That's the exact rational that keeps scores of people miserably in dead-end relationships, always waiting and always hoping that their partner will finally make a commitment after miraculously realizing what a treasure they have had in front of them the whole time but just couldn't see it until then. What a hideous way to waste years of life. He didn't ask her in the timeframe she expected him to ask her, so it's over. And, given how generous most women are, she gave him a good long time to make the leap, and he still didn't. So, she had it with him and rightly so. Let's not also forget that the lack of marriage proposal is only ONE reason why she dumped him: he also failed to communicate that he loved her. Life's too short for anyone to live with that kind of torment and disappointment day after day.

I can't talk about how I feel, at all really. Not unless its about something unimportant. I HAVE to write it, because if I do it verbally, I freeze up. It doesn't matter how close I am to someone. I can tell anyone any fact about my life, any event, no matter how personal. But you ask me how I felt about one thing or another, and you wont get a word out of me. I can not bring myself to say it. When I try I just end up making myself sick. Am I a coward? Maybe, but talking about my emotions is one of the things that brings on anxiety attacks for me. Also phone calls, and silence. My fiance understands this, and I write him letters all the time. I then sit with him while he reads, simply because I can't express verbally. I'm not saying OP's boyfriend has an anxiety disorder, infact he more than likely doesn't, but who are you to say she 'did the right thing' by leaving him for something like that. Should my fiance leave me because I can't express myself verbally?

Did it occur to you that the children could have been from a previous marriage, which ended either in divorce or death? Being a mother, and being unmarried does not mean that you became a mother while not being married. AND there's nothing really wrong with having a kid out of wedlock. I know plenty of situations where the child would have been better off if the parents were not together.