Okay, I know you probably don’t want to hear this but… the biggest mistake you can make with a guy… is living with him before he’s proposed to you. I’m going to tell you briefly why living with a guy before marriage if there’s no commitment yet is a bad idea…
Number 1, and this is VERY important, so remember this — Living with a guy does NOT automatically mean a ring is waiting for you around the corner, and doesn’t even remotely guarantee a marriage; in fact, if anything, it usually DECREASES his motivation to marry you… just like having sex with a guy before as commitment diminishes his motivation to want to be exclusive & committed to you. This is the most common trap that women fall into with their boyfriends that winds up wasting years of their life & failed relationships.
This is because, if guys can get away with it, they will try to avoid locking themselves into the lifelong commitment of marriage, and will want to first try to ‘test-drive’ you — for ‘free’ — to make sure that he does in fact even want to marry you and to see how you’d be as a wife and living partner. Or maybe he already knows that he doesn’t really want to get married, so he’ll try to get away with not marrying you for as long as he can get away with it for. Just like men often try to get away with having sex with a girl without making a real commitment if they can.
So he’ll ask you to live with you first, telling you that he wants to take the relationship in a more serious direction and asks you to live with him.
WOMEN are thinking: “Great! Then once we live with each other for a while, the next step is marriage!” You imagine he will soon give you a ring…
But the MEN are thinking: “I like her a lot, maybe I even love her, I think she MIGHT be ‘The One’ for me, but I want to ‘try it out’ first and make sure. And I get sick of her or something or realize I don’t like her enough to marry her, I can always pull out and end the relationship.” OR he may be thinking, “I’m not sure if I want to marry her, but I don’t really want to break up with her, I want to keep getting my ‘benefits,’ so I’ll just appease her in the meantime by asking her to live with me and that’ll hold her over for a while and get me off the hook of having to propose.”
He may be insinuating that the live-in situation will eventually lead to marriage, or maybe he outright told you that it would. But in the back of his mind, he is not giving you a ring yet because he is NOT SURE. And he wants to use the live-in situation as a way to prolong his decision and also “try you on for size.”
But what happens is, when a guy moves in with you, he’s getting all the ‘perks’ of the marriage from you– without the actual marriage. You feed him, you feed his ego, you sleep with him, give him regular sex. You’re a loyal, committed woman, you’re available to him whenever he wants. Plus whatever else you may do for him like cook and clean or do his laundry. To a man there really is not much more. You have given him everything he wants without getting married. He gets all of this, plus he has the joy of having no life-long commitment and knowing he can always break it off at any time! So, what’s in it for him if he does get married? ‘Nothing’ as far as he is concerned. He doesn’t feel a need. Except for if he gets married; he’s stuck with a life-long commitment, and a lot more liability, and financial nightmare if the relationship does not end up working out.
So what happens? He starts getting content with the situation… and time starts dragging by…
And do you think that he’s getting more and more attracted to you as time goes by, and more and more motivated to want to marry you?
NO, sister!
Because as time goes on and you live together every day, you start falling into a routine and, naturally, you become more dull and predictable to him. Any of those fun surprises that you may have experienced when you first became roomies are gone as you’ve become used to each other and any excitement you used to have has turned into monotony and often boredom that naturally comes from seeing the same person day in and day out. And the older you get and the more time that passes, the more impatient you become and insecure you feel about the situation. And it come out in unattractive ways, perhaps you start bitching at him or nagging him, get upset with him if he wants to take a trip without you or have a boys night, or question him about his intentions and ask him when his time-frame is for getting married.
So to him, you’re becoming less and less attractive as time goes on, not more attractive. This is especially true if you do not have a lot of outside friends or interests beside from him and you’re always wanting to spend time with him. Add on to that, the longer this drags on for, the more bored he gets in the relationship and the less attractive you become to him. Does that sound like something he’d be jumping up excitedly for and racing out to Zale’s to buy you a ring??
What for??
Why should he “buy the cow” (you/marriage) if he’s “getting the milk” (the benefits) for free?
Meanwhile, he’s keeping you strung along, with all your other options cut off and being unable to meet anyone else, so you’re kept totally devoted & committed to him. While he gets to ‘test-drive’ you and see how he feels about living with you and being married to you while knowing he can just walk away at any time.
So you see, you can’t really blame the guy for dragging this on as long as he possibly can and not being motivated to marry you. If he hasn’t proposed after 1 year of living with you, he’s most likely not ever going to, and will just keep dragging it on. As a Dating Coach I know women who have been living with their boyfriends for 4, 6, even 10 years, and still without an engagement!
If it’s been over a year that you’ve been living with your boyfriend and he still hasn’t proposed or given you any sort of time-frame for when he will, my advice is to get out now! While you’re still relatively young and have some options. Or give yourself a 3-6 month mental time-line for when you’re going to draw the line and break it off if he hasn’t initiated an engagement yet. And move onto finding someone who IS sure about you and is ready and motivated to marry you without having to wait years to ‘test’ you out!
Visit my site to hear more Dating Advice for women or read about my fantastic 90-Day Rapid Relationship Attraction Coaching Plan!
DeAnna Lorraine is one of America’s top Dating Coach & Relationship experts, coaching clients nationwide to transform their love lives, succeed with the opposite sex and find and attract their Life Partner quickly! DeAnna is known for her magical results and unique, comprehensive coaching methods that includes cutting-edge, proven techniques such as NLP and Hypnotherapy for real results and lasting change.
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Why Women Shouldn’t Live With Men Before Marriage!
