I sometimes hear from women who have put a lot of time, love, and effort into the relationship with the man who they love. Often, when the relationship started, they had assumed that by this time, they would have been engaged or married. So, when these assumptions don't actually become a reality, they question their boyfriend and ask when the engagement might come. In response, they are often asked "to be patient." The woman often has no idea what this phrase means when in her mind she has already been patient and his pleas are starting to sound as if he's attempting to stall or if he has no real intention of making a commitment.
Common comments are things like: "I have been dating my boyfriend for over three years. When we first met, he was pretty clear on the fact that he wanted to finish college and start his career before he made any commitment. I understood that and this didn't deter me from getting into a serious relationship with him because I love him. Well, he graduated last year, but because of the economy, he hasn't yet been able to land the job that he wants. He has a job, but he isn't making much money. I was expecting an engagement ring this Christmas, but I didn't get one. I got a nice pair of diamond earrings but there is no commitment behind them. I could not hide my disappointment. I told him that I thought that we agreed we would get engaged once he graduated and got a job. He said he hadn't yet got the job that he wanted so he didn't feel financially ready. He asked me to please be patient with him. He says that once he is financially secure, I will get my commitment. Our relationship is good otherwise, but I think that our definition of financially secure is different. I don't need to be rich to want to be married to him. I don't care if we aren't well off. I just want to be with him and I don't understand why he doesn't feel the same way. It is starting to sound like an excuse. I have other men ask me out all of the time. Should I be patient with him? Or should I say enough is enough?"
Unfortunately, this is not a decision that I can make for anyone. Only this woman herself could decide if she still wanted to try to be patient or if she wanted to consider the offers from other men and declare that she was fresh out of patience. But what I could do was try to offer some insight and perspective on this situation which might make the ultimate choice a little more clear. I will attempt to do that below.
Ask Yourself If The Commitment Is The Only Conflict Within Your Relationship: It's very important that you take a very honest look at the relationship. Because you need to determine if his reluctance is due to what he claims or if it is something else. Because frankly, this woman couldn't control her boyfriend's job situation. Yes, she could support him with his job search, but the actual income he earned was out of her hands. So, it made sense to take inventory and to see if there was something else within the relationship that might be causing hesitation within him. If so, then she needed to control what she could and remove that obstacle. If not, then what she was really dealing with was a healthy and fulfilling relationship except for his reluctance to commit.
So her decision really came down to whether the relationship was worth the frustration that commitment issue was causing. And, she had to ask herself if she felt that he was sincere about being willing to commit once he obtained a better job. Because frankly, that could happen in the near future. And it was be sad if a brighter financial picture (and a commitment) was right around the corner but she ran out of patience before this could happen.
The Alternative To Not Having Patience: I think that it often comes down to how much the relationship means to you. If this is the only man who you want to be with and no other suitors even interest you, then you have to ask yourself if you are willing to walk away from this relationship that might not ever come again in order to declare that you are out of patience. I think that perhaps there is a better alternative to this.
You might ask your boyfriend how much income he would need to secure in order to feel comfortable moving forward with the engagement. That way, there is no longer any mystery about what needs to happen in order for you to move forward. And then you will have the information that you need to make an informed decision. But to answer the question posed, this relationship appeared to be sound and healthy. And the boyfriend seemed to be sincere. I couldn't make this decision about whether patience was the answer. But if it were me, I would ask the boyfriend to be more specific about his desired earnings and, once I had that information, I would probably be willing to have a little more patience.
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