From Men’s Mouths to Your Ears. Don’t be a forever girlfriend.

misspellmyname99 · 2021-01-18T00:01:16+00:00

I have a friend who has been with her BF for somewhere like 8-10yr and they’ve been living together for something like 5yr. She just turned 40 so her entire 30s has been with this dude.

He came to the US on a student visa and then has been able to stay on work visas until his expires this summer.

His options are to marry her and get his green card or go back to his home country.

He has so little desire to marry her (he’s told her he doesn’t believe in marriage eye roll), he’s planning on packing up his whole life and moving back to his home country after a decade here in the states. She’s now planning this life with him in his home country (discussing quitting her job/looking at homes to purchase/getting visas for his country)... and staying his girlfriend...

I want to say something but she’s not in a place to listen so I’ll be here when inevitably this blows up.

Yerawizardlizzy · 2021-01-17T19:35:25+00:00

We had this come up in one of the Facebook singles groups I'm in. Someone posted "How long do you date someone before talking about marriage?" And she clarified she meant just talking about it, not proposing and actually getting married. Just talking! There was more than one man who said 5+ years Hell no! If you don't know by then that you want to marry someone you either aren't asking the right questions or not having the right experiences together or both. I told them no wonder they were single; women over 30 are not going to wait around that long.

InterviewImaginary46 · 2021-01-17T19:54:47+00:00

Guys be like “I can commit! I was in a relationship for almost 10 years!”

persephonepleas · 2021-01-17T20:45:45+00:00

I was in a committed relationship from age 17-25. We lived together for about five years. When we met (as teenagers) he was clear that he 'didn't believe in marriage.' I figured he would change his mind. Nope!

Now I refuse to move in with a man without a ring on my finger and wedding date imminent. I'm also clear in the beginning that I'm dating to find a marriage partner.

carlther · 2021-01-17T17:47:44+00:00

Truth. I'm 40, always had a boyfriend (until 4 months ago), never married. Two kids, the only good thing that came out of my relationship with my ex. After that relationship, I decided I would never live with a man without being married because they just don't respect you enough to "buy" you. Commitment first.

2021-01-17T19:20:46+00:00

[deleted]

Altowhovian93 · 2021-01-17T19:27:17+00:00

I’m religious and I grew up and was taught do not live together until you are married; I have never really understood the date for 7 years/move in during/after college/be engaged for 5 years life style that I saw people doing. Like what is the point of investing all that time if neither person is going to commit and invest. Even if you aren’t religious, you get more tax and insurance benefits.

Your time and your life is valuable. Do not give that away for free to someone who is not going to respect that by refusing to commit.

circescircus · 2021-01-17T20:59:04+00:00

Can you imagine fucking around and playing house for half a decade? What a waste of life, opportunities, energy, not to mention the emotional costs.

It's very low caliber. Either shit or get off the pot (both the man and woman), both are spineless cowards. You get the love you think you deserve. If you think the love you deserve means wasting years and years with someone you're unsure about/you're waiting for them to be sure of you, then idk what to say beyond get a life. You don't have to marry, some people don't but they know what they want and make choices accordingly, it's this normalization of people using each other (mostly men using women, but the women freely let them, even encourage it!) that I can't abide.

miss_peach94 · 2021-01-17T17:57:49+00:00

[deleted]

Summerisle7 · 2021-01-17T17:57:27+00:00

Wow these guys get it. I wonder if they practice what they preach.

AriaLuz · 2021-01-17T22:24:00+00:00

Men have said this before. They know within the first few minutes of meeting you where they want you in their life. As the side piece, the back up, the forever girlfriend, or the wife. If you are sitting there at 6 months to a year and marriage is not at least discussed then you’re wasting your time because men don’t waste time with the woman they really want. By two years you should be gone without a trace.

icecream1013 · 2021-01-17T20:10:10+00:00

Forget 5 years (that gives too much hope to women in years 2, 3, and 4). The time limit really should be AT THE VERY MOST 2 years (for me, it is 1.5 years) for a proposal. Talking about marriage and our future needs to be in the first 6 months for me.

mystic_lotus · 2021-01-18T01:25:28+00:00

The way my mom was with this guy for 8 YEARS (and she bent over backwards for him too) and he mentally abused her for nothing lmao. Ladies please PLEASE know your worth. Took my mom 8 years and me trying to commit suicide for her to finally wake up ig

xx_remix · 2021-01-18T03:44:47+00:00

I was in a an 11 year first relationship, from 15-26.

I realized he couldn’t even commit to himself, let alone me. He was content with bare minimum and I had to remind him to take care of himself, and with that I was done. He was 5 years older than me.

Now I’m 30, and although the idea of marriage is bit jaded for me right now, I know more of what I want and I won’t be waiting nearly as long, as I’m an established woman now.

FriendlyPitch1 · 2021-01-17T20:43:28+00:00

Forea he isn’t lying. I cringe when I see women in their 40s saying they have a bf. I used to believe dating for up to 2 years was okay until I realized many guys won’t propose that far in. Men know whether they want to marry you in the beginning of the relationship, so if he dodges marriage conversations walk away. It seems everyday I read stories on reddit of women getting pregnant with their boyfriends and being cheated on. Many just end up staying cause they have no legal protection or anywhere else to go. These things can be avoided, so cut off people who aren’t willing to commit.

annamae602 · 2021-01-17T20:50:14+00:00

Yep. I know a woman who dated her boyfriend for 11 years and when they finally married, a year later she was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer and died within months. That story haunts me. He wasted the last decade of her life.

matte_personality · 2021-01-17T21:54:26+00:00

Okay but this is a concern of mine. I’m only 21 so maybe I don’t have to worry so much, but I have avoidance issues towards marriage in that I am scared I’ll be trapped. Forced into a certain kind of life. I’m scared of being known for all of my strengths and weaknesses. My pretty and ugly moments. Scared that it will all have been for nothing if it ends. I don’t know how to work on this.

petitpoupee · 2021-01-17T21:14:43+00:00

But what should college aged girls do? I’m a freshman in college (20 in june) and I’m not interested in dealing with LV boys. What If i’ll meet a HV 23-24 years old? How should I deal with the commitments?

ChocolateBiscuit96 · 2021-01-18T22:14:09+00:00

Big facts. One of my friends has been “dating” a guy for like 8 years, and I keep telling her she’s wasting her time. She just believes I’m jealous and I’m like OK girl... keep wasting your time with a guy who’s not taking you seriously. Couldn’t be me. If he wanted her to be his wife, he would’ve BEEN made the commitment.

West-Cook · 2021-01-17T20:56:46+00:00

Lol this was me actually. At 25 I told my now husband, then boyfriend of one year that I wanted work my way into a career job, then live by myself for a year then live together for a year, then be engaged for a year and then have our wedding. Maybe even get my masters first. It really threw him off kilter, because I told him that as he feeling out how I felt about marriage and was planning on when/how to propose to me... I legit clearly had avoidance issues.

(He did wait for me to come to my senses though, lol.)

peachpy54 · 2021-01-21T00:42:31+00:00

Yes, I do think both parties are wrong if you're Fake-Familying (my new term instead of Future Faking) for years, unless both want it that way. It's low caliber on both parties.

I mean, for the women, I understand why they stay. They always think that they need to find the exact combination of words to convince him. The careful, careful looking at his facial expression during these talks, to see if you can figure him out, because his words about how "he loves you and wants to, but just not right now" just don't make sense.

The women think that the next vacation might be the one where we have so much fun that he realizes he should marry you. And maybe if you wear JUST the right pink cardigan-set that's both chic and conservative the next time you meet his mom, maybe she'll be impressed with you too. And should I cook something to bring over to his ma's house? Something that'll show off how you'll take good care of his little boy? Oh what else can I do... there's gotta be more I can do to fix this... every problem has a solution, I just gotta find it.

These women think it'll always the next year, next time his work slows down. The next... the next... the next. It's might as well be your next life, because it won't happen in this one.

Women don't leave, because it'll feel like an admission of worthlessness. So the only way they can regain their pride / self-esteem is if their man bestows it on them by marrying them. It's literally putting your self-opinion in someone else's hands.

Emergency-Feed8216 · 2021-01-17T19:18:04+00:00

[deleted]

w1tchyw0man · 2021-01-18T00:47:37+00:00

Yes!! This happened to me and lesson learnt. 4 years, a broken off half engagement (?) And when I mentioned I didn't want to stay a girlfriend forever he cheated and ran off to live with a co-worker 🤷🏾‍♀️ ya just can't make this shit up

seekindivid · 2021-01-18T01:15:55+00:00

The users in these tweets are from trad/right wing Twitter. There’s a growing number of men who are at least beginning to consider how men can start becoming better providers and fathers, even if their views on women are oppressive, mean and hypocritical. I hope somewhere along the way we can find a healthy balance.

ceramicunicorn · 2021-01-18T08:35:36+00:00

This is just my opinion and I’m not judging the choices of the younger users but,

I don’t even really understand this idea of marrying the college boyfriend in the first place. I know it happens, and I know at times it works, but goddamn, as someone who is a bit older and has watched people older than me, same age as me, younger than me, go through it....

Unless you’re in kind of a static environment- never left the hometown kinda thing- you change SO much from your early to 20s to your early 30s. Just from being out in the world, meeting so many different kinds of people than you had the opportunity to in your youth, how your job changes you and perhaps a subsequent advanced degree changes you. How your boundaries and standards firm up (I can’t believe what I accepted in my 20s).

If I had a kid, I wouldn’t stand against their college relationship, but I would never encourage getting married right out of college. I’m of the opinion that your 20s to early 30s is a good time to date and get a lot of experience in that regard (and get out all the things you won’t be able to do when you’re married), but more than likely, this isn’t going to be your forever person (I focused on finding my forever person in my 20s and it was all for naught- I regret it immensely). So more importantly, it is the time to get your life set up nicely re: career and any graduate ed. And then think about having your person. Who might leave you anyway, but guess what? If they do, your life was completed before they arrived. You did a complete life before them, and you could do it after.

I understand fertility declines with age, but if you’re set up financially, you can freeze eggs just in case. Be able to afford IVF just in case. You can even keep on top of your fertility, and have a child on your own, if you didn’t find the man yet (and don’t let scrotes tell you “single moms are undesirable”, that’s a bunch of bull, plenty of men date parents).

Again, if finding your husband in your 20s is what you want to do, no one is telling you that you can’t. But if you asked me? I’d say it’s not a great idea.

ladylabrys · 2021-01-18T22:58:53+00:00

I've heard that abusive men can hide their abusiveness until about the 1.5 year mark. It takes about that long before they do something like punch a hole in the wall or the like.

What's the right time period for engagement that allows time to vet but not be strung along?

godandgoddess · 2021-01-18T22:30:37+00:00

[deleted]

laeriel_c · 2021-01-18T14:20:14+00:00

I'm a bit torn with my current partner. He seems to be very high value in general and I think he's be a great husband and father but we had some discussions and he also mentioned he doesn't "believe" in marriage. I thought his reasons were strange and let it go to see how things go (he's from Singapore and people there get married just so they can get a house from the government, which he hates..). But then one of his friends brought up that he was dating to get married. We talked about it some more and he admitted he definitely wants kids and to have a family but I still find his views on marriage off-putting. In the end he told me he is willing to get married if it's important to me, but it doesn't sit right with me for him to marry me just because I won't agree to have kids without it. What do you guys make of this? We've been together less than a year currently.

livinginaflower · 2021-01-18T02:13:51+00:00

Met my current husband July 2019 and we knew we were it for each other so he moved in sept and announced our engagement in November with the ring he made for me. We went to Chile in December (2019) so I could meet his parents and were legally married there. people were shocked by this but I always quote Father John Misty:

‘dating for 20 years just feels pretty civilian’.

He was the first (and now only lol) partner I ever lived with and i don’t regret that.

Title	From Men’s Mouths to Your Ears. Don’t be a forever girlfriend.
Author	MarbleWorld
Upvotes	1378
Comments	130
Date	January 17, 2021 5:42 PM UTC (5 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/FemaleDatingStrategy
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/comments/kzawys/from_mens_mouths_to_your_ears_dont_be_a_forever/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/from-mens-mouths-to-your-ears-dont-be-a-forever.739230 https://theredarchive.com/post/739230

Comments