Dear Double Take,
I am a 32-year-old woman living with my 26-year-old boyfriend.
We met in March of 2007 and sparks flew. By the end of the month he professed his love and I was giving him keys to my new townhome. We had two months of bliss.
We were so smitten that when we took our first vacation together in May to Vegas everyone was really worried that we were going to elope.
In June, the bottom fell out of our relationship. My boyfriend was contacted by his ex and she told him that she was carrying his child. She got pregnant right before we met.
This threw us into a downward spiral for months and months. Through all this we stayed together and tried to make our relationship and connection stronger. He asked me to move into his home and I did. We talked about marriage, buying a home and even starting a family.
Now, there has been no proposal. But he bought a ring, though the jeweler called him when it was ready and he still hasn't picked it up.
I told him that I was disappointed that he had not proposed in all this time. I loved him enough to understand the unplanned pregnancy. But I feel he misled me.
I don't believe in ultimatums, but I did tell him I felt he dangled marriage in front of me with no intention of following through. He had a rough childhood and I told him that I would always be in his life and I would always be a person that wouldn't hurt him. But I feel like I'm hurting myself.
I want a happy healthy marriage, I want a family, and if he was not in the position to give that commitment to me then he shouldn't have told me all these things. Please offer your advice.

BETTY SAYS:

Take a deep breath, take a step back and look at your relationship with a critical eye.

You and your boyfriend were blindsided by an unplanned pregnancy outside of the relationship. He probably didn't have the stamina to take on fatherhood as well as a new wife -- a woman who's not the mother of his child, no less -- within six months.

I'd say you have a foolproof opportunity to test your boyfriend on whether or not he's committed -- pay close attention to how well he's taken parental responsibility of his child.

Give yourself a month or two to see how well he handles life with the new baby. If he's doing a great job, you may want to facilitate the marriage talk again. On the other hand, if he's struggling with the added responsibilities and your hoped-for engagement seems like a long shot, go with your gut, draw that line in the sand, and cross it.

EDDIE SAYS:

What's wrong with giving an ultimatum? If you know you need something from a relationship, the best thing to do, in fact, is say, "It's this or I have to leave."

The trick, of course, is knowing when you've reached that point. You sound highly stressed about this, so you may have reached that limit.

But I wouldn't let the pregnancy be much of a factor. You can decide that you don't want to be in that situation, and that's fine. But there is no fair way to say "I loved you when things were tricky, so you owe me marriage." That's just not how it works.

Maybe you made a promise about being together forever. So does every couple. But that always means, "Unless we break up over something."

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Do you need a second -- and third -- opinion about a problem in your life? Ask Double Take and you'll get two points of view: one from Eddie, a married family man in his early 30s, and one from Betty, a single woman in her 20s.

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Double Take writers are not trained psychologists and their responses should not be taken as a substitute for professional advice. Double Take reserves the right to edit submissions.

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