5 year relationship, he [34m] has had a ring for over a year and has still not proposed to me [32f]

We've been together 5 and a half years and have lived together since about 8 months into the relationship. Currently, we live in a house together that his family owns. (He is in the process of getting the title put in his name; I’ve stated that i will not be on any joint documentation or contribute towards the mortgage if we are not married.)

I've tried to have conversations about how I feel regarding marriage and he seems to be on the same page; that we both want to get married and have a successful marriage, and that it's a life goal we both have. We started having this discussion after our 2 year anniversary. However, he doesn't ever talk about his desire to marry me or bring it up unless I bring it up first. He just says that he has a plan and a timeline/date in his head and I don't need to know about it, but this has been his default answer for the past 3.5 YEARS.

We got into an argument this past October where i told him explicitly that I would not wait forever for him to propose and I needed to know where he stood. He told me that he “had a plan” to take me golfing with him and our friend group and he was going to ask me on the course.

The issue here is that golfing is his hobby, not mine. This is a hobby that he picked up in the last year and a half or so. The plan never came to fruition because he invited me to go golfing with his good friend and his friend’s wife, who he knows I severely dislike and don’t want to be around her, so I would turn down the invite every time.

I was pretty much dumbfounded to find that the “plan” that I’ve been waiting on for 2 years was what seems to me, HIS ideal proposal and nothing considerate of what I would like or prefer. It doesn’t make sense to me because he’s not been golfing for very long and he’s “had a plan” for longer than he’s been involved with golf, but that was his “big plan” I’ve been waiting years on. I told him that there have been so many opportunities that I thought for sure he would propose at, like when we went to see our favorite band in 2023. When he didn’t propose then, i thought for sure that he would ask when we saw them again this past September, but he didn’t. I thought maybe he didn’t have a ring yet.

He told me that he would ask me before the end of this year. I find that hard to believe because I’ve specifically asked to not be proposed to during the winter holidays and would prefer a Valentine’s Day proposal or something in the summer months.

I found the ring when I was cleaning a few weeks ago. I found the box and invoice it came in inside of our closet and he has had it since the beginning of last year. I found the actual ring and ring box in a grocery bag shoved under our bed.

I just keep thinking to myself that if it were me, I would not be able to wait on asking my partner to get married because I would be so excited. I would have proposed in September when we saw our favorite band. Instead, I got to see other couples get engaged there instead of me. I get to stand by while every single one of our friends in our friend group have dated for a lesser amount of time than us, gotten engaged, gotten married, started families already, and I’m still just his fucking girlfriend.

I don’t feel like he’s excited or that he has really thought about or wants to put any effort into a proposal. I’m to the point where I’m done waiting.

I have no desire to have children but I don’t want to stick around and wait for him any longer. I don’t want to feel like he proposed because we’ve been together for so long, but because he wants to marry me.

I debate so heavily on leaving because of this but I have no options on a place to live. I have no living family and all of our friends except for one are married. I have a great job and no debt, but even still, I cannot afford the current rent prices where I live by myself. I have one male friend that I could stay with but I don’t know what to do past that since I can’t stay there forever.

I’m scared of trying to even think about trying to date again in the future because I don’t want to be in this situation ever again.

I don’t want to stay with him just to be able to afford to live but that’s the situation I feel like I’m in. Even if he proposed tomorrow, I will still always feel like he put it off until the last second and that I was an option and not a choice.

This was mostly a rant on a throwaway account but if there’s any advice you could provide, it would be much appreciated.

tl;dr:

We’ve been together 5.5 years and living together almost the entire time. I’ve made it clear for years that marriage is important to me, but he keeps saying he has a “plan and timeline” and never follows through. He told me his “plan” and it seems self centered and inconsiderate. I recently found out he’s had a ring for over a year, yet still hasn’t proposed and doesn’t seem excited or thoughtful about it. Watching everyone else move forward has made me feel like an option instead of a choice. I’m emotionally done waiting, but feel stuck because I can’t afford rent on my own. Even if he proposed now, I think I’d always feel like he waited until the last possible moment and did it out of obligation, not desire.