For The Thirty-Somethings Waiting For A Marriage Proposal
Only you can choose whether it’s better for you to stay or to go.
You’ve been dating for a bit.
And by a bit, I mean a couple of years.
For you, it’s a perfect fit. You love this human more than you have ever loved any other soul. You think that they are the best thing on this planet — you love them as much as pizza, as much as rain showers on a hot summer day, as much as your favorite song, and favorite dessert, and favorite place all rolled into one.
They are your home and your most incredible adventure.
They are the person you want to spend forever with — the last face you want to see when you go to sleep at night and the first one you want to look at when you wake up in the morning.
They are the person you want to marry.
And so, you wait for the proposal. Whatever your balance is — you are the one who is waiting for your beloved to pop the question. You are the one who is anticipating the day when you can shout from the rooftops — I’M ENGAGED!!!
You practice patience, and you wait. And you wait, and you wait, and you wait, and you wait.
You don’t say anything when others ask your beloved why the two of you aren’t married yet. You try not to remind your beloved that marriage is something that you have dreamt for your life, that for you, it’s important.
You keep waiting.
And then you do the thing that so many of us do in times of crisis, or chaos, or moments of uncertainty — you ask your friends what they think. Your friends want the best for you, so surely, they’ll have some wisdom. Surely, they’ll be able to see something that you cannot.
Surely, they’ll know what to do.
The hard thing to hear is that they will not have the perfect answer for you. It’s not because your friends don’t love you or your beloved, or want what’s best for both of you. It’s because only you can make that call. Only you can decide when you’ve had enough of waiting.
It’s easy for your best friends to tell you to walk away — and maybe they’re right. Maybe you should. Perhaps you’ve been patient long enough, and maybe you’re waiting for something that’s never going to happen. Maybe you’re not getting treated how you deserve, and the one whom you think is your beloved is not.
Or maybe they’re wrong.
Maybe there are too many quiet moments and hurdles that you and your beloved have jumped over, and you’re not about to quit on your forever human. Maybe you don’t care about how long you’re waiting — perhaps you’d wait another ten years if that’s what your forever human needed you to do. Maybe you want to stay.
Either way — only you can choose whether it’s better for you to stay or to go.
