The right time to propose?

[differentcountries]

I don't think he is ever going to ask-ask (and I would find it strange and unfonfortable if he did) but he has gotten his point across that he would like to marry me or the very thing possable closest to it. My husband did not formally ask me, he just wante to know almost every night for quite some time if I would marry him /when and one day I just said yes because it felt right. I am not very girly in these matters!

I think it is different if you are very young because then you need time to be YOU, as an adult and not just marry/be a family. When you are older you know times passes and that you could loose out, and you know yourself better (or should, anyway!).

The right time to propose is when it feels right and when you have a fair chance to get a yes in return!

[snow]

My man said - the right time to propose for a guy is when he knows she will say yes!

[Anoulie]

We've known we were heading towards marriage from Day 1 (maybe even before that) because neither of us date unless it's to find our future spouse, and we both know we want to spend our lives together and talk about our future marriage a lot, but we're not engaged. That would be way too early: I'm only 20 and we've only been together for a little over 6 months. I'm kind of the limiting factor in how early we get married, as I'm quite a bit younger than he is and from a culture wherein early marriage is frowned upon. Maybe in two years we'll get engaged, God willing, and if everything works out as planned (e.g. closing the distance).

[Purplette]

My fiancé told me that he always bring the ring in him and waits for the right time. He gave that ring to me and popped out that question during my surprise dinner cruise for him.

[differentcountries]

I don't think my parents had a formal proposal either. They were together once and my mother broke up. My mom just said she decided to marry /get back together with my father when she hurt her back and he helped her...They did get engagement rings but I never heard a story about them. I guess you could say my mother proposed of sorts, but I think it was more like "I am desperat about getting married, are you game? " #laughs #. And so they married 6 months later. She was 29 at the time, and they were /are concervative Christians, so they felt a rush to start their lives together. They were university students (different subjects, met in a Christian student club), so they lived in a dorm until they got jobs and I was on the way.

[Zephii]

IMO the right time to propose is when you want to get married (or in my case, when you want to have kids with a man who doesn't want bastards), and ready to start working towards whatever that entails (ie planning a wedding, putting in paperwork, etc). I think 2-4 years of dating is a good guide, and that you should have lived together a year and a day before you're actually married. But that's just what works for me.

I think there's more of a "wrong time" than a right time. It's the wrong time if you feel pressured, if you're doing it because your partner harps on about it constantly, if you're doing it because someone you want to be there won't be around/alive by the time you are ready or if you're doing it because you think it's fun/ a lark. Sometimes people want a wedding, not a marriage, and that too I would consider the wrong time.

[dglynn77]

IMO the right time to propose is when you want to get married (or in my case, when you want to have kids with a man who doesn't want bastards), and ready to start working towards whatever that entails (ie planning a wedding, putting in paperwork, etc). I think 2-4 years of dating is a good guide, and that you should have lived together a year and a day before you're actually married. But that's just what works for me.

I think there's more of a "wrong time" than a right time. It's the wrong time if you feel pressured, if you're doing it because your partner harps on about it constantly, if you're doing it because someone you want to be there won't be around/alive by the time you are ready or if you're doing it because you think it's fun/ a lark. Sometimes people want a wedding, not a marriage, and that too I would consider the wrong time.

Zeph said it perfectly!

[whatruckus]

For us, we've kind of talked about it and both agreed that we want to get engaged after we'd been living together for a little bit and when we're both financially stable (ie. we have our own place and we both have stable jobs). So, just taking it from that, it's not going to happen for at least a few years because I'm in school still and both of us have debts we need to get in order. He's not living on his own yet either. We've definitely hinted towards each other that it probably will happen some day, just not anywhere near soon.

I think it depends on the couple and what stage they are in their lives and in the relationship.

I don't want to be like my best friends who got married because she kept pressuring him to get engaged (they're the 4th couple to get married in our group of friends, and she felt left out, they're both going to be 28 this year). Now, they just had a baby and they had to move back in with her parents. She's unemployed, and he's working (decent money) but he's planning on going back to get his master's degree, as he already took his GRE's. They weren't even financially ready to be engaged or married. His mom had been paying for half of their rent at their apartment when they got married. The deal was she'd help them out for a year. He was barely working (working at Staples).

I hate to say it, but my SO and I actually use them as an example of what we don't want to happen to us. We've both made that very clear. Don't get me wrong, I love them both to death, but they really made some bad choices with rushing into everything. They've only been married for less than 2 years. They always complain when we go out about how they don't have money, but insist on going out to eat all the time. They just kind of have their priorities really messed up. There's other problems that they have regarding money too (video game addictions, among others). I hate seeing them struggle.