‘I want to be married, but my boyfriend seems to have no interest.’ Many have found themselves in this predicament. What do you do when you have a man you love that seems unwilling to take the relationship to the next level? Are you expected to remain a girlfriend forever? It would be nice to know if he sees himself becoming your husband in the future or not.

It’s hard not to become discouraged when everything is so confusing. If you believe that you and he are meant to be married, you need to hang in there. So how do you move forward from girlfriend to wife and the happy ever after life you want?

If your major focus has been on how much you want to be married, your boyfriend has probably been feeling very pressured by it all. Most likely you are feeling somewhat bitter and resentful at his lack of commitment. If you think he doesn’t feel the resentment you are kidding yourself. It may even be preventing him from asking! Let’s face it, nobody likes the feeling they are being forced to do something.

So the very first thing you need to do is stop pressuring him. You might say, ‘but I want to be married so bad!’ If you decide not to let up you could be throwing away any chance you have of marrying him. Trash the bridal magazines and get rid of anything to do with planning a wedding. Find something else to talk about over dinner and just relax. This is absolutely necessary if you want him to even think about wanting to commit. I’m not kidding.

If you have been taking on the responsibilities of a life partner, you need to slowly back away from that. When you make yourself accessible to his needs and whims he has nothing else to work for. Step back into the role of girlfriend and be an awesome girlfriend. What I mean by ‘step back’ is start doing more on your own. Hang with your girlfriends, work out at the gym, or find a hobby. When you pull back a little it will give him an idea of what it’s like not to have you around as much.

Chances are that once you stop pushing the whole lifetime commitment thing on your guy, he will have time to actually think about it. Men are kind of like a traffic light, they won’t move forward until the light is green. If they feel pressured to do something, the light will be firmly stuck on red. Give him some time and you just might be hearing him say, ‘I think I want to be married.’