Ultimatum proposal/acceptance

It is soooooooo not ok in my book. And it's NOT ok, IMO for a woman to ask a man. Some things, in my eyes just need to stay tradition.

Not okay, in my opinion there should be an agreement between both parties, not because one gives an ultimatum etc... It's not healthy at all

Recipe for disaster. I know someone who did this. Years later, "happy" is not the word that comes to mind when thinking of their marriage.

And if you feel he's taking too long, that's something that needs to be resolved and discussed, not forced.

I agree with Jamie. If you have to force him to marry/propose you it is not meant to be.

Nothing says I love you like an ultimanum.

I knew a chick that use to do that....she's in a miserable marriage....imagine that!

I agree ladies, but another action I don't agree with but I seem to be the minority on this one. The woman picks out her own engagement ring? If he picks one out and she doesn't like it he continues to take it back til one is selected that she approves of. Now mind you it is not necessarily the style she does not like more so "not enough diamonds/bling" Is love that materialistic now?

I picked out my own, well we both did. We both wanted to pick it out together and we just so happened to find one that day and bought it :-D I would've like to have been surprised with a ring BUT I was engaged once before and I didn't want anything like the one I had before, I wanted something different.

Not really an ultimatum but In the beginning, I told him, my goals in life are to go college, get married, and have children, and have a decent career, and not neccessairly all in that order. I also said, I am not going to get younger, I am only going to get older, so If we go so far in a relationship, and it doesn't seem like it's heading that way...then I will move on. If it does look like we are on that track, and our relationship only seems to be getting 'BEtter' as time goes on, then I'll be staying. But I don't want to waste my time in a relationship that isn't going to go anywhere. Over 2 years later, we were as happy as can be, and we, together, discussed the idea of marriage, and then he proposed.

Not really an ultimatum but we were both clear on our wants, and desires, and where we both wanted to go with our lives.

Lol, Reina....I TRIED to encourage him to pick out the ring on his own. I basically ended up picking five rings and diamonds, and he picked which one he liked best from those.

I agree. Horrible move.

As for picking out the ring... I DON'T think it's okay if a man gives a woman a ring and she's like "this is not good enough for me, I want a different one." However, if the man asks for her input and she gives suggestions, or says "I really like this one in particular" I don't think there's anything wrong with that- and it's what we did as well. He already knew my tastes, but wanted to make sure I loved the ring I'd be wearing the rest of my life, so he asked me to show him online what I liked. Then, he went and got it himself.

I also picked my own ring. He just had no idea what I would like because I never wear jewelry of any kind. If he had picked something on his own that I wasn't crazy about, I would have cherished it regardless, but it was nice to pick it together because I got something I really love and he feels confident that I do love it and the pressure of picking the perfect ring is off his shoulders. It has nothing to do with being materialistic.

And I agree about ultimatum proposals. I also don't think it's healthy when a couple gets engaged/married because of a pregnancy. I know there are couples that are genuinely in love and the pregnancy only hastens the inevtiable, I am referring to those that are not in love or would otherwise not consider marriage but get engaged simply because it's "the right thing to do". Every couple I know who has done this is either divorced or damn close to it, and the kids are definitely the worse for wear.

Jaclyn, we had a similar conversation. I wanted to get married one day and he wasn't sure if he would ever get married again. I never gave an ultimatum but I did say that I refused to be a 50 year old girlfriend. I figured that in a few years if he didn't think he wanted to spend his life with me then he probably didn't and there wasn't anything wrong with that.

fast forward 5 years and he we are engaged and happily planning a future together. We did pick out my ring together. I thought we were just going to look so he could have an idea but he bought it right then.

My brother is in an ultimatum marriage and is horribly unhappy. he was also engaged before his previous marriage was officially terminated because his wife wanted to get engaged before her cousin. Very sad.

I have heard about ladies doing this, I would not ever force a man to marry me. If he didnt want me forever...I sure as HELL didn't want him.

I picked out my ring as well, and it seems to be a fairly sensitive topic. It seems if you did pick it out or had any say, it comes off as brash or materialistic. Frankly those assumptions can be hurtful. My grandfather is a jewler, and my grandmother WAY overdid it on jewlery. At this point, I am totally turned off by it. So I wantd something dainty, petite, not overwhelming. I went online to give him some basic ideas, but found "the one". It was almost exactly like the one I would have wanted 20 yrs earlier, if he had asked, so it has special value to me.

Recipe for divorce. yikes!

I think proposals in general are a little silly. We're grown-a** adults with lives and jobs, not Disney princesses in some tower waiting for our prince to come along.

DS and I had a series of conversations over a period of six months about how we saw our relationship progressing, what we wanted for us in twenty years, whether we wanted children and how many, how much time we'd spend with families, etc. It was hours and hours altogether. So when he proposed, it just capped off eveything that had already been discussed.

I think the "propose by X or else" ultimatum is silly - if you have the sort of relationship where only one of you is talking about commitment, and the other is dodging, that's not really a relationship. I'm not getting any younger, either, and if I felt DS and I were not on the same page, or if he didn't want marriage, I would have respected him enough to end it.

Ditto, Jamie. We didn't go ring shopping together, but I did want to slide him in the right direction. I didn't want to end up with a past, present, future 3 stone again, like my first engagement.

As for the ring, I told DS what my taste was (sapphire, no prong setting because they get stuck in everything, antique-y) and sent him a few pics. He did a great job.

I don't think there is anything wrong (in fact everything right) in a couple discussing their mutual and individual goals, whether they are headed for marriage or not. An ultimatum is clearly not a good addition to that discussion.

If one partner wants to be married (or have kids, or start a business or start any one of life's momentous changes) and the other doesn't, it's better to part ways and move towards what their dreams are. Is it unfortunate? Yep. Will the consideration of life without the other person change one or another's viewpoints? I see that all the time. But threatening or being threatened is no way to build a foundation for a marriage.