'My sisters are married but I feel like my boyfriend is never going to propose'

05 December 2023 , 18:01

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Girlfriend is turning 30 and wants to get hitched (Image: Getty Images/Tetra images RF)

Dear Coleen

I’m about to turn 30 in a few weeks’ time and I’m desperate for my partner to propose to me. We’ve been together a couple of years and I just want to get on with it. I also want to start a family.

We already live together, so we’ve made that commitment.

My partner, however, shows no signs of proposing and, in general, he’s a very laidback person. I’m not even sure if it would even cross his mind to ask me to marry him because he seems happy to just drift along in life.

I don’t want that to sound mean, but he’s just not a planner. I tend to be the one in the relationship who takes the reins on things – from finances, our flat and booking holidays to arranging our social lives – and he seems quite happy with how it all works.

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But I do really appreciate his calm energy and positive outlook.

Do you have any tips on how I can convince him that getting married is a good idea?

It doesn’t help that both my older sisters are married with children and I feel like it’s never going to happen for me. Help!

Coleen says

Well, first of all, don’t sound so desperate to just “be married”. You’ve only been together a couple of years and you’re still young, but I do understand that turning 30, for women especially, is a bit of a trigger.

You do start thinking more about building towards a future and possibly getting married and having babies.

But, I want to know why, in this day and age, you’re waiting for a man to propose – why aren’t you proposing if that’s what you
really want?

If that doesn’t appeal to you, then you need to start having conversations now about what you each want from the future.

If you don’t, you risk letting the years roll by until you get to a crisis point where you realise you don’t want the same things or you find out you’ve left it too late to have a family.

I know couples who’ve experienced these scenarios, and all because they didn’t get round to having these important conversations early on in the relationship.

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Ask him how he actually feels about marriage and kids, and discuss timescales. Talk about what those things would mean to you individually and as a couple.

Get the ball rolling and give yourselves some space to think about it.

Coleen Nolan