Huntsville Jeweler,
When is the right time to get engaged or ask her to marry you?
My answer to that complicated question: When is it the right time to do anything? If you are considering asking her to marry you, I imagine that you have good reason to be asking yourself this question by now.
Don’t get me wrong, asking after the 3rd date, when you are on cloud nine and, a bit punch drunk smitten with the overwhelmingly inebriated high of norepinephrine, dopamine and phenylethylamine (knowing nearly nothing about her nor her about you,) will most likely end in a terrible response to your question of “Will you marry me?”
Or, as seen statistically from most Elvis themed Vegas weddings, will result in a rapid parting of ways before even getting back to tell the family of your spontaneous and no doubt surprising news. Just refer to Miss Brittney Spears and Mr. Kevin…. whatever his name is, err… Spears.
For the rest of you who have gone through the process of getting to truly know the person, understand her idiosyncrasies, perfections, strengths, weaknessess etc., and she yours, I’ll be cliche’, “When you know, you know.”
Note that I didn’t say, “When you feel, it you feel it.” Feelings are an emotional response and knowledge is one of deliberate consideration and weighing out of many variables such as- “Why her opposed to another?” “What reasons do I know, through a process of thought, cause me to want to spend the rest of my life with this person?” “If her physical attributes were to fade (which, is a life guarantee applying to yourself as well,) will I continue to stand proudly beside her, uphold her interests and is she the kind or person who I can trust to uphold mine?”
“Are we on the same page and more importantly are we even reading the same book?” “Have we had those deep discussions about the future, expectations and hold similar even if not identical values?”
This is only a part of it; however, these are things that, in my opinion, should have already been covered in depth before you even begin to wonder at whether or not to ask her to marry you.
In fact, my last relationship ended due to the fact that when I asked the question to “Ex #13,” (I’ll simply use that to keep it from creating a ruckus and avoid what I consider an overuse of the term, “Jane Doe.”) “Ex #13, why are you with me? What about me causes you to want to spend your time with me as opposed to the next joe schmooze out there? What about me do you find valuable moreso than the next guy?” (laugh if you wish as it’s a bit humorous and may say more about myself than it did her at the time) However, she was taken back, had no answer. NOTHING.
So, I did what I thought any patient and ensuring individual should do- I responded, “Take your time and just think about it.” Now, me being me, that timespan was about 2 minutes before I asked again. And, her response was still the same.
Now, in my mind I could have popped of 20 things that I found valuable, impressive, and completely mesmerizing about her opposed to any other girl I had met. But, she couldn’t come up with anything other than “I spend my time with you, you should be happy with that and not need a reason.”
Things such as this are most likely why I’ve never been married, engaged or have children. However, I find them to be extremely important in choosing who you will ask to be your wife or husband. If you can’t cross this barrier, have such a conversation, an intimate knowledge of how the person thinks and what they value- then I suggest you get to working on that or move on.
With all that being said, if you have this knowledge- what the heck are you waiting for??? You have a winner! I can almost guarantee that she is hoping that you will pop the question on every vacation you take, every nice date attended, or any time you have a every special occasion which would qualify as an appropriate time.
It is one thing to be cautious. It is entirely another to be completely oblivious and so fearful of rejection that she loses interest in you for someone who does have the wisdom to understand when it’s the right time.
Take a risk, seize an opportunity! This is life and it is short and standing on the sidelines will never get you anywhere other than benchwarmer status to the star who gets out there takes a risk and gets a reward or in some cases another life’s lesson which is priceless in and of itself.
I hope this helps even if only a tiny bit.
All the Best,
The Huntsville AL Jeweler
Patrick D. White
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