Its been 4 years dating my boyfriend.?
The thing that raises a red flag to me is he got mad because you asked a reasonable question? Maybe if you have been asking this question and pushing repeatedly for marriage I could understand the reaction. No one likes to feel forced. The way you phrase your question though it seems you have waited 4 years and now you raised the question for the first time. And his response was to get mad? Where are the adult words here where one calmly explains where they are at and what they are willing to offer? Personally I date adults not toddlers who get upset at the first thing they dislike. This is not good husband material, my question to you is do you really want to marry a person who struggles to answer reasonable questions without getting mad? (Pethaps I've misinterpreted the situation as I wasn't there). The other answers have also hit the nail on the head here. He does not want marriage. You do. You need to decided if this is a deal breaker for you or are you willing to accept the situation as is? I say as is because hoping he might change his mind is wishful thinking. You don't know this will happen. What you do know is after 4 years together (which is a long time) he has said no. That is the reality here. If he isn't ready now, then he probably won't be ready later. If marriage is what you want and it is highly important to you then yeah you are going to have to leave. This desire won't be fulfilled in this relationship. Now the lesson that can be learnt here? For any future relationships don't wait until 4 years to have the marriage conversation. This is something to be spoken about early within the relationship, definately the first year. Myself it came up on our second date (mind you we had been communicating for a couple of months at that point). You want to know if the other person you are dating has the same values as you and does at some point after a reasonable amount of time see themselves getting married. Anything from a no to I'm not sure, dealbreaker right there and you have only wasted a few months of your time instead of years. There is no point pursuing a relationship if you have a significant missmatch in values, even if you like the person. You won't like the compromise which over time turns to resentment towards your partner. And for what it's worth, in my previous relationship (was about seven years) I new in my gut no marriage was not an option. I felt this early on. There was too much turmoil and there were issues and a lot needed to change. I held on thinking I'll feel ready one day, just not now. Eventually I wisened up that things were not going to improve and moved on. My current relationship, we both know we wanted to get married within the first year together. We haven't as we both think it's a good idea to have lived together for at least a year first. We are regularly talking about marriage, kids, parenting, budgeting, housing, living arrangments, etc. We know we share similar values because we communicate them. There is no waiting 4 years and hoping it will all work out. For you, if he doesn't know after 4 years, just doesn't feel ready yet, feels things aren't in place yet, then it's a no.