Generally speaking, women have it worse than men. Periods, boobs, monthly bleeding genitals, pregnancy, holding in bowel movements, deflecting our 2 am ‘you up?’ texts, an inability to operate motor vehicles proficiently, the list goes on. Ladies, your ability to combat all these challenges is not lost on us–you are all angels and deserve to be treated as such.
With that said, men burden some shit too–moving heavy objects, fixing tires, managing gambling debts, listening, fighting wars, and last but certainly not least having to find a creative ‘storybook’ way to propose to our girlfriends. Fairytales and movies have set the bar impossibly high for this ultimately trivial act and anything short of skywriting or hiring a private mariachi band is sure to leave your girl underwhelmed.
This is evident in the story of Redditor marrymonay, who is in a bit of a predicament after her military boyfriend’s perceived lackluster proposal.
We’ve been together for 3.5 great years. We’ve frequently discussed marriage, timelines, and future plans. We live in a home together, have moved across the country together, ect. He is the person I plan to spend my life with. He knows I don’t like surprises, so I never expected a big proposal or anything.
But, the way he has gone about it has hurt my feelings.
Classic girl mindfuck. As John Mayer so eloquently said ‘say what you mean to say.’
So what was this awful proposal that derailed an otherwise happy relationship?
He sat me down with a spreadsheet he made of all the financial benefits of getting married and asked me if I wanted to. (He’s a military officer, so there’s quite a few). He even broke it down into a dollar amount each month that I’m “worth”. We aren’t hurting for money, it’s not a solution to a problem. Idk what made him think that’s how you go about ask someone to marry you.
I said no, that I’m not ready. And that upset him and hurt his feelings. But the reality is I am ready, I just don’t want to feel like someone is marrying me for financial benefit. I know him and know that he isn’t only asking becuase of that, but I can’t shake the feeling that he ruined the whole idea of getting married for me. Even if he redoes a proposal I’m afraid I will still feel that way, and that I’ll walk down the isle feeling that way. And now he is sad too because I rejected his “proposal”.
Any ideas on how we can remedy this or what I can say to him to make him understand?
Sweetie in the opinion of a lonely, single 28-year-old man who knows nothing about what love feels like, it’s important to keep things in perspective. When you’re old and married and time has sucked the spark out of the marriage, something as trivial as the proposal won’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Ya, you’ll be missing out on Facebook likes when this boring proposal gets posted, but take solace in the fact that your boy’s got the finances straight so later in life you can distract yourself from your loveless marriage with material possessions.
[h/t Some eCards]