TIFU by misunderstanding my girlfriend’s attempt at a compromise.

So this started a few months ago, but came to a head last night.

When my girlfriend [F28] and I [M30] first started dating, I was just coming out of a marriage. As in I had just moved back in with my dad a few weeks prior. Yes, it’s fast, but honestly neither of us were looking for anything serious. I wanted to date around and she was just entering the dating scene after being a single mom for 2 years. We just kinda fell into it and went along for the ride.

At the time, though, I told her that I do want to remarry at some point, but not for a few years. Part of that is because my ex and I can’t legally be divorced until we’ve been separated for a year, which will be June 2023. She said she understood.

Fast forward. Like I said, we fell into a serious relationship and are really happy together. I love her son and I genuinely do want to marry her. But I still don’t want to remarry for a few more years.

Something I forgot to mention is my girlfriend has a whole host of abandonment issues. It’s something she made me aware of early on. Her father walked out of her life when she was a baby, her mom was/is emotionally absent, she’s been SA’d and abused in just about every way possible by partners, and her most recent ex decided to pull a stunt while she was pregnant and lie about his job permanence (which, if she hadn’t found out when she did, would’ve left all three of them homeless when she would’ve been only a few weeks postpartum in a country where you get 1 year of mat leave but need to give 4 weeks’ notice of your return and daycare for even a 1 year old is nearly impossible to find, let alone a 2 month old). So she left him on her son’s due date, and sadly found out the hard way that her ex isn’t much better than her own father was (her son doesn’t even know the word “dad”, and calls him “Cuja” as in “could ya put that up please” because he thinks that’s his name). So basically, she needs a lot of reassurance that I’m not going anywhere, that I still love her, that she can trust me and talk to me, etc. This is fine. She’s working on it, but it’s not so bad.

A few months ago, fairly out of the blue, she asked me what my thoughts were on promise rings. Without much thought into why she might be asking, I said they’re not my thing. Immediately there was a shift in her mood. I eventually got it out of her that she does like them and would’ve wanted one since I wasn’t planning to propose for a few more years, but now that she’s had to explicitly tell me that it wouldn’t mean the same because she’d feel like I was doing it just because she got upset about it.

Last month, we found out she was pregnant. We were ecstatic. We want a baby, but I didn’t think I could have one without going off of some meds. But in a heartbreaking turn of events we were unable to keep it because it would have caused custody issues with her ex. He doesn’t even know about me and is known to have possessive tendencies over her (doing whatever he needs to to get her back), so finding out about me, having me move in, and us having a baby all at once would have triggered a huge custody battle. So we made the impossible decision to terminate last week and try again next year, now that we know it’s possible.

This whole thing has broken her heart, but I told her I felt we were closer and stronger after having gone through this together. She said she felt the same.

Plot twist: when she said she felt the same, apparently for her that means she’s more sure about me and more ready to start life together. She thought I meant it that way too. So when her friend told her she got engaged, she asked when it would be her turn. I told her not for a few years, like we talked about.

Last night when I went over, I could tell something was wrong. She told me the part I just mentioned about being more ready and thinking I was too, but then she realized I was just okay with staying at the same place longer. She said she never intended for me to propose next week or for us to be married right away after my divorce is final, she just wanted a compromise. I asked what I should say next time to avoid upsetting her, but she said she just wouldn’t bring it up again. I thought she just didn’t understand my feelings surrounding marriage and tried to explain. She said she understood just fine but if there was no room for compromise she didn’t want to pressure me to do something I didn’t want to so she just wouldn’t bring it up again. I got upset thinking she was just being moody about it. I told her we were planning to move in together and have another baby and go on vacation, and she broke down saying those are just words now and don’t really help. That everyone’s always made her promises but never followed through, so words don’t mean anything to her without steps.

After some back and forth, it clicked. SHE wasn’t the one who was misunderstanding ME. I was misunderstanding HER. She wasn’t pushing me to get married sooner. She just wanted something concrete. A promise that wasn’t “just words”. Steps.

Then I thought back to the promise ring conversation…and realized THAT was her attempt at a compromise. And I ruthlessly shut it down in 5 words without even thinking about why she might be asking.

This was confirmed a few minutes later when she said, “that’s why I asked about promise rings that one time. I thought it was a compromise. I could have the promise and you could avoid feeling like you were jumping from one marriage to another without a break.”

Fuck, I’m stupid.

TL;DR: TIFU by misunderstanding my girlfriend’s attempt at a compromise to no engagement for 3+ years and denying her the opportunity to have a concrete and physical promise that she needed to feel secure.