Ask Mr. X: “I’ve been dating my boyfriend for more than 6 years and I’m still not ready for marriage…our relationship is suffering. What do I do?”

“I’ve been dating my boyfriend for more than 6 years and I’m still not ready for marriage. It breaks my heart to tell him that I still need more time since he’s eager and ready since a while. Although I’ve communicated to him several times that my decision is regarding marriage in general, I know that he feels that I don’t want to marry him. At this point our relationship is suffering and we’re both hurting. What should I do?”

Six years is a long time. I think it’s important you ask yourself why you don’t feel ready to marry him at this point. Is it that you feel like the institution of marriage just isn’t for you? Nothing wrong with that – even a Pakistani Nobel laureate seems to have trouble understanding the concept. Or does it have something to do with how you really feel about your significant other? Taking some space to figure out what the root of your feelings are, may do both you and your relationship some good.

I think it’s totally fair for you to assume how he’s feeling and if Mr X was in his place, he would be feeling pretty much the same. That feeling can take a toll on him and consequently, the relationship. You don’t really want that feeling to fester too long – it may decide to stay and you may end up losing him. Open and honest communication is the key to most of our issues and I feel it’s the same here. Tell him how you really feel and give him the space to process it – hopefully he will understand.

My advice would be to take a few days off from all your worldly chores and really dig deep into why you’re so hesitant about taking your relationship to the next level. Is it him, is it you or is it just the relationship? I wish I could answer this for you but you’ll have to do the hard work yourself and figure it out. I do hope it works though.

Godspeed,

Mr X