Image via Complex Original
"If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it." Beyoncé's bouncy refrain has come to haunt a generation of men who find themselves at a crossroads in their relationship: get engaged or get out. For whatever reason, either member of a relationship might be ready for rings, houses, and (gasp) children before the other. Today, we're here to speak to the commitment-phobic men in the crowd, so you gentlemen with visions of picket fences and little league should move on to a list written for more mature adults.
We're here to talk to those of you who are still living in the beautiful Never Never Land of drinking any night of the week and spending your disposable income on autographed football jerseys and designer bed sheets instead of bulk groceries from Costco. If your girl is ready to take the relationship to the next level, you can slow things down, but it is going to take some work. If you don't like your girl that much, the solution is easy, but unfortunately for the eternal bachelor in all of us, if you are in a long-term relationship, you might just be in love.
So, how do you stay with your girl without sending out wedding invitations and picking out drapes? It won't be easy, and at one point or another, there will be an ultimatum, but where there is a will there is a way to postpone your wedding day. We have some strategies for you to prolong that paradise that is monogomy without mortgages, sex without offspring, and love without home-owner loans. Here are 10 Easy Ways to Delay Commitment in A Relationship.
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10. Beg Your Friends Not to Get Engaged
We like to think that we are all unique individuals, but the fact of the matter is that humans easily succumb to the herd mentality. From your politics to the college you attended to the shoes on your feet, your choices are largely shaped by the people you surround yourself with. Your girl is no different. If you are over 25 (22 in rural areas), go on Facebook and count how many people are a) engaged, b) already married, or c) complaining about how all of their friends are engaged. The hive-mind is contagious. If you have a buddy who is spending his late 20s or early 30s in non-wedded bliss with a confident professional woman, it is time to schedule a double date. Show your lady that there is more to life than wedding bells and assure her that she won't be the last of her friends down the aisle.
For good measure, encourage her to grab drinks with some of her embittered, divorced friends, which current statistics tell us will be over half of us. What wonderful times we live in.
9. Put Off Moving In Together
It is a common misperception that moving in together will extend the time you have before you have to pop the question. This is not the case. There's not denying it, co-habitation is the logical next step before getting married, no matter what your fundamentalist aunt may have to say on the subject. In our experience, moving in together begins a trial period that ends in either walking down the aisle or a kicking to the curb. If it feels like the right time (or your wallet feels a little empty), we aren't saying don't do it, but just know that plopping down that security deposit starts the clock ticking.
8. Go Back to School
Being poor sucks (as writers, we can speak from experience), but one great thing about being poor is that it is the perfect excuse for getting out of pretty much anything. Don't want to go out to yet another stupid karaoke night? "Sorry, dude, I don't have the funds." Don't want to go home for Thanksgiving? "Mom and Dad, I would, but I really have to pick up some extra shifts to make ends meet." Poverty is also a great excuse not to start a life with someone.
Some of you who had the foresight to study engineering, real estate, or basically anything but creative writing, might have that sticky problem of actually having money. The best way to take care of that is to go back to school. Students are always hopelessly poor and graduate studies suck up all of your time so that you can't hold down a job. Not only will you not be able to afford an engagement ring, but you might not even be able to afford those obligatory dinners where you discuss the future of your relationship.
Tread lightly in pursuit of that diploma: If you get through school and you're still together, she'll have been with you through the hard times, which means it will be time to commit. If you don't think it's working out, save her the misery of your studious misery, and end it so you can focus on your studies.
7. Do More Together
Your girl's insistance on moving the relationship forward might stem from her unhappiness with the current state of the relationship. When was the last time you went out somewhere nice? When was the last time you did something spontaneous? When was the last time you took her away for a weekend outside of the metropolitan area? If you don't have good answers to these questions, start there.
It might seem like a strange contradiction to the commitment-phobic mind, but many people move relationships forward because they are unhappy with the current state of things. If your relationship has grown stale, nourish it before you put it to the test. Go spend the weekend at a bed and breakfast: It won't kill you and it is way cheaper than having your wedding three years too soon, not to mention the cost of divorce.
6. Support Her Dreams
Everybody wants to get on with the rest of their life and be a "real adult," whatever that means. There are two major ways we do that: through our work and through our relationships. A stalled career might be pushing your lady to focus a bit too intensely on the domestic life. Throwing your support behind her hopes and dreams will likely have two major positive effects: Your lady will have a newfound sense of purpose and you'll show her that you are capable of being supportive and mature. Most men have to work pretty hard to be anything but self-centered and childish, so any display of support for her goals, from helping her pay for classes to proofreading her resumé, can go a long way.
5. Tell Her You Love Her
Deep down, most people don't require title and ceremony to validate their relationship. If your lady is asking for those things, it may stem from insecurities she's feeling. Why would she be feeling these insecurities? One possibility is that you aren't providing reassurance. How often are you showing affection towards the woman you love? Have you gotten into the monotonous pattern of lazily tossing off "I love you" as you both head out for the office each morning? Besides sex, how are you expressing your feelings? If your only expression of love can be construed as mere lust, it might be time to be more open when showing the love.
4. Own Up to Your Commitment Issues
In our experience, women like to talk about feelings. In our experience, most men will do anything to avoid talking about feelings. This often presents a problem. In fact, her pushing for commitment might be a result of your unwillingness to talk about your feelings. If you don't want to rush (or even ease slowly) into wedded bliss, the best way to slow the march toward marching down the aisle is to talk about it. Discuss where you're at and how you feel, and agree to revisit the discussion down the road.
If you don't have commitment issues, then you may just have issues with this particular commitment, which is a different, more painful conversation.
3. Put Your Flaws on Display
Be careful with this one, as it might result in putting off your relationship as well as your wedding date. But, if you really want the lady to pump the breaks on the prenup, you might just want to show her exactly what she's getting into. Once you get married, she's going to have to love you for "better" and "for worse," so don't be afraid to let her know what "worse" looks like.
If you've been extra-careful about your hygeine and you've been hiding those Star Wars figurines in your storage locker, it is time to let your freak flag fly. Perhaps to this point you have been fronting like you are about designer clothes and tasteful furniture because you aren't sure how she is going to take the "real you," so by showing her your less desirable parts, you might also cure yourself of your crippling fear of moving things forward.
2. Visit Her Parents
Do your research before you pull this one. If it turns out that her parents are spending their golden years in indescribable bliss, then this will definitely work against your purposes. Luckily for you, this is almost definitely not the case. We put the chances that your girl's parents are still in love at roughly 5 percent. Odds are that you'll spend the weekend trapped in the guest bedroom using Spotify as a bulwark against the incessent bickering going on in the living room. The mutual nagging of the aging parentals should drown out any wedding bells that have been ringing in your girl's ears.
We can't impart upon you enough how judiciously this method should be approached. There is a significant chance that a) the trauma you endure from the experience simply won't be worth it, or b) her parents will love you, thus adding two big-time cheerleaders to the opposing cause. On the upside, it's probably been a while since you've had a solid homecooked suburban meal, so that should be nice.
1. Do Little Nice Things
Oftentimes, lovers desire big gestures because they are missing the small ones. It will take many bouquets of flowers, boxes of chocolates, and thoughtful notes to comprise the cost of a wedding, and in sum, those gestures can be so much more meaningful than the obligatory relationship milestones that everyone trudges through. At the very least, showing that you care will make the conversation about moving the relationship forward more pleasant. When it comes time to talk about getting married or getting a place together or even getting a cat, the discussion shouldn't be about what you owe your girl or how you've come up short in the past. It should be about if you're ready to take the next steps.
As with most of the other items on this list, this is about helping her enjoy the present so that she will be cool if you need a little more time before you dash headlong into the future.
