Woman Setting Deadline for Boyfriend to Propose After 18 Months Together Sparks Debate

A woman has courted controversy after revealing she's setting a deadline for her boyfriend of 18 months to pop the question.

While many things surrounding the concept of the marriage proposal have evolved down the years, one thing that remains surprisingly resistant to change is the notion that, in heterosexual relationships, a man should be the one getting down on one knee.

It's a situation that has led one woman to hit on an unusual course of action in order to get her boyfriend to propose. Writing in a post shared to Mumsnet, the would-be bride explained that they have been together for a year-and-a-half and are "extremely happy."

"We've discussed our future a lot and both agree that marriage is important to us and something we want in our future," she wrote. According to the post, they are both in their 30s and both "spent years" in bad long-term relationships before they met. As a result, she's in no mood to wait around for him to propose.

"I'm now at the stage where I don't want to waste any more time and would like full commitment and to settle down," she wrote. But rather than break from tradition and ask him herself, the woman is planning on setting "a deadline" for her boyfriend to propose.

"I'm of the view that 2 years together should be more than enough time to judge whether or not you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody and personally I'm not keen on waiting much longer than that for a proposal," she said.

She is now eager to discuss "timescales and expectations" with her partner, but others online are urging her to take a more direct course of action. AlexaShutUp asked: "Why do you have to wait for him to do it? Rather than giving him a deadline, just ask him?"

Responding to this comment, the woman explained that her partner would have to be the one to "initiate any proposal" because they both have "very traditional backgrounds and values."

ThePoint678 nevertheless urged the woman to "talk to him" rather than move forward with her plan. "I think that your 2 year deadline and the expectation that he must conform to that arbitrary deadline is unreasonable," they warned.

Justmuddlingalong didn't buy her excuse either. "Blaming a traditional background to explain waiting for a man to propose is a cop out," they said. "Just have a grown up conversation."

Jacks11 urged the woman to "take the initiative," warning that any proposal from her boyfriend in these kinds of circumstances would likely come off as forced and disingenuous. "If you are holding out for a romantic proposal, are you willing to wait? Because if you have to instruct him to propose, I'm not sure it'll be terribly romantic or a surprise," they said.

Retisestress, meanwhile, commented: "If you really want to get married then you propose to your partner....I am in my 50s and am surprised that women nowadays are still so traditional!"

According to Bradford Wilcox, a professor of sociology and director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, it continues to be the norm for men to propose to women due to the symbolism of the act itself.

"A man asking a woman to wed is a ritual that's very powerful...having him ask for her hand in marriage is a way of signaling to her, and his friends and family, that he's serious and ready for a future with her," Wilcox told The List. "Her fear might be that if she asks and he says yes, he's just going along to get along...getting that formal proposal from him is one way of addressing that concern," Wilcox says.

Public marriage proposals can be decidedly hit and miss affairs. For every video like this one of a man popping the question to his high school sweetheart, there is another, like this nightmarish scene that played out in a nightclub.