How do you ask your long-time partner if they see marriage in your future, without sounding like you’re issuing an ultimatum?
August 1, 2025
How do you ask your long-time partner if they see marriage in your future, without sounding like you’re issuing an ultimatum?
7 comments
Personally, I think asking it exactly like that is fine. I wouldn’t think of that as an ultimatum.
“How are you feeling about our relationship so far? What are your long term goals for yourself, and for us? What sort of timeline do you envision for us?”
None of that is an ultimatum, it’s a responsible relationship conversation
Well first off, do you actually want to marry this person? Then the conversation should come naturally between the two of you.
Like you both see this going in the direction of marriage. Especially if its a long term relationship this kind of conversation should be easy. If its not easy… Well that might be an indication of a problem right there. So you might want to mentally prepare yourself if the conversation goes either way. If they don’t want to get married, you probably wanna break off with them because you’re wasting your time otherwise. So mentally prepare yourself for an answer you might not want.
Sit down with them and say “hey where do you see this going?” kind of thing… See what their response is, and you can say you do want to get married, to them.
Having a conversation about marriage to a long term partner should be easy, should come naturally, and absolutely is not an ultimatum… If is difficult to have that kind of conversation, frankly, this probably aint it.
Why do you have a long term partner if it’s not clear that your goal is marriage? That’s something I discuss before getting into a longterm relationship / the purpose of a longterm relationship.
You tell them your perspective on marriage, in general, for yourself. Then you ask for theirs. It would be a cold partnership if that did not lead to some kind of discussion about joint goals.
I would ask something like “where do you see our relationship going? Like where do you see us in a year or five?” If they ask what you mean just ask “do you see us together? married? Married with kids? Because every time I think about it I see us engaged in x time, married in x time and trying for kids in x time. I feel kind of silly making all these plans for us in my head without knowing what you are planning or see us doing”
I feel like this is the kind of conversation you have before it is a long-term partner. For me, this would be the kind of information I would fish out around date 3-5. But I want kids, and I’m not shy about that.
I think if I were in a long-term relationship and I wanted to nudge them, I would make jokes about it. Like doing “reps” with my ring finger on my left hand and saying something like
“102…. 103…. say, I think i am ready to put weights on this thing already, what do you think?”
7 comments
Personally, I think asking it exactly like that is fine. I wouldn’t think of that as an ultimatum.
“How are you feeling about our relationship so far? What are your long term goals for yourself, and for us? What sort of timeline do you envision for us?”
None of that is an ultimatum, it’s a responsible relationship conversation
Well first off, do you actually want to marry this person? Then the conversation should come naturally between the two of you.
Like you both see this going in the direction of marriage. Especially if its a long term relationship this kind of conversation should be easy. If its not easy… Well that might be an indication of a problem right there. So you might want to mentally prepare yourself if the conversation goes either way. If they don’t want to get married, you probably wanna break off with them because you’re wasting your time otherwise. So mentally prepare yourself for an answer you might not want.
Sit down with them and say “hey where do you see this going?” kind of thing… See what their response is, and you can say you do want to get married, to them.
Having a conversation about marriage to a long term partner should be easy, should come naturally, and absolutely is not an ultimatum… If is difficult to have that kind of conversation, frankly, this probably aint it.
Why do you have a long term partner if it’s not clear that your goal is marriage? That’s something I discuss before getting into a longterm relationship / the purpose of a longterm relationship.
You tell them your perspective on marriage, in general, for yourself. Then you ask for theirs. It would be a cold partnership if that did not lead to some kind of discussion about joint goals.
I would ask something like “where do you see our relationship going? Like where do you see us in a year or five?” If they ask what you mean just ask “do you see us together? married? Married with kids? Because every time I think about it I see us engaged in x time, married in x time and trying for kids in x time. I feel kind of silly making all these plans for us in my head without knowing what you are planning or see us doing”
I feel like this is the kind of conversation you have before it is a long-term partner. For me, this would be the kind of information I would fish out around date 3-5. But I want kids, and I’m not shy about that.
I think if I were in a long-term relationship and I wanted to nudge them, I would make jokes about it. Like doing “reps” with my ring finger on my left hand and saying something like
“102…. 103…. say, I think i am ready to put weights on this thing already, what do you think?”