TIFU by not keeping my mouth shut.

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I (35M) have been dating my gf (34F) for 3ish years. Absolutely love her.

We’ve been talking about finally ‘growing up’, and after three years together - we’re pooling our life’s savings and buying a little house, getting a pup etc .

A while back I also decided to propose to her. I’ve been planning an engagement surprise for the last two months. A casual surprise trip, ring, hidden photographer for the candid moment - all the things.

A few days ago, she tells me she’s pregnant. Totally unplanned. My mind is blown. Stunned. I’m excited - we celebrate - and panic a little ( what now??- we’re totally unprepared!)

That night, thoughts are flying at a million miles an hour:

• “can I even be a dad??”
• “what’s the next step- do I need to prepare things??”
• “can we raise a baby in the city?”
• “can we find a bigger place in time?”
• “what does this mean for the proposal? with PTO allowance that’s a few months away still!”
• “can I even afford this proposal anymore?”
• “how important are rings?”
• “should I put the house plans on hold?”
• “will we get married before the baby? That doesn’t seem likely.”
• “What do we tell her catholic parents?” Etc

So in my paranoia I venture down an internet rabbithole trying to see how things might work out - end up googling everything from ‘moissanite rings’ (maybe a cheaper ‘symbolic’ one now and diamond in the future?) to ‘rush city hall wedding dates’ (maybe we do the wedding ahead of time).. each search more ill conceived than the next.

Among the worst - “does eloping also count as a honeymoon ”, “will she notice if I swap the rings out later?”- and - “can I pretend to be married and do it for real, secretly, later?”.. just… no.

Next day, groggily awake, chatting in bed she asks me how I’m feeling. And again, million thoughts woosh past- no words. for aaages.

She snaps me out of it and I blurt out:

“we should get married. Let’s do it. Fuck it.”

¯_(ツ)_/¯

She’s getting emotional looking at me and I’m just lying in bed realising what I’ve just done and I get crazy nervous. (I don’t even have the ring yet, to follow up whatever that was) so In my nervous state I ramble. I regurgitate the whole rabbithole I wentthrough the night before.

From asking her how she felt about fake diamonds (Oof) to showing her a website on my phone and comparing pricing plans (that’s the page it opened on and I was running out of ramble material)- and asking if she really wanted that dream wedding - or if she’s cool with rushing it (oh boy) all the way to the grand finale, as she looks at me tearie eyed, I panicked a deflection to ‘humour’ with a very tenuous anal sex joke (at this point I’m having an out of body experience)

She cries. Obviously. This isn’t how she thought this moment would go…(between price haggling and butt sex jokes) - but I just can’t stop talking trying to ‘make it better’- so I tell her the original plan - which makes it worse- (here’s what it should have been- but now can’t be, because I’ve just ruined the surprise)

So now she’s totally dejected. This is it- this is how she got proposed to - in bed in a nervous ramble about moissanite and plans that could have been.

in two weeks we’re telling her catholic parents that her unmarried (engaged?) daughter is pregnant- so I need to find a ring and a new, non-atrocious way of putting a ring on her finger. If she’s speaking to me by then. Inauspicious start to the whole thing

TLDR: gf tells me she’s pregnant and, in panic, I ruin her engagement surprise by blurting it out, with no ring, no romance and worst of all extolling the benefits of fake jewellery and shotgun weddings