No proposal/ring on Valentines Day

[Anonymous]

My daughter broke up with her boyfriend because he didn’t give her an engagement ring and propose on Valentines Day. She was disappointed that he didn’t propose at Christmas, so she gave him until Valentines Day. He didn’t and that’s over. They were together over two years and it seems to me that she's so sad. What is a normal length of time to just date someone now?

[Anonymous]

It depends on so many things. How old are they?

[Anonymous]

Have they talked about marriage plans?

[Anonymous]

Did he know he had these deadlines?

[Anonymous]

Your daughter is an idiot for wanting a proposal on a Holiday.

Did she communicate clearly that she wanted to get married? Or was she just waiting in silence, trying to send out hints that were never understood? That's also stupid.

Other than that, yes, waiting for two years for someone to make up their minds is long enough. If she's done waiting, she's correct to move on.

[Anonymous]

It depends on a lot of things.

Let’s say she is 24 and her boyfriend says I don’t feel comfortable getting engaged to him 26 and then she gives him an ultimatum then she’s a drama queen.

If she says well, I wanna get engaged when I’m 25 and I don’t wanna wait till I’m 26 then she breaks up because she and her boyfriend are on different timelines or she adjusted her timeline.

Ultimatums are extremely immature.

Having a discussion about your timeline and then realizing you have different timelines and breaking up is not immature.

How old is your daughter and is she generally immature about everything?

[Anonymous]

Good for him! Sounds like he dodged a bullet.

Timelines for proposals are hot garbage. Honestly, the whole idea of a proposal is a lot of fairytale nonsense, especially the expectation that it stack with a holiday. Doesn't sound like they'd had enough discussion about the actually-getting-married part, and your kid was being a Disney princess about wanting a proposal.

"Marriage is a contract, Veronica. Not a perpetual tryst."

[Anonymous]

The normal time is until it is time to break up or until you get married.

Sorry your daughter and her BF broke up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter broke up with her boyfriend because he didn’t give her an engagement ring and propose on Valentines Day. She was disappointed that he didn’t propose at Christmas, so she gave him until Valentines Day. He didn’t and that’s over. They were together over two years and it seems to me that she's so sad. What is a normal length of time to just date someone now?

There is no "normal" amount of time, really. If one of them were dating someone new this week, I'd raise an eyebrow. If over a year goes by and they haven't dated anyone new, that seems a little long. Otherwise ... they need to figure this out on their own timetable. I'm not a fan of the ultimatum, but she gave one and got her answer and now it's time to heal and eventually move on. But you don't need to worry about what "a normal length of time" for that is -- it's not your life.

[Anonymous]

I think there is a lot of pressure on women in their 20's to get married when friends start to have weddings. At this age, the peer pressure and social media brain washing is huge. It makes women feel unattractive.

[Anonymous]

Good miss on his part.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter broke up with her boyfriend because he didn’t give her an engagement ring and propose on Valentines Day. She was disappointed that he didn’t propose at Christmas, so she gave him until Valentines Day. He didn’t and that’s over. They were together over two years and it seems to me that she's so sad. What is a normal length of time to just date someone now?

There is no "normal" amount of time, really. If one of them were dating someone new this week, I'd raise an eyebrow. If over a year goes by and they haven't dated anyone new, that seems a little long. Otherwise ... they need to figure this out on their own timetable. I'm not a fan of the ultimatum, but she gave one and got her answer and now it's time to heal and eventually move on. But you don't need to worry about what "a normal length of time" for that is -- it's not your life.

PP here. I misunderstood your question. Sorry.

There is no normal amount of time to just date someone -- every couple figures this out for themselves. DH and I were together for 14 years before we got married, and we have now been married for 8 years. Happy the whole time. Sounds like your DD wasn't happy, so it's good they broke up. Young women think a sparkly ring and planning a party with a white dress is going to fix everything -- it never does. So she should heal and move on to better things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think there is a lot of pressure on women in their 20's to get married when friends start to have weddings. At this age, the peer pressure and social media brain washing is huge. It makes women feel unattractive.

+1

But ultimately OP's DD and her bf clearly didn't want the same thing (assuming OP's DD had communicated to her boyfriend that she wanted to get married now rather than keeping it a secret in her own head), so it's good it's over.

[Anonymous]

Did she communicate that to him?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think there is a lot of pressure on women in their 20's to get married when friends start to have weddings. At this age, the peer pressure and social media brain washing is huge. It makes women feel unattractive.

It’s very weird.
They should not be looking forward to getting married.