Our post titled “Why Won’t He Marry Me?” has received so many comments that it has practically become a forum on this topic.  As women continue to comment on their experiences with men that refuse to tie the knot, we’ve found three main reasons that are continually mentioned regarding why women who strongly want to be married stay with men who refuse to take that step.

Wrapped up in Specifics- Many women who are involved with men who won’t marry them can easily spot when their friend is in a relationship where love will not result in marriage, yet they don’t recognize this in their own relationship. Paying attention to details is an important part of being a woman.  It enables us to put together an outfit of seemingly unrelated colors because we recognize  undertones that make the clothing match rather than clash.  It is also our attention to detail that allows us to recognize that a friend is feeling down despite her smile because that smile does not reach all the way to her eyes like a true smile.

When it comes to relationships though, attention to details can mean that a woman who has waited five years for a marriage proposal will view her situation as vastly different from another woman who has been waiting the same length of time.  Her focus on the specifics of her man dragging his feet on marriage because his parents had an ugly divorce, will often make her feel that this is a very different situation than one involving a man whose excuse is that he’s “just not ready.”  From the outside, we see that excuses are excuses, but from the inside it can be hard to look beyond the details and see the bigger picture.

One True Love- As much as I consider myself to be a romantic, I’m not a big proponent of the notion that everyone has just “one true love” that is out there and meant just for them.  I don’t deny that love is wonderful and is hard to find, but I strongly believe that love only grows into something that is strong enough to last a lifetime through work and compromise from both partners based on shared goals and values.  If you want to be married and the man in your life does not want to get married, then no matter how much love there is, it will not be able to grow into the type of love that will allow your relationship to last a lifetime.

I sympathize with women who are afraid to leave a relationship that is not resulting in the marriage they’d hoped for because they feel that they have met their one true love, but this can be a mental trap that will keep a woman waiting around even once she is sure that this man will never marry her.  When we talk to women who found the strength to leave a man that they loved in search of someone who would love them as well as share their goal of marriage, they are often a little uncertain if they have made the right decision.  It is only the ones who have already found both love and that previously missing compatibility that are one hundred percent certain that leaving was the right decision.  Of course that first step of leaving needs to be taken before that feeling of certainty can ever be reached.

Time Put Into the Relationship- Whether it’s business or a relationship, it is hard to walk away from something that we have poured our time and energy into.  As a business consultant, I often found that people ignore all logic when they have invested large amounts of time and energy into an endeavor.  No matter how clear it was that they were pouring more time and energy into something that was destined to fail, it was hard for them to walk away because of all the time and energy that they had already invested.

It is even more difficult when it comes to relationships, because what we have invested extends to our hearts and souls in addition to our time and energy.  In business the expression “sunk is sunk” sums up a failing situation   that cannot be turned around no matter how many additional resources are thrown at it.  The same is true of relationships. It may seem that we should continue in a relationship because so much of ourselves has already been invested, but putting even more time into a relationship that is sunk will not turn it around.  Just like in business, once you realize that you are in this situation it is better to cut your losses and move forward, while recognizing what you learned during that time and vowing to avoid those mistakes in the future.

So, there are the most common reasons that women who want to get married cite for staying with a man who will not marry them.  On the surface, the situations seem simple and the decision to leave often seems obvious.  When we look at it from the perspective of the women who stay, it may still seem clear what their decision should be, but it is also clear that this decision if far from easy.

What do you think? Why do women stay with men who won’t marry them even if they desperately want to be married?  Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

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