I know we keep seeing the "is it my turn" or "when do you think he will propose".

We are all going through the same thing, and being women we like to get things done and we don't want to wait. Here is my question. How long have you considered you and your boyfriend serious enough to consider yourself in "waiting for the proposal" stage? How long ago did you go look at some rings? How long have you been waiting for him to pop the question?

For me, we picked my ring in Oct/Nov of 09. So it's been about 6 months now.

I have to be honest - I don't get the whole 'waiting for a proposal' business. If I was ready to get married and it was the right time, I wouldn't be waiting around for someone else to act - but that's me. I really never waited with baited breath or wondered and speculated on it, so this was all new to me the first time I saw this section of the forum.

But to answer your question, I'm going to break it into two parts.

1) How long were we serious enough that we knew we'd get engaged?

A few years. About three years into our relationship, we had a talk about our futures and decided that we wanted to get married - but we weren't at the right place in our lives yet. We were in college when we met and both had graduate school and professional ambitions. We decided that finishing our educations and establishing ourselves in our career fields should come first and made a 'must accomplish before getting engaged/married' list. Based on what we had on the list, we knew that engagement/marriage was still another 4+ years off.

So to answer that part of your question, we were in the Serious-Couple-But-Not-Engaged-Yet stage for 4 years, but we were both 100% Ok with that. I wasn't waiting around for a proposal for 4 years - instead, we independently pursued our own educations/careers so that we'd have the best future possible when the time was right.

2) How long was I actually 'waiting for the ring/proposal'?

Actually, I really didn't ever wait. Like I said, we had the 'must-accomplish' list and we both knew where we were on it. Once we got to a point where there was only one thing left on the list, DH bought my ring and started his own countdown. I knew that he had bought my ring (can't remember how I found out - maybe he told me), but I was far too focused on my dissertation (the last thing on the list) to wonder, speculate, or wait for it. He proposed as it was printing, so I guess my official 'wait time' was the 30 seconds it took him to run and get the ring after I hit print.

Vice President and Guardian of the Toilet Brush of POOP: People Offended by Offended People

I waited 9 months. He's a Marine and he proposed to me without a ring before deploying to Japan. He bought my ring while he was in Thailand. i had not idea he would come back with a ring, specially after he told me he would let me choose it myself when he get back. When he got off the plane, coming back from Japan, he got down on one knee and proposed again in front of all of his co-workers and friends. I didnt see it coming the first time, and i def didnt see it coming the second time he proposed again. Apparently everyone else did, all of our mutual friends knew what he was planning and already knew what the ring looked like haha. so from the time he proposed the first time, to the second time, i waited for my ring about 9 months.

I knew that he was the one before he was sure about me, so my wait has been longer. We've been together almost 2.5 years, and I was pretty sure that he was it about 2 years ago. Funnily enough, he wasn't looking for a long term thing when we got together. He had broken up with his high school girlfriend a couple of months early (after 4 years) and didn't think he was ready to end up in another long term relationship. Now we're living together and I'm waiting for my ring. We know that we won't be getting married until late 2012, but I don't mind waiting for the wedding. At least I can start the planning for real once we're engaged. He'll graduate law school in 2012, and I'll be getting my teaching certification that year.

I think it's been about a year since he realized that this is it, but the funds for actually buying a ring were seriously lacking. I think he' thrilled that I'm not a girl looking for a big diamond. The ring I want is amythest and white topaz, and a ton more affordable on a college budget.

I "waited" for about a month. We had talked about getting married, and he had hinted at proposing once a specific thing about work got resolved. We already knew we wanted to be together, so I cannot really say that I waited for a proposal.

When that happened, he told me he was "working on something". He really wanted to be the one to propose (I would have proposed, nothing strange about that).

Oh 30 seconds?! what's the story?

LOL, it's actually pretty funny. As I mentioned above, we had talked about marriage about three years into our relationship and decided that there were a bunch of important goals we wanted to reach before getting married. Based on what was on the list, we knew it would be another 4 years or so before we accomplished those goals and moved forward with marriage plans.

We both had several goals on the list and accomplished all of them. Finally, the last thing left on the list was 'Art needs to finish her dissertation.' As I finished the research stage of my dissertation and started writing, DH asked for clarification on that point, as getting a dissertation approved can be a lengthy process. Did I want to be totally done and graduated? Dissertation defended? A draft turned in? Approved by my advisors and awaiting my defense date? I thought about it and decided that I just wanted the bulk of my work to be behind me - or to be past the point of no return, if you will. Mostly, I just wanted to be far enough along that I wouldn't get distracted and abandon the whole thing. For me, that meant that the writing was done. So I jokingly told him that he could propose anytime after it was printed.

As I spent months writing, DH covertly purchased my ring and made his plans. On some level, I knew what was going on, but I was literally spending ALL my free time writing (I also had a full-time job and was teaching two classes, so there wasn't a lot of it) because I had a personal goal of finishing it before the official end of the semester because one of my advisors was pretty unreachable during the summer, so I wanted to give him my draft before he left for Europe. DH and I were living in different cities at the time, and he planned a trip to visit me around the time I planned to be finished. I knew he had the ring already (can't remember how I knew - I think his brother might have spilled the beans), but I didn't really expect a proposal during that trip. I don't remember why I didn't think it would be then - probably because I was so busy. Also, DH considers himself to be a pretty romantic guy, so I was expecting him to plan something big and crazy for a proposal.

Actually, he had planned something very nice and very much my style, but it didn't work out as planned. I was REALLY close to finishing writing when he arrived for his visit, and I had taken a couple days off from work to finish. This was on a Wed or something, and he suggested that we set aside the following Sunday to do something fun, as I'd probably be done by then. Little did I know that he planned to take me to a museum, ask me to show him my favorite piece of art, and propose in front of it. Once he mentioned going to a museum, however, I got all excited and suggested that we go the next day, instead, because I needed a break. Ooops - ruined that idea on him! He didn't argue the point because he didn't want me to know he had planned something special. The following day, when we went to the museum, DH figured that I was close enough to being done that he could propose anyway and I wouldn't be mad at him - but when he asked me to show him my favorite piece, I instead dragged him through a new traveling exhibit that I wanted to see. When he asked me my favorite piece in the exhibit, I started babbling about the merits of different pieces and dragging him around to show him. In my defense, 'favorite piece of art' is a VERY relative term for an art historian and its not as simple to answer as he thought it would be. When we left the exhibit and he again asked me to show him my favorite piece in the museum, I said something about being hungry and that I would show him some other time. Ooops! So poor DH was out of luck that day, as I accidentally ruined his romantic proposal idea!

A couple days later, I finally finished writing my dissertation. I excitedly informed DH that I was finally DONE and babbled for about ten minutes about how excited and relieved I was to be able to press PRINT! I had totally forgotten about the offhand comment that I had made, probably over a year earlier, about him being able to propose anytime after it was printed. I was simply excited about being able to print my dissertation and wasn't thinking about the 'we can get married after I do this' implications. After I made a big deal over checking the ink cartridges, loading a bazillion sheets of paper into the printer, and officially pressing print, he asked me to close my eyes for a minute. Still not thinking anything of it, I did. (I think I figured that he might have gotten a bottle of champagne to celebrate or something. I certainly wasn't thinking proposal at the moment.) Lovely detail: while I did close my eyes, I was leaning back in my computer chair with my feet up on the desk. I was pretty euphoric about the whole thing, and while I heard him go into the bedroom and knew he was babbling something about how great I am, I didn't really hear what he was saying - until I heard him coming back down the hall and it hit me that he was proposing RIGHT NOW! In fact, that was the only thing I could think: 'Oh my God. He's proposing RIGHT NOW.' So I didn't hear a word of what he was saying - first because I wasn't really paying attention and then because I was in shock. When I heard him kneel down next to me, I somehow managed to get my feet off the table and open my eyes. Didn't even hear him say the words 'Will you marry me?' I think I just sort of grinned at him stupidly for a minute until he said it again, which jogged my senses into remembering that some sort of response was required. And then we got to go out and do some MAJOR celebrating. It happened to be Cinco de Mayo (2007), which I hadn't realized at the time because I was too busy writing to look at the date. So I'm now a big celebrator of Cinco de Mayo! :)

So that's our story, and that's why the original question wasn't easily answered. We had the marriage conversation about 4 years before we actually got engaged, but we were both busy with other things that we wanted to accomplish before getting married. Once we'd accomplished everything we wanted to do before marriage, it took DH about 30 seconds to propose, since he decided to do it spontaneously. :)

Vice President and Guardian of the Toilet Brush of POOP: People Offended by Offended People

ArtBride! You're an art historian? So am I :D! That's a wonderful story :D My FH proposed exactly one month after I submitted my PhD thesis, now that I think of it.

I completely understand the whole 'favourite work of art' thing. It's difficult to choose when you actually consider a lot of things other people don't. "It's pretty" doesn't always cut it.

30 seconds :D that's amazing!

Edited by: MikaylaK on May 28, 2010 7:44 PM

Absolutely adorable. It sounds like it was the most perfect proposal to. Great story, thanks for posting it for me!