I’m a 25-year-old woman with a boyfriend I’ve been dating for almost a year. He’s 28. When we started dating, he said he wanted to get married by around 30, but that he had hobbies like music to enjoy and thought it could wait a little longer.
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We get along well, but I feel like he doesn’t have a very positive view of marriage.
Now that I’m 25, I’m starting to think I should date with marriage in mind and eventually live together, though I’m wondering whether it’s too soon and when the right time would be. Still, I feel like it would be fun to live with my current boyfriend and share our daily lives. He’s the first person I’ve ever felt that way about.
The other day, I casually said to him, “It would be fun if we could live together,” and he replied, “But your family is just you and your father, and he’d be sad, so you shouldn’t.”
There was another time when we discussed something like living together, and he brought up my father and refused. He has also asked me over the phone, “What’s the benefit of getting married?” (He later said he didn’t mean anything in particular by asking that.)
When he said those things, I got a little discouraged and said, “If you say that, there’s nothing I can do…” Then I ended the conversation by saying, “I’m sorry for putting you in a difficult position.”
When his responses kept being so negative, I started thinking that, if I’m honest, I’m not even sure whether I absolutely want to marry him. Maybe we both feel the same way.
Marriage and living together are complicated, aren’t they? People say timing matters, and although I do love him romantically, there are also little things that bother me—for example, he gets angry if things aren’t put back in their usual places, and he has a very stereotypically male side where he doesn’t show much empathy when I want to talk something through. Lately, I’ve often found myself thinking negatively, wondering whether our values simply don’t match.
What I’m unsure about is whether I should tell my boyfriend, “I can’t see where this relationship is going anymore, so I’m wondering whether we should break up now,” whether I should just continue enjoying the relationship as a romance, or whether I should push him away by saying, “I’ve given up on marriage, so whatever!” What do you all think?
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I kept reading, expecting a papa (a male supporter) to show up somewhere in this question, but he never did. Why are you asking this here?
You’re both still way too young, so maybe it would be enough to revisit the question in another ten years.
Marika
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That man still won’t want to get married five years from now.
Tell him, “If you don’t intend to marry me, I’m ending this relationship.”
He may come after you—but if he doesn’t, look for someone else.
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There’s only one right answer.
Keep your current boyfriend around while looking for someone to marry. I think it’s fine to date two people at once.
You should also sign up with Universe Club, look for a papa (a male supporter), and while you’re at it, find a friends-with-benefits partner too.
I’m being quite serious. No god is watching or judging you. If your partner keeps putting off marriage—or doesn’t seem to want it—you can simply look elsewhere as a countermeasure. At the same time, you should make the most of your valuable pre-marriage years and experience a friends-with-benefits arrangement as well.
There are plenty of men who become papas and think they’ve finally “become a man,” but according to what I hear from women, they’re “almost universally hopeless.” Basically, they haven’t had enough experience. If you don’t play the field, you can’t understand the opposite sex. So you should have more fun and learn through firsthand experience. Otherwise, you’ll end up cheating after you get married. And by “you,” I mean the person asking the question.
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If you want to get married, I think you should look for another man. But if you feel that you’d be happy staying with your current boyfriend even without getting married, then I think you should continue the relationship as it is.
Marriage requires both people to want it, so as long as he doesn’t want to get married, you may need to choose one or the other—or you could end up missing your chance.
I think you should take some time to seriously consider which matters more to you: marriage or your boyfriend.
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That’s a good question, but it’s a difficult one to answer, too.
Speaking from my own experience, I decided to get married when I thought, “If I combine this and this, life will probably turn out something like this—and that seems pretty good.”
Marriage can be challenging because it involves sharing a life together, but I personally think that’s also what makes it worthwhile.
Now, in this case, I don’t think he’s considering marriage yet. So rather than rushing to a conclusion, I think it would be best to wait and see how things develop.
Since you’re still only 25, you probably have a little more time before reaching your limit. However, if he’s not thinking about you at all, I think it’s also perfectly reasonable to distance yourself from him.
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You’ve already come to your own answer, haven’t you? It’s totally fine to do what feels right!
This question has nothing to do with papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan)—if anything, it’s only about your relationship with your actual dad lol.
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Tomorrow hasn’t come yet.
No one can accurately predict a tomorrow they’ve never seen.
Observe carefully and think about what you want and what the other person wants. Then judge the situation and move forward—that’s probably all you can do.
When it comes to getting married, things can surprisingly be decided on impulse—because you’re having a baby, or because one person gets transferred and you decide to get married.
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Someone who makes excuses, someone you don’t see any benefit in being with…
If you end up marrying someone after practically having to talk them into it,
you can probably imagine how things will turn out…
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