I have been together with my girlfriend for coming to 2
years.
My profile:
Well to do family background (Father earning quite a fair bit),
overseas educated for 5 years, lives in landed property in prime
area almost all my life.
Context:
One day, she told me that she wanted to get a ring for 10k+. I was
thinking about this and decided to consult my parents.
Problems:
1) My parents think that I am too young to think about getting
married. (ps: I am 29 this year and she is 25) as they think that i
need to get to know the woman better before making a commitment and
that i am not mature enough.
But i personally feel that she is "the one" for me. and they use
the arguement that my brother knew his wife for 8 years before
proposal and getting married (prior to that he knew another girl
for 5 years before breaking off) and that my sister (who is one
year younger than my girlfriend) knew her boyfriend for 4 years and
is nowhere close to marriage. But we do not have the luxury of time
that we both met each other so late in our lives. (If we met when i
was 22 and she was 18, things would have turned out very
differently)
She too doesn't want to get married too late as she feels that if
she gets married at 28, she will be 50 when our children is 20.
(assuming she gives birth at 30) and she will be too old to enjoy
the time together with our kids. (doesn't help that our relatives
have children who only get married only after dating more than 7
years)
2) The ring. Even though i know the ring will cost 10k, It is going
to be my money which i have earned thru working through the years
and i won't be touching a single cent of theirs, but yet they feel
that i should not get the ring because they feel that engagement
ring should be something cheap because its supposed to be the
gesture that counts and the wedding ring should be something
expensive.
-(Btw my girlfriend thinks that my parents are not reasonable as
they do not want to part with 10k, which is not even their money to
begin with, even though they can afford it)
(btw2: I asked my mum again this time with a figure of
5k for the ring, and she even said that this sum was
unreasonable)
(my mum used the example where she spent 30k of her own money on my
brother's wife's wedding ring when they got the engagement ring for
1k plus) but my girlfriend has said that she will not be
requiring
-Honeymoon
-Banquet
-Wedding ring (her mum will be giving it to her)
and all that she wants is a nice engagement ring as she feels that
the engagement ring is more important than the wedding ring.
3) Me and my girlfriend got into a very heated arguement over the
ring, and i listened to some bad advice from my best friend's wife
and went to close a joint account. My girlfriend was very angry but
has since forgiven me for this. But my parents know about this and
might use this against me.
Solutions:
How do i
1) get out of this situation a winner?
2) shed my image that my mum has of me that i am forever a
teenager?
3) not lose my girlfriend? (she has said that she WILL leave me if
i don't get this resolved, she feels that if my parents are so
controlling now, she doesn't know what they will feel about her in
the future.)
Godot,
Facts :
1) Note : your family is rich , not you !!! earn your own
money !!!
2) For a gf to ask for 10k engagment ring, kind of make you
wonder in future what she will ask for ? - dump her
fast, materialist and unrealist for a wife is no no !!!
3) my girlfriend thinks that my parents are not reasonable as they
do not want to part with 10k - hello , on one hand you say
you got your own 10k , later both of you like expect your parents
to remburse you all 10 k ? Not your money !!! got money
also not to waste like that !!!
4) she feels that if my parents are so controlling now ? maybe you
should grow up and stop expecting your parent for money, then they
treat you as a grown up !!!
Grown up and get another gf !!!
