Talking About Marriage

On the blogs that I read and the websites that I browse, I've recently seen some things talking about if couples should talk about marriage before the guy (or the girl) pops the question.  So I'm going to give my view on the topic.  You may agree or disagree, I don't really care too much.  I'm just Tellin' it how it is.

Now the way that I look at it is if the guy pops the question (I'm just going to be talking about it as if the guy pops the question, but it is the same principle if the girl pops the question) and the girl says no.  Put yourself in that guy's shoes.  All of your hopes and dreams?  Crushed.  Now this is just my humble opinion, but I feel like it would be a lot more gentle way to let that guy down by talking about it before rather than him going out and buying a ring and having some elaborate way to ask this girl to marry him.

The question shouldn't be a surprise.  The circumstances to the question being asked should be.  But the girl should not be put on the spot and have to think about if she wants to marry this guy or not.  That will freak the girl out.  So the question should be discussed before the guy actually gets down on one knee.  But you need to make sure that you take her breath away when you ask her that question.  She shouldn't be going through the night thinking, "Oh yeah, he's asking the question tonight."  She should be surprised in that regard.

Now I know that some of you out there will find this a daunting thing to do.  Most of you are freaked out by DTRs (Define The Relationship) because they have a terrible connotation.  But that's because most people suck at them.  You just need to know what you're doing.  Most people make it an awkward mess.

You don't have to sit down and start out by saying, "Alright, we're going to have a DTR right now so that I can know if you want to marry me."  That will blow up in your face 99.9999 percent of the time.  Just work it into casual conversation.  It could be as simple as, "So where do you see yourself in 5 years?"  That might not get you the answer that you want, so you might have to go deeper.  But make sure that you don't just make it seem like you're digging for a specific answer or they'll get a bit weirded out.

So, to sum it up, keep the "when" of the question a surprise, but don't have her be surprised that the question is coming.  And don't have an awkward, formal DTR.  You don't need to do that.


Tellin' it how it is,

The Unobtrusive One