I am a 33-year-old woman who is raising a 9-year-old boy on my own. I moved in with my 36-year-old boyfriend 5 months ago. He made it clear to me that we would get married after I moved in. I told him it was very important to me.

Well, since then, he has come up with excuses and is "just not ready" now. He has been divorced for a couple years and has 2 small children, 6, and 7. I have lived with men before and I am now ready to make a commitment to a man and him the same for me. It would make the relationship more solid and trusting to me. I am always wondering why is he afraid? Why doesn`t he want to marry me? I am constantly questioning myself as to why I stay.

After we dated a couple months (1 yr and 5 months now), I asked him if he wanted more children. He told me he didn`t until he met me. Now he says he is getting a vasectomy. I just recently went off the pill and he isn`t that "careful" for someone who definitely doesn`t want more children. I have to be careful for my own sake I understand.

What I`m wondering I guess is if this man will always be afraid of another woman (myself) taking his money whether it`s child support or alimony, house, etc IF we got divorced? I am not comfortable living with him with my child without being married. I know pressuring a man is never going to work, but I should be able to talk about these things without making him uncomfortable.

So, what should I do???? I know I should have never moved in in the first place, but if I move out to make a point, I don`t think my feelings would be the same. I don’t want to be one of those girls I know that wastes years of my life waiting on a man to be ready for what I am.

Dr. Neder answers:

It sounds to me like you`ve pinned everything in the relationship on being married. I believe that is a poor choice! Why aren`t you focusing on the quality of the relationship rather than the format? Believe me, marriage does not make a relationship more "secure", and in fact in many more than 1/2 the cases often does just the opposite. If you already had everything the relationship (and you) could want, and you both were excited about being hitched, I`d say you should go for it. These are obviously not the case in your situation, and to feel you`ve "wasted your life" on something that is not a marriage is unfortunate.

There are many differences between how men and women view marriage. To women, marriage usually means future, family, security and even success. To men, marriage means loss of freedom, loss of choice, responsibility and having a second partner to make every decision. What I find curious is that ANY man wants to be married in the first place!

Here are your options:

1) Decide that the quality of the relationship is what`s important and that you want to make things work with this man in whatever format you both can and will feel comfortable.

2) Try to convince him that he has to marry you either through threats (to leave him for example), "accidentally" getting pregnant (a bad, BAD choice - please don`t do this - get back on the pill, and insist he uses condoms - your children deserve much, MUCH better than this!), or offer some sort of compromise that he will feel comfortable with such as a prenuptial agreement where you split your assets as they rest pre-marriage.

3) Move out and try to find someone with the same goals you have.

As I`ve already mentioned, just getting married for it`s own sake isn`t a good idea, and he obviously feels the same way. If you absolutely have to be married to be happy, I`m sure you can find someone this weekend that will marry you, but is that really what you want? Focus on the quality of the relationship, and only when you have everything you want (and are sure your partner has everything he wants), move on to be married.