I can never understand why so many Christians have this preconceived timeline of how long people should date and be engaged for.
My husband and I met in 2004. We started dating in March 2007. We got engaged in April 2010, and married in December 2010. We got married when we were ready, not when anyone else thought we should (and a lot of people spent a lot of time trying to convince us that there was something wrong with us because we'd been dating for so long).
You and your boyfriend know your relationship better then anyone else does (especially anyone on an internet forum that only one of you participates on). I have seen so many men, in particular, pressured into marrying before they want to, and it never ends well.
With all due respect you are also 23 years old and already married. You started dating your husband when you where around 18 years old and married him at 21. At that age I would agree you can and should take a little bit of time with it.
When you get older, it's entirely different. First of all you should be wiser so you should have a pretty good idea of what you should be looking for. On top of that you have the end of good reproductive age for the woman which is always a pressing concern. I know that it varies, but it's generally better to reproduce at a younger age. If we call the ending age 35, you have a dozen years to just decide to start trying to and conceive. She has 8 years to get engaged, get married, start trying and conceive. Given an engagement can often be a year of planning and then it's usually best to give marriage a year before trying. . . Then you don't know how long conception can sometimes take. . .
Don't get me wrong, she still has time. But she doesn't have a ton of time to waste either.
While that can certainly still be done, a lot more has to happen in a shorter period of time. So she doesn't have time to hang around while he takes his time about it.
So when you are 27, or in the case of her boyfriend 31 years old, there should be some self pressure to get married sooner once you feel that you are with a person you want to spend the rest of your life with.
I got married when I was 27. And I don't want to be disrespectful to somethingbeautiful or anything but she really just does not have the luxury of waiting around for her boyfriend to decide if he wants to get married or not.
You started dating your husband at 18. . . and that's great for you. But you have to understand that gave you the luxury of time that she just doesn't have nearly as much of.
If you are 18 to early 20's. . . waiting 3+ years is probably a good idea. . . people change in those ages as they are first becomming adults and they also need to get through college and find their way in the work world.
But at age 27, there is no reason you should have to wait for 3 years. If he can't figure it out in 2 years at most there is something wrong with him.
If she and her boyfriend where young 18 to 22 and she was saying. . . It's been a year, I'm not engaged, and I don't know if he's going to ask or not, my response would be ENTIRELY different. I'd tell her to chill out and give it a bit of time. (You would have to go back a ways but you can probably find threads where people at that age are worried about being engaged and I'm telling them to chill)
But at his age. . . if he doesn't have this figured out and ready to marry after 2 years of dating, she's just wasting her time to hang around longer. . . Because it could take him the next 15 years if ever.
