroom”—but what she really needs is someone to help prep food and put it out for her (could she make her own food? Yes, but she’s unsteady and generally would just eat crackers because it’s easier). She *can* transfer herself from couch to walker to bathroom and can indeed toilet independently, but does way better when someone is around to give her an arm to lean on on the way to/from the bathroom. She has an aide come in 2x per day but does not have round the clock care. It would be super easy for someone to come just keep my grandma company and help if/as needed. And she’d love having the kids around. She still lives independently.
Now, there’s the other spectrum- the one where grandma is completely bedridden and cannot toilet independently (Ie you have to wipe her), needs to be actually fed, etc. that’s not something I’d be down with at all. But that isn’t someone that has an occasional aide- that’s someone that needs round the clock care.
Do you have a sense for which it is? I’d find out before you push back as the first scenario is very very manageable.
Trish
If Grandma is bedridden and had a stroke, that is one thing. But if you are just there to assist (walk behind her as she goes around the house) and to bring her food, there is no reason at all that you can’t do this.
Senior Attorney
No, no, no. This is not safe and not fair to you or to the grandma.
Not okay for them to make you the unpaid caregiver for two weeks.
I would push back against this HARD.
Anon
On what planet is this a vacation for you?
anon
Call a local VNA. I am a caregiver, I know it might be as easy as reminders (it’s been awhile, let’s go to the bathroom. front to back and drop! wash your hands) but it might not be.
Also, this is no vacation. for either of you…..
Anonymous
Are you kidding! This is so inappropriate. I would make it clear that while you are happy to assist, you were not planning to spend winter break taking care of a severely ill family member.
If it is as simple as making sure she eats/takes meds a certain time that is one thing.
Yikes.
east coaster
For those of you who are married, at what point in the relationship did you decide to get married? Why?
I want to have kids eventually, and I want to be married to the person I have kids with, but that’s ideally 3-5 years down the road. I have been with my boyfriend for about 3 years, living together for a year. We get along with each others families and I’m just crazy about him. We’ve talked about a long term future together (e.g., city vs suburbs, when and how many kids to have, finances) and are on the same page about big, fundamental values. However, a few months ago I said that I would want to get married in a year or two, and his response was “I don’t know.” WTF?? We talked about it and one of his comments was along the lines of “isn’t it more romantic to not get married so we stay together by choice instead of because we have to.” Again, WTF? For context, he’s mid 30s, works in tech. Do I just have to give him some time now that I told him what I want? Like, he probably didn’t know it was important to me until I told him. And how long before I cut my losses and try to move on? I feel like such a schmuck for being that stereotypical woman who wants to get married with the stereotypical resistant boyfriend and it just sucks.
Vicky Austin
Think of Phoebe Buffay. “I think I should be with somebody who wants the same things I want.” (Although the way Mike came back to her was crappily written, but whatever.) You want marriage. Does he?
And not that you asked, but my opinion of “it’s more romantic to not get married”? He’s not telling you the truth. I don’t know what the truth is but that ain’t it.
Ellen
FOOEY on this! Rent a babysitter, or an au pair. If this is supposed to be a holiday, then tell DH you do NOT want to be around the house all day with your inlaws and their kids. It’s kind of like the movie VACATION, where the uncle and aunt and their weird kids kind of take over when they visit your place, and then give you their decesed Grandma to carry cross country on top of the car. DOUBEL FOOEY!
anon
Dude, you’ve been a couple for three years. If he’s still unclear what the long-term future holds, that doesn’t bode well for the relationship. I think you have to be very clear that you’re not going to stick around indefinitely.
Anon
+1. Hugs.
I knew my husband and I were going to get married on the second date. Your boyfriend has to know by now.
Mrs. Jones
+1.
Anonymous
“stay together by choice instead of because we have to”
Divorce is legal so every marriage is also staying together by choice. By the time you own a house together and have kids together, breaking up isn’t that much easier or simpler than a divorce. You still have to sort out separating finances and child custody.
I value marriage. It was important to me that the marriage not just be about the kids so I wanted to be married for a few years before having kids. After living together for a year, I told DH was not prepared to continue to live together without getting engaged and getting married in the next year and having kids within the next five years. In my view, if he wasn’t on the same page in terms of the importance of marriage, that was a sign they were not the right person for me. I was in my mid 20s and he was in his early 30s. We had been together about 3 years. I didn’t want to invest more time at that point if we didn’t have the same long term goals. It was important to me to be done having kids before DH was 40+ as my family history means a high risk of autism and there’s an association between older fathers and autism.
I don’t judge others who have different views. DH’s brother and his partner have been together for ten years, have two kids, own a house together, not married and no plans to marry. Similar situation with DH’s college roommate. DH’s high school buddy was with his now wife for 20 years and had two kids before they got married on their 20th dating anniversary.
But just because marriage isn’t important to others, doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it being important to you.
Anon
You say, now that we’ve had some time to think on each other’s comments, let’s have an honest talk about where we see this going. What does the ideal relationship look like for you in 5 years? What parts of that are most important to you? etc.
If you don’t hear concrete items, like “I want to be married, to you, and have kids, within 5 years. I want the date to be a surprise but know that I am actively working to make an engagement happen in the next year or so.” then he’s likely blowing sunshine and is just saying what he thinks you want to hear. And then you need to say “I’ve realized that marriage within the next few years is a dealbreaker for me. Let’s take the holidays to think through this, and have another talk in January.”
And then if you don’t hear the specifics (or believe his specifics) then it’s time to end the relationship. Some people want to dream about the future without ever taking steps to get there. That’s okay, but that’s not what you want, and you’re allowed to look for someone who is compatible with you in that way.
Batgirl
I would just add that I don’t think you should put this on you for not being clear that marriage was important to you. I think that’s pretty much to be expected in our society and that the person who doesn’t think marriage is in the cards for them is the one who has the duty to disclose that early on. Certainly before moving in together in your 30s. I don’t know that I agree that this is insurmountable. I know plenty of guys who have this sort of opinion and then happily end up getting married once they realize the person they want to spend their lives with does care. So just be honest and open with yourself and with him and see where the cards fall. Good luck!
Anon
Answering the question asked: my fiance decided after our third date that he wanted to marry me. For various life reasons (deeply personal), we delayed our engagement until our one-year dating anniversary.
Prior to that, I was in a 4 year long relationship with a (very wonderful and kind) man that just never quite turned into an engagement or marriage.
My advice writes itself.
Anon
More advice: if/when you leave this guy, be prepared for friends and family to give you the saddest abandoned puppy looks you’ve ever seen.
On one hand, you don’t want to see anyone leave a good relationship “just because.” But really people, if a ring hasn’t made an appearance, keep the sad whimpering routine for the Hallmark Christmas specials. It’s downright bizarre – like, hey, I am actually worth marrying, right? – but be prepared for it.
Have your stock response ready to go. “He said he didn’t want to marry me, and I want to find the man who wants to marry me. And the right guy isn’t going down on one knee when I’m living with some other dude.”
Anonymous
To answer your question, my husband and I discussed marriage and children (yes to both) after 6 weeks of dating. Our wedding was about 2.5 years later. We both knew that we wanted marriage and kids when we met. I was 28 and he was 37. He’d already been in a child-free by choice marriage for 10 years and I was in a marriage-free by choice relationship for 4 years in my mid(ish) twenties. Wanting the same things out of life is really important for relationships to work. And gardening.
Anonymous
12 years. We’re slow. Admittedly we were in school for 7 of those (undergrad and grad). Didn’t feel any strong need to get married (we don’t want kids), but it was easier than contracting to get all the benefits of marriage without actually being married (inheritance, right to make medical decisions, etc). And as I told my now-husband, “if you die in a terrible accident and we aren’t married, I can’t sue for wrongful death.” (Yes, we’re both lawyers. No, I’m not the romantic type).
liberty
This is pretty much us too. Both lawyers, it is easier to get married than to make a patchwork of other agreements that give similar benefits. We were together 7 years before we got married; I was late 30s, he was mid 40s.
Anon
Does he object to the institution of marriage and is otherwise happy to be in a marriage-like relationship with you (kids, joint finances)? For perspective, my SO and I are not married but have a home and a child together and call each other husband and wife in company for lack of better terms. We’re not married due to the marriage penalty. We also don’t like weddings / parties nor is the piece of paper important to either of us so we never felt compelled. Our binding documents are our child’s birth certificate and our mortgage. We’ll get married later in life when retirement finances become an issue.
anon
You should set up medical POAs on each other in case of medical emergencies if you haven’t already.
Anon
Yes, we have them. Agreed that this and wills are very important for a situation like ours.
anon
You *may* be common law married. Probably not an issue in your case, and the laws are different in every state, but it’s probably a concept you should be familiar with.
Anon
See I would not leave a penny to a guy who didn’t want to marry me. No will involving him needed.
Anon
For some individuals this is a very emotional decision. For others, it’s a practical item. With all the emancipation talk on this s!te, I am honestly a little surprised that marriage in and of itself constitutes such a requirement for a family life. Marriage neither protects people from separating as romantic partners nor dictates that you two will have children and a home together. I agree that a proposal of marriage can be an immediate test of commitment but there are other perfectly legitimate ways to have this conversation, so let’s not judge each other in this respect. But back to OP’s question, it sounds like she is concerned specifically that the commitment declaration is lagging and whether you call it marriage or some other word, THIS is still at the heart of any successful relationship. Can’t do it together if you’re not all in, both of you. I’m just trying to reframe the question away from “marriage” and to “100% commitment”.
Leah
We are childfree, but got married after 8 years together. The major factor was that we had seen unmarried family members struggle (specifically, unwanted medical decisions being made by family members instead of a partner, before gay marriage was legal) and we wanted the legal and practical protections therein. A minor factor was that my own parents are typical conservative Boomers, and I was not interested in performing decades-long emotional labor to justify “shacking up”.
3141592653589
I decided I wanted to get engaged to my fiance/boyfriend after five-ish months and told him I wanted to be engaged by our 1.5 year anniversary. We had had quarterly reviews (where is this going) and I sought out a commitment of intent at our second quarterly review (6 months in). He was fine with it but I doubt its something he would have pushed for on his own. He’s “the one” because we both wanted to be “the one” for each other and had compatible ways of approaching the world and dealing with conflict. Like Anon, I’ve also dated wonderful and kind men who didn’t turn into marriage — and I didn’t want to second guess whether I was forcing them into it or not.
I wouldn’t be completely shocked that he said its more romantic to stay together by choice rather than to get married. Lots of people feel that way and it’s a view that makes sense, particularly for science/logic guys. He may just be reasoning out loud. I would take the opportunity to explore his thoughts on marriage and associations with it and have a rational debate about the merits of relationships (and contracts in general) to see how he feels. Of course if you get the feeling in the pit of your stomach that he’s just not into marriage (and that’s something that’s important to you), might be time to start planning an exit strategy.
Anon
We didn’t initially see eye-to-eye on the exact timeline (stereotypically, I wanted a faster timeline) but we were in agreement from the beginning that we both wanted to get married and have children together and were in agreement about general timelines (marriage in late 20s, kids in early 30s – we’re the same age). I know there are exceptions out there, but in my experience “I think it’s more romantic to not get married” is code for “I don’t want to commit” and saying that after 3 years would be a big red flag to me. Sorry, I know that’s probably not what you want to hear, but that’s my honest assessment.
east coaster
REALLY not what I want to hear which is why I am glad someone said it. :(
Anonymous
I may disagree somewhat with the previous posters. Have you talked about it more than once? If not, I think this merits more discussion. You may have to move on if you fundamentally don’t want the same things, but I’d give it more than a conversation or two.
Anecdotal of course, but I was in a similar position with now-DH, though we were in our late twenties (had been together 4 years and living together for 2). DH had always seen kids and marriage as something he wanted “someday” but once I brought up that I wanted to have kids in 3-4 years and be married before that, he took a while to come around. In his case, I later realized a lot of it had to do with his very slow, somewhat resistant decision-making process generally. And he hadn’t had the mental preparation I had because he is not naturally as much of a long-term planner.
I did, however, tell him honestly that if he was not going to be on board with marriage in the near future I would have to move on.
Anonymous
You say you are on the same page about fundamental values, but you are not. You want to be married to your children’s other parent. He does not.
Artemis
I think it’s possible to be a liiittle more charitable to your boyfriend for a limited time, based on my own experience. I think what he said is kind of silly, but men have emotions and feelings and things they need to work through too. He is “old enough to know better”, in a sense, if he’s mid-30s, but not everyone emotionally ages at the same rate and it doesn’t necessarily make them a bad person or even a bad partner in the long run.
This is based on my own experience. My boyfriend and I started dating in college and continued to date through law school. We hadn’t really talked about marriage yet because we were still in school, but we were absolutely serious and there were no significant problems in our relationship. One day, out of the blue (I think we were talking about a friend’s wedding), he told me he wasn’t really sure he ever wanted to get married. Maaaybe when he was ready to have kids, but he just wasn’t sure. I was totally taken aback. It made no sense to me–I remember having a long chat about it and his reasons seemed dumb to me, even though I can’t remember what those reasons were.
So, I told him “Look, I love you, and I want to be with you right now, and in the future. But I also want to get married and have kids. I really don’t want to do that with anyone but you. But getting married is important to me. So we can stay together now while you think about it and make up your mind. But if you make up your mind that you never want to get married as a lifestyle choice, you can do that, but I’ll have to leave you. If you make up your mind that you do want to get married someday, we can talk about that later, because we’re still young and in school. I’m not going to give you a time ultimatum. I’m not sure how long I’ll be willing to hold on. But I’ll hold on as long as I can while you make your decision.”
I mean, it was definitely painful, but at least I felt a little more in control of the situation. A month later, he made his decision and told me. Two years later, we got married. 11 years and 3 kids later, it was worth that rough patch.
CPA Lady
^ completely agree with this advice. My husband can be fairly wishy washy or clueless sometimes. We were long distance for a year due to job stuff while we were dating. At the end of the year I had to decide whether or not to move back to where he lived and he was like “well we’ll just see how thing go” with the relationship. I said “I’m not moving for someone when I don’t have a firm commitment that this relationship is going somewhere.” He thought it over and proposed a couple months later. I guess you could call it an ultimatum, but I think it was more me laying my cards on the table and saying exactly what I wanted. We’ve been married 11 years.
Anon
I mean, sure, if you want to coddle man children who can’t deal with their emotions on their own. That’s not something I’m willing to put up with and I fully realize that greatly limits my choice of partners.
east coaster
Sigh.
Thanks everyone. I first brought up actually getting married a couple months ago so I want to give him more time to think about it. But I think I need to be realistic about the fact that this might not work out. All of this advice and perspective is really, really helpful and I appreciate y’all taking the time to chime in.
east coaster
Not to get too jokey about it, but maybe I should just wait it out until we have to decide whether to renew the lease on our apartment… two birds, one stone kind of deal?
cbackson
Leases can be dealt with, but if this relationship is a dead end, you’ll never get these months of your life back. If it’s been a few months since the conversation and you’re asking for advice here, I’m guessing your gut is telling you that he’s not on the same page as you are. Go ahead and have a conversation to see if he can get on that page. If he can’t, better to know now, even if it means a messy mid-lease move-out.
Anon
Megan McArdle addresses that all very well here: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2015-02-13/happy-valentine-s-day-now-cut-your-losses
Anonymous
Deciding to add my then boyfriend to our rent stabilized NYC apartment lease was a huge commitment step for me, so I feel your pain. But I think you owe it to yourself to have some more serious “where is this going” talks with him. It can be an ongoing discussion for a little while before you make a decision. Does he understand that marriage is important to you? Is he on the same page on the baby timeline, and on being married when you have a baby? To be crass, your fertility has a shorter clock on it than his does. Don’t set aside your dreams forever.
Anon
Your situation is not uncommon. Many men who want to be with a certain person and even discuss long range plans including marriage and children can have cold feet. I’ve been married a long time yet my husband wanted me “to move into and try it out.” I’m not joking when I say we would probably still be trying it out if I’d done that. He even tells our teenaged daughter, “Oh, I married mommy because she was one of those people who wanted to be married. She told me to let her know if I wasn’t because she needed to move on.” I am a person who needed that commitment; others may not.
We are older but three of my friends had similar situations – one moved to a city 30 miles away, two hoped the question would be popped on every vacation or special occasion. All of the reluctant grooms genuinely devoted to ended up proposing and all are great husbands who are still married. It would be trickier to navigate when living with someone. That was not as common in the 90’s.
I think your story will have a happy ending but suggest deciding what is more important – being married or being with him not married before issuing any ultimatums.
Senior Attorney
To answer your question, we had been dating for about three years and were perfectly happy. If I thought about marriage at all, it was in terms of “Maybe in a few years, when we’re both retired, we’ll think about it. But for now we have all the time in the world and there’s no rush.” And then a close friend of ours died unexpectedly and we started thinking maybe we didn’t have all the time in the world. And then one thing led to another — we always say there was no proposal, there was a negotiation — and six months later we were married.
I will say that once I realized I wanted to be married to him, there was no going back. If it had turned out that he didn’t feel the same, I would have had to break up with him.
Anon
I think there is a common school of thought that (except in the instance that a man simply disavows marriage as a general institution and would never marry in any case) men aren’t necessarily afraid of marriage, they’re afraid of marrying the wrong person. If after three years, even though you all have discussed in abstract what you want for the future, if he is unsure by now, then he is unsure of you. That’s why we’ve seen untold amounts of time where a man is with a woman for years, they break up because he doesn’t want to get married, and he’s married after 1 year in the next relationship. It sucks, and you should give him a couple months to think on it (he is possibly not sure about the timing financially), but if he’s still unsure about marriage as a thing, I’d let him go. Don’t waste your good reproductive years on someone who is biding time with you.
Rainbow Hair
One thing to add, though, is that “men [anyone] might be scared of weddings.” There were two things that kinda tipped the scale for my husband and me: (1) educating ourselves on why same-sex marriage needed to be legalized showed us all the advantages to marriage over committed-but-not-legally relationships; and (2) realizing we could get married without having a “wedding wedding.” Of course on an intellectual level we knew it was possible, but really figuring out how it would work for us, for our families, for feelings we didn’t want to hurt, etc…. that made “getting married” way less scary.
Anon
I think there also may be more to unpack here looking at your relationship. Like– he may know something is off but doesn’t quite know what it is but knows enough to know you shouldn’t get married. Examples:
My college BF and I were very serious (for college) and had talked about marriage/engagement, etc. We had talked about getting engaged around graduation when we would have been dating for 2.5 years. A few months before that, BF makes a comment while we are at dinner with friends that he “didn’t believe in marriage.” I was mortified. This, along with his other behavior, was, in retrospect, BF’s attempt to get me to dump him instead of the other way around.
My friend and her ex-BF ended up breaking up because neither would move to the other’s city before getting married. The guy then moved across the country for his next gf (without being engaged or married), and they are now engaged. My friend and her ex-BF had a really dysfunctional, abusive relationship (which she didn’t tell any of her friends until after the fact).
Anon
He doesn’t want to marry you and you should probably cut your losses.
Anon
Second marriage for both of us.
We were serious about each other within the first two or three dates – monogamous, this is something real etc – even though neither of us thought that was what we were looking for.
My husband knew he wanted kids with me before he knew he wanted to marry me. I was early 30s at the time so knowing this up front was important. I knew that I wouldn’t have kids without being married so once we each expressed our thoughts on this we knew where we were heading. However, I wanted him to ask me to marry him and I didn’t want to plan it. So he officially asked me on our one year anniversary of dating and we got married a few months later, already pregnant!
Anon
Some advice for you in addition to my survey response. Don’t make a decision now. Wait until after the holidays. They put so much pressure on everyone it’s not a good time to fight about this or make a yes or no decision on the relationship.
Anonymous
I knew I wanted to marry my now husband about 3 months into dating him. I think he’d say the same. We didn’t get married until we’d been dating almost 7 years. However, the caveat to that is that we started dating college, he was a year ahead of me, then went to law school, I was abroad for part of the time I was in undergrad, then I took a year between college and law school to work in a different city from where he lived, and then, once I’d graduated law school and passed the bar, we moved in together and he proposed about 3 months after we’d lived together. So, yes, it was 7 years, but we were very young, and we were not seeing each other on a daily basis.
But I agree with the other posters – by now, he should know if he wants to marry you. I saw this happen to a friend of mine, and she and her boyfriend went to couples counseling for a long time about this same issue. The conclusion was hard to hear, in that it wasn’t that he didn’t want to get married ever, he just didn’t want to get married to her. He’s now married (as is she), and I think it all worked out for the best.
Anon
Break up. When I met my husband, we knew in days we would marry. I had previously said I didn’t believe in it, he’d said the same thing. The only thing we didn’t believe in was the relationships we had with our respective ex’s. Something is off for you guys. When people want to stay together, they still get married. If it was no big deal we wouldn’t have had a giant fight for same sex marriage.
L
I have that blue dress (except in an emerald green from a previous year)–the fabric is heavy and high quality, and it is SO flattering. And truly machine washable!
Anonymous
It’s lovely! I was sure it would be covered in pills after washing, so thanks for reporting otherwise.
lsw
Same – I have it in lavender from at least four-five years ago, and it still looks incredible. (I even dry it.)
Batgirl
I’m looking for a mid-weight coat that hits at the hit and isn’t too bulky/make me look like a blob. Any suggestions? I’m drowning with the kids and the holidays and don’t really have time to look so I’m hoping you all would be kind enough to share your favorites! Thanks!
Anon
I bought my daughter this coat and it’s very lightweight and cute, because it’s fitted through the waist, and it was warm enough for daytime in NYC last week in the 30s-40s. At night she wore a fleece under it.
Size wise she wears a small in misses and a medium in juniors and the medium in this fit her well, still leaving room for the thin fleece under.
Wantdo Women’s Hooded Packable Ultra Light Weight Down Coat Short Outwear(Black,US Medium) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013LAZ77Q/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_zWvgCb53JJ2RP
OP
Thank you!