Because some people do not want to get married. At all. That does not prevent them from having meaningful relationships, being monogamous, raising children together and staying with each other longterm. If marriage made your relationship special or stronger, do you really think the divorce rates would be so high?

I wasn't trying to imply that marriage somehow magically makes a relationship stronger. Marriage symbolizes commitment; my thinking was that if someone is not committed to a relationship then why be in one? If she is someone who just doesn't feel the need for marriage, then perhaps they didn't have enough discussion about that.

Also, if people are going to split apart, I think they will whether they're married or not. When someone says they'd prefer to just not get married, I think what they are really saying is that they believe they may break up some day, so they'd rather avoid the hassles of going through an official/legal divorce. Basically, they're afraid of commitment. If someone really wants to spend their life with someone, then why not get married?

3 years isn't really that long a time. Particurally when compared to the rest of your life. You might care about someone enough to stay with them a long time, but not see yourself spending the rest of your life with them. There are more types of relationships than speed dating and marraige.

So you consider 3 years speed dating? I'll agree 3 years is within the range of dating someone before marriage, but 3 years is more serious than a fling.. Personally I don't really see the point of being in a relationship with someone unless I think there might be a potential for a lifelong relationship.

#139 The thing is, there are so many variables we don't know. For example, we have no idea how old they are. If you start dating really young (ie 16 or 17), then there are tons of people who would feel 3 years was way too early for marriage. Not to mention it depends when you date. Some people will date throughout a period of their life (ie college) for the companionship, but never actually intend to marry. So to say she shouldn't have been in a 3-year relationship "if she didn't want to marry you or wasn't ready for marriage" is not always the case. Whether 3 years can be considered marriage-serious really depends on the people (their views) and the situation. That's why discussing marriage (or at least your vision for the relationship) before proposing is so important.

$148: I actually agree with you fully. They should have discussed marriage more (which they should have done). But I do find it a bit suspicious that she decided to break up with OP when he proposed to her. Seems like odd timing - If she had wanted to break up, she may have plenty of time to do it (although we don't know what made her want to break up or when she first thought of it). But who waits until someone proposes and says "No, actually I want to break up."? It sounds like there are several conversations they didn't have..

Maybe she hadn't really thought about marriage herself, and when faced with the question realised that she didn't want to spend the rest of her life with him? I clicked 'FYL' because this is really crappy. But this is the exact reason I think you should discuss it. That, and I wouldn't want to be proposed to in public, like you have said it would be too much pressure. If some did that to me, I don't know if I could stay with them - embarrassment, and the fact that their ideas are clearly very different to mine. Maybe she is more of a private person when it comes to this sort of thing than OP realised? This is really why people should talk about these things beforehand. It was really sweet, putting all that thought into it, but even the best intentions can be the wrong thing to do.

My point was that it's not speed dating. You said why date for three years if you're not going to get married. I was saying there are more than quick relationships(aka speed-dating) and long ones with marriage at the end. Lots of people date for years with no intention to marry.

Should she have said yes and gotten stuck in a relationship she wasn't sure of? Say yes and then no later? It would have been better for her to say she wanted to think about it and say no in private, but in front of his family that would have seemed like a no, and would you want to do that? Not tactless. A crappy situation, but perhaps OP is the tactless one?