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" Writes Save the Date reader Taylor: My boyfriend and I have been together for four years. We&amp;#x27;ve lived together for three years. And I&amp;#x27;ve been ready to get engaged for the past two years, which my boyfriend definitely knows. We talk theoretically about &amp;quot;when we&amp;#x27;re married&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;our kids,&amp;quot; but he refuses to pull the trigger. If I mention that I&amp;#x27;m disappointed we&amp;#x27;re not engaged yet, he&amp;#x27;ll say, &amp;quot;I was JUST about to propose, but now you&amp;#x27;ve ruined it&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;I was planning to propose in three weeks, but now I can&amp;#x27;t.&amp;quot; This has happened several times. Meanwhile, as I mentioned, we live together, so I have a pretty good idea of his financial situation, and from what I can tell, he&amp;#x27;s not saving up for ring or a wedding. In fact, he&amp;#x27;s spending TONS of money on everything but. He&amp;#x27;s recently purchased a new dirt bike, a four-wheeler, AND a snowmobile; he had to take out a loan to finance the snowmobile. While he&amp;#x27;s enjoying his new &amp;quot;toys,&amp;quot; I&amp;#x27;m terrified that I won&amp;#x27;t be able to have children by the time he does propose. I&amp;#x27;m only 25 now, but several women in my family have had ovarian problems in their early 30s. I know I will resent him if I can&amp;#x27;t have kids. So should I give my boyfriend an ultimatum? Move out to remind him how much he needs me? If I bring up engagement, it only makes things worse, but I&amp;#x27;m pretty sure he has no idea that I wonder EVERY day why my friends are special enough to get engaged, but I&amp;#x27;m not. Help! Here are my thoughts: Ugh, lines like &amp;quot;I was JUST about to propose, but now you&amp;#x27;ve ruined it&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;I was planning to propose in three weeks, but now I can&amp;#x27;t&amp;quot; reek of manipulation and insincerity. Not only is he not proposing (which he KNOWS you want, no matter how flaky he is, trust me), he&amp;#x27;s blaming it on you, which is cruel. He&amp;#x27;s also being completely financially irresponsible, which makes me question his maturity. I mean, he should be allowed to buy things without consulting you every time, but major purchases&amp;amp;#8212;especially those that involve taking out a loan&amp;amp;#8212;should involve some discussion with your partner beforehand. If my husband came home with a &amp;quot;surprise!&amp;quot; canoe or planned a super-spendy vacation behind my back, I&amp;#x27;d be pissed. Regardless of your boyfriend&amp;#x27;s behavior, I think the first thing I think you should do is pay a visit to your ob-gyn. If you&amp;#x27;re going to have problems getting pregnant down the line, you&amp;#x27;d be smart to find out now in case there are preventive measures you can take. And if you&amp;#x27;ve won the genetic lottery and your ovaries are A-OK, at least you won&amp;#x27;t have to fret about them on top of everything else. Having peace of mind (or a plan of attack) will make it easier to deal with your guy drama. So back to him: I don&amp;#x27;t normally recommend the ultimatum route, but I think this guy needs a reality check. I&amp;#x27;d cook (or, fine, call in) a nice dinner that you can enjoy with the TV off and say, &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;m sorry I&amp;#x27;ve been bugging you about proposing. I never wanted to be the nagging girlfriend, but I feel like that&amp;#x27;s what I&amp;#x27;ve become. You&amp;#x27;re important to me, of course, but what&amp;#x27;s more important in the big picture, for me, is being with someone who wants to marry me and have kids with me, and I&amp;#x27;m starting to feel like that&amp;#x27;s not your priority, which is fine. I don&amp;#x27;t want to pressure you into anything. However, if we&amp;#x27;re not engaged in six months, to me that&amp;#x27;s going to mean that our priorities are different, and I&amp;#x27;m going to move out. Again, I&amp;#x27;m not saying this to pressure you, I just want to make sure we both end up with what we want so we don&amp;#x27;t end up resenting each other.&amp;quot; Obviously this is a lot to spit out, but I think it&amp;#x27;s important that you&amp;#x27;re incredibly clear, so try to speak slowly and keep your voice down&amp;amp;#8212;no matter how much you want to scream and slam something. After your little speech, I think you need to honor your end of the bargain and NOT mention marriage or rings until the six-month mark. And I also think you need to pack your bags if he doesn&amp;#x27;t propose. If you stick around past your self-imposed deadline, he&amp;#x27;s just going to treat you like more of a doormat. Ladies, what do you think? Should Taylor give her guy an ultimatum? Or should she be patient? Have a wedding-y dilemma of your own? Email me! Photo: Thinkstock."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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