Are You Acting Like a Wife to Someone Who Won’t Commit? The Hidden Cost of Doing All the Work.
Tell me you saw it. Estella, @est.ellita, the TikToker who proposed to her boyfriend of 14 years. The internet lost its mind. "You could not waterboard me into proposing to a man," one commenter wrote. Folks speculated that he didn't really want to marry her, due to his muted reaction in the proposal video. Some called it emasculating. ME. I’m the “some”.
But the real question isn't whether Estella should have gotten down on one knee. It's why, after 14 years and multiple children together, she had to.
Found myself down a rabbit hole. Came across a reddit community called r/WaitingToWed.
Inside r/WaitingToWed: The Subculture of Women Stuck in Relationship Purgatory
The two main archetypes:
The Long-Haulers: "12 years, 3 kids, own a home, how do I get him to propose?"
The Young Hopefuls: "I'm 23, been together 18 months, all my friends are married, how do I get him to propose?”
Both are asking other women how to convince reluctant men to go down the aisle.
We’ve lost the plot friend. But let me not judge. We only need to look at our favorite show on BRAVO for evidence why this insistence on marriage over healthy relationship(s) thing might end in DISASTER.
The Katie Maloney Problem: When You Mistake Endurance for Commitment
You remember this one, don’t you? The highlights
Spent 4 years of Vanderpump Rules begging Tom Schwartz to propose
Schwartz poured beer on Katie's head during a Season 2 fight in Mexico Bravo (he later admitted he apologized "on a weekly basis" for this)
Multiple cheating incidents, including making out with women in Las Vegas BuzzFeed
She spent years watching him dismiss her, insult her, and take other people's sides over hers
She stayed, convinced marriage would transform things
After marrying, she realized: "never been a priority to him" and that the only explanation she could come up with was that he "just didn't like" her.
They divorced after 12 years together
The wedding and subsequent marriage was never going to fix what the relationship fundamentally lacked: respect.
Signs there is no ring coming
So if you’re stuck in relationship limbo, a dead zone where everything looks like marriage except the one thing that legally matters. Sociologists call it liminality: the in-between space where you’re performing the role, carrying the load, paying the price… but without the status, protection, or leverage that comes with the actual institution.
The signs are painfully consistent:
You have the mortgage but not the marriage.
You have the babies but not the legal rights.
You have the shared bank account but not the estate protections.
You have the responsibilities but not the reciprocity.
You’re in permanent betweenness, too committed to walk away, too uncommitted to ever fully relax. And the term "boyfriend"at 35 feels absurd; "partner" feels clinical; and “Fiancée” never arrives.
This isn’t romance friend. It’s a terrible negotiation where one party (YOU) has ZERO leverage.
If You’re in a Committed Relationship and He’s Refusing Marriage: What That Refusal Is Really Telling You
When a man says marriage is "just a piece of paper," what he's really saying is that the legal protections it offers you don't outweigh the inconvenience it poses to him. He wants the mortgage split, the domestic labor, the emotional support system, the children BUT he doesn't want the legal accountability that comes with recognizing your contribution.
Before You Call This Anti-Feminist, Hear Me Out
Look marriage absolutely upholds the patriarchy. It’s not revolutionary, it’s not radical, and it was never designed with women’s liberation in mind. But that doesn’t make it worthless. In the world we live in, not the one we wish we lived in, marriage is still the most reliable legal structure protecting women’s time, labor, children, and futures. So when women want marriage, they’re not yearning for a fairy tale; they’re asking for "alignment between the work they already give and the security they should already have."
But here’s my thing, when does asking become begging? Is it 10 years? Two? Is it the third time you bring it up? Or the twentieth time he shuts it down? After reading reddits from women who don’t even realize they’re apologizing for wanting basic reciprocity, here’s what I’ve learned:
The timeline isn’t the problem. His refusal is. If marriage “changes nothing,” it shouldn’t take a decade, or a fight, or a meltdown. The minute a woman finds herself quoting Beyoncé, “Why don’t you love me… when I make me so damn easy to love?”
She’s no longer asking. She’s bargaining with someone who enjoys the perks of commitment without offering the terms of commitment.
And real talk:
The fuzzy space between asking and begging isn’t about time. It’s about power.
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