The proposal is supposed to be one of the high points of a person's life. But what happens when it goes wrong?
She Lost The Most Important Thing, And That’s When She Finally Realized What Kind Of Man He Was
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“My friend’s parents met at a bar down the shore. Her dad was crazy about her mom, but it was unrequited. She slept with him anyway, just a one night stand, and ignored him after that until she found out she was pregnant.
He was over the moon and she was intent on having the baby. He tried to be with her, but she consistently refused him. Proposed to her several times, ending in eye rolls and exasperated ‘no’s’ from her each time.
After 9 months, she went into labor and let him come with her into the delivery room. Just her and this guy who had been begging her to marry him. A few hours into labor, the doctors started to notice something was wrong; the baby’s heartbeat was slowing rapidly.
The mother started to panic, but the father stayed calm. He stayed with her and communicated information from the doctors, but there was little anyone could do. She delivered a stillborn.
After everything happened, my friend’s mom realized she had found her soulmate. They finally got together and are still married to this day.”
A Game Of Chicken — With Marriage On The Line
“We had been together on and off for five years.
She kept coming back and telling me she couldn’t live without me, then get sick of it all and drop me for a few months at a time.
(And make no mistake, I was a no-esteem whiner back then).
She knew I am the marrying type, but she could not commit. Finally, after I had moved into my own apartment away from roommates, she asked to move in. I basically countered with a marriage proposal, knowing in the back of my head she would likely say no.
That’s what happened, and we never got back together. 18 months later, I met the woman of my dreams and now we have been happily married for over 15 years.”
Proposal After the Fourth Date?!
“A man I had known briefly proposed to me on our fourth date. I said no, and he gave me the ring and asked me to consider it a promise ring. Flags and sirens everywhere, but I said ok, to spare his feelings, and continued to go out with him for a little while, hoping that something would develop between us (from my end). I mean, it’s not every day you meet someone who is so ‘crazy about you.’ It turned out he was just ‘crazy’ in general (sorry for the pejorative term… he was mentally ill, but crazy just fits the story), and I came to understand that with time. I broke up with him and returned the ring, and he appeared to take it very badly.
A few weeks later, I heard he was dating someone else I casually knew. They were married within months. Around five years later, he committed suicide and murdered their son in the process.”
He Got Pushed Into The Bathtub
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“We had been dating for 6 1/2 years at this time. We went on a vacation to Hawaii for her 21st birthday because we wanted to make it something to remember. I planned to propose to her on the beach somewhere. I ended up choosing Waimea Bay Beach on the north shore of Oahu. She was coming back from the waves and I popped the question. She was ecstatic and said YES!!! We had a very romantic couple of days after that before we flew home.
Fast forward to 5 months later. We are out bar hopping with her sister and her husband who had just got out of the military. The husband and sister are moving to a base in Germany and they are staying for a couple weeks in our town. Her sister and her were together talking for most of the night and the husband insisted we hang out and play pool together. That’s fine, he’s a cool guy and she hasn’t seen her sister in months. We get home from the bars around 12:30 AM and all hell breaks loose. She starts SCREAMING at me about how I’m a piece of crap and that I don’t do enough chores around the house and that she had to repair a piece on my car (that we both use) and that I should have done that and otherwise petty problems. It escalated to her shoving me as hard as she could into the bathroom where I fell into the tub and hit my head. Eventually, she went upstairs and I cried in disbelief for most of the night. Finally fell asleep at around 5:30 AM.
Later that day she says to me that she doesn’t want to spend the rest of her life with me anymore and that she wants to know what it’s like to be single. She thinks my hobbies (snowboarding and climbing) are too dangerous, a bunch of other reasons that aren’t real reasons. She had all of her stuff moved out with the help of her sister and husband by the end of that day.
When I returned home after work she had left the ring, a framed picture of us I gave her as a gift, and the bottle of wine that was bottled on the same day we got together that we were saving for our wedding night. That was exactly 1 month ago. I’ve tried to contact her since and have gotten no response or explanation for her crazy behavior. Don’t even know where she is staying as we had mostly only mutual friends and she’s not with any of them.”
“Fine. I Asked You Once. I’m Not Gonna Ask Again.”
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“My dad proposed to my mom after they’d been seeing each other for just under two weeks. She laughed and basically told him he was crazy, that it was way too soon. My dad said, (and he is very proud of this fact,) ‘Fine. I asked you once. I’m not gonna ask again.’ My mom thought he was bluffing. After a year of dating she started giving him a hard time about not asking her to get married again, and he stuck to his guns and said she missed her chance and he wasn’t going to ask again. My mom finally broke down and asked him to marry her. Made sure she properly took the piss out of him when she did it, too. Made a big show about asking his father for permission, got down on one knee in public, got him the gaudiest engagement ring she could find. He said yes and they just celebrated their 30th anniversary.
To be clear about my dad’s initial proposal, it happened when my mom and dad were planning their next date, trying to figure out if they could go do anything after he got off of work, and he said, ‘Hey! I know! We could go get married!’ He was serious but he framed it as a joke because he knew it was insane. She thought he was joking but kind of suspected he wasn’t, asked him if he was crazy in the very loud, hard to be offended-by-it way she has, said it’s too soon but, you know, feel free to ask again later. My dad kept up his joking tone when he said he wouldn’t ask again, hence why my mom thought he was just kidding when he wouldn’t ask again. It wasn’t at all framed like an ultimatum, but he really enjoyed reminding my mom of the fact that he’d already asked her to marry him whenever she nagged him about when he was going to get around to proposing.”
She Took His DOG?
“I was with a girl for just over 5 years. When we met, she was in a bad place. The guy she was with before me used to beat her up and stuff. Really abusive. So it was tough in the beginning because she had major trust issues, self-esteem issues, depression and she self-harmed. But I went and fell in love with her. Helped her get over a lot of the mental anguish she was going through. Took her to (and paid for) her therapist every other week. We lived together for 4 of those years.
On our 5th anniversary, I proposed. I was madly in love with her, and I assumed she was with me. She said yes!
Then, a few months after that, I got off work a bit early, picked up her favorite fish and chips for dinner and headed home.
Long story short, I walked in her cheating one me. They didn’t even hear me come into the apartment.
I’ll skip the details, but within 2 days of that happening, she was gone. All her stuff out of the apartment and half of MY stuff gone from the apartment, including my cash stash that was several thousand. She took my TV, a bunch of my kitchen stuff, she kept the ring, she took my freaking DOG man.
And I haven’t seen or spoken to her since. That was just about 3 years ago now.”
To Be Fair, She WAS Covered In Puke
“Proposed to girlfriend after she got off work on a Monday with her favorite meal prepared, and the apartment all lit with candles, rose petals on the floor after having had a special weekend together (she is shy and promised violence if proposed to in public).
She said No no no! No! NO! when I asked her to marry me as she came in the door to our apartment.
She worked in the medical field and had puke all over her…
She showered and said yes.”
We Went To A Party Together And Literally Didn’t Talk To A Single Other Soul That Night… I Was Hooked
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“8 years ago. It’s been 8 years. We had known each other for 5 years, dated for three and a half. Every single day I saw her was the best day of my life. We met while working at a pizza chain and had gotten close at work. I eventually worked up the courage to ask her out (even though it was awfully frowned upon as she was a driver and I was a manager). She said yes and we went to a party together and literally didn’t talk to a single other soul that night. I was hooked.
We dated for a year and then moved in together. I can still see her face perfectly, even that long ago. Her family was wonderful, her father an esteemed professor at a nearby college and her mother was a cancer survivor with a heart of gold. Everything just seemed to fit. And I knew that I wanted to be with her forever. After dating for 3 years, I finally popped the question. I had set up a normal night in and ordered a pizza. We had a cat, Triumph, and I had tied a little pillow with the ring onto Tri and sat her in the other room while my lady was in the bathroom. When she got back, I called for the cat and she came in, pillow and all on her back. I proposed and she burst into tears, saying she was sorry and ran out of the apartment. I tried desperately to reach her, through family, friends, any way imaginable. I finally heard back from her sister after 3 days. Her entire family knew and I was apparently the only person out of the loop. She was diagnosed with a very aggressive terminal brain cancer, just 3 days prior to me proposing.
I was gutted. For so many reasons, but I could understand why she didn’t tell me. After I had proposed, she told her sister that she had decided not to put me through that but I didn’t care. I would have stayed with her to the end of the earth. I tried night and day to contact her to no avail. She died just 5 weeks after I had proposed. I have never felt more lost and alone than I did at her funeral. Her family were very comforting but I began to hate myself. Thinking that it was something that I had done to scare her away, making her believe that I would leave her if she told me when it couldn’t have been further from the truth.
I went into a deep depression for a very long time afterward. I drank and did drugs, day and night. Went from job to job, not showing up for days on end. I dropped out of school, lost a lot of my friends. Considered ending my life a few times.
I know now that she kept it from me to try and save me the grief of losing her. But there’s nothing in the world I wouldn’t give to go back in time. Just to hear her say ‘Yes.'”
A Front Row Seat For A Brutal Cafe Rejection
“My good friend was dating this guy for nearly two years.
I could tell things were getting a bit stale with them one day when we went out to get lunch she told me that she was going to break it off with the guy.
She seemed far more stressed about hurting the guy, he was an alright person in my book, but anyhoo she is telling me how she is going to do it and was asking for advice.
Right in the middle of me giving her some input, the guy comes in and looks a bit frantic, she must’ve told him that she was going there to meet me.
He musters up the courage and walks right to our table, completely ignoring me, gets on one knee and pulls out the ring. The dude was shaking so much, and I was in awe of the worst timing ever, that my mouth was open in shock. People around notice so everyone gathers around the table and starts cheering, the guy asks my friend and my friend just got up and walked out to her car and drove off.
I almost died from second-hand embarrassment. All I remember is gasps and snickering from the people near me and he just sat in her place looking crushed. I didn’t know what to say. I feel kinda bad so I just got the check ASAP and gave him a pat on the back.
He is doing better, the last I heard, this has been about a year now.
My friend is still recovering from the whole ordeal lol.”
“I Love You But I’m Not In Love With You”
“Not denied during a proposal but 99% sure she realized I was going to propose and bailed before I had the chance.
Eight years and change together, everything seemed totally fine, we talked about a future together plenty of times, engagement rings, jobs, housing, kids, etc. The job and housing parts were going forward and she had shown me rings and talked weddings plenty so it felt like it was time to finally do that. Bought a ring, tried planning some neat trips to take her on for an awesome proposal, they kept not happening, finally decided I was just going to do it around New Years, but right before that she bailed. Timing was just so perfect for her not to have figured it out.
Never really got an explanation, just the general, ‘I love you but I’m not in love with you.’
One of those kinda generic statements that you hate to get, especially after so long, but at the same time I’m sure there was plenty of legitimacy to it. We met when we were young and we grew into different people. People change a lot between the mid teens and mid-twenties.
We tried to maintain a friendship for a while after that but it was super hard for me because I was still totally into her. I had to basically drop off the map entirely for a year or so because we shared the same social circle and I just got so incredibly uncomfortable around her. No hard feelings I guess at the end of the day, it sucked, but it wasn’t like something awful happened between us. Eventually, we just stopped talking. She drifted to a new social group, I got back in mine, life goes on. Definitely not where I expected to be at this point in my life though.”
Caste Is A Thing Of The Past!
“From South India, proposed to her and got rejected right away. The reason is her parents won’t accept the marriage outside their caste. Long story short, I waited and she accepted me after 3 years and took another 5 years to convince both our families. Married at 2011 and expecting our 2nd child next month.”
Fifth Times The Charm
“I’ve had three or four no’s depending on how you count.
First one was initially a yes. We’d had a mostly long distance romance and I proposed after a couple years, but we still hardly knew each other. After visiting her family, and spending time learning less flattering things about me, I think I became tarnished in her eyes and she broke it off.
Second one, I proposed once, she said yes, and then when she called her parents the next day they refused to recognize the engagement and pushed her to cut it off. I hadn’t met them.
Third time, same girl as second. We were engaged for a few months, even took our invite pictures. We were apart for 3 months before the wedding so I could complete a work project. During that time I had a crisis of conscience and felt like I needed a little more time. I asked her to push back the wedding, saying I loved her but I wasn’t quite ready. She simply called it off. Absolutely gutted me. And I’m sure it wrecked her too. I suspect her parents had some influence, but in the end I think it was probably for the best.
Fourth time, new girl, three years later. We’d been best friends who fell into dating. I’d gotten a new job and was leaving town and wanted to take her with me to kinda start grown-up life together. So I proposed marriage. It was too early in the relationship (5 months) and it was a bad decision. She had a missionary opportunity that she took and left town.
Fifth time I proposed, new girl in a new town. We’d been dating a year. She said yes, and we have 3 kids and 13 mostly great years together.”
Scrabble Is Great For Proposing
“My dad proposed to my mom the night he met her. The way they explain it, they ‘bared their souls to each other’ that night. They talked for hours uninterrupted. And even though my dad wasn’t looking to get married, he just knew. She said no, but did say yes to another night out.
He proposed again. She said no, but again, accepted another date. This went on nearly daily for 6 months.
One night, my parents played Scrabble against each other for the first time. My mom loves Scrabble. She kicks people’s butts up and down the block, and this is a woman who takes pride in being well read enough to serve as a quick reference thesaurus. After a hard fought game, she lost for the first time she could remember. And my 105 pound 5 foot nothing mother swept the board and pieces of the table sending them flying across the room. She looked at my dad and said in a fury, ‘Fine, I’ll marry you!’ My dad responded, in classic male fashion, ‘Uhhh. I need to think about it.’
He thought about it, and barely 8 months after they met, my parents married in a tiny chapel in Vegas. They celebrated 23 years this year.”
Who Would Wait Four Years To Say That?!
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“My father worked with a guy who had a very bad experience which he recounted to me. In essence, there was this guy who took way too long to pop the question, it was like 7 or 8 years. The couple were in their thirties.
Anyway, dude finally pops the question and the woman said something to the effect of, ‘I made my mind up four years ago. I decided then, that I would never marry you, and I’ve been waiting four years for this very moment. No I will not marry you, you are a loser and a coward, your window ran out a long time ago. I’ve been waiting all this time for the moment I could say no and see the expression on your face.’
Needless to say, this destroyed the guy, even to this day. It’s really sad. Not sure what happened to the woman, but I’m guessing she’s either imprisoned for being a serial killer or living an otherwise crappy life (one hopes). It is perhaps the most cruel thing I’ve ever heard.”
Will The Perfect Proposal Work?
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“He proposed to me three times.
The first time we had been dating two years and he was afraid I’d leave him when he was at basic training. He wrote me a letter and called me a few days later on pass. I said no because I was still in high school and he didn’t get along with my father.
The second time was a few years after that. We lived together, had a son, and I was pregnant with our second son. He was late coming home from work and I was kind of pissed because I thought he was hanging out with a friend or something without letting me know and our son had been giving me a hard time that day and being pregnant I was tired. He came in and cut me off as I started nagging and said ‘I know that I get on your nerves sometimes, and you get on my nerves sometimes too. Want to spend the rest of our lives annoying each other?’ Then got on one knee, asked the question, and hugged me, our son, and the baby bump while I cried. I said yes.
Fast forward another 7 months or so, he wasn’t serious about planning a wedding and refuses to tell our parents about our engagement so I gave the ring back and we broke up shortly afterward. A few months after our break up he picks up the boys for his days with them and says I still have some stuff at the house if I want to pick it up. I go with him and he shows me that he turned the spare room into a library for me and then hands me one of my Harry Potter Books and it is cut open to the chapter ‘The Unbreakable Vow’ and the ring is sitting inside with the words Will You Marry Me? The best proposal I could dream of. I said no.”
“I Was So Glad I Said No All Those Times”
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“I told my husband no the first time he asked. We were drunk and hadn’t been dating long, so I thought he was joking (He will swear to you that it was not a joke and that he would have taken me to Vegas that night if I’d said yes).
The second time I said no, he was on R&R from deployment and I think he asked because it felt like the right thing to do since I was waiting for him to get back so we could continue dating (and not seeing anyone else while he was gone), not because he really wanted to get married.
He asked again almost as soon as he got back and I said no again, to take a few months and decompress and just date for a little while. We kept dating and talking about it and decided the time was right about six months later.
I am SO GLAD I said no all those times. Not because he wasn’t the right one, but because he was and I didn’t want us to screw it up by getting married before we were both totally sure.”
He Kept The Ring In A Safety Deposity Box
“I proposed after 7 months of dating and she said ‘no’ as it was too soon. I agreed and put the ring in a safety deposit box and told her that if she changed her mind, it’s there for her. After 2 weeks, she said ‘yes’ and we decided to have a long engagement period (2 years) so that we could be sure. We’ve been married for 37 years.”
Honestly Mom…How Did You Not Figure That Out?
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“So ever since I was little when I asked how my parents got engaged this is what I got.
‘Yeah your father had to ask me three times to marry him before I said yes. It was at this beautiful restaurant so on and so forth.’
Cool so my dad was denied twice and got accepted on the third go around. I asked my brothers and they agreed this is the story.
Nope
Turns out my parents suck at telling stories. My father took my mother out to a fancy restaurant and said ‘will you marry me?’
My mother being dumb was like, ‘yes at some point we plan on getting married’ and kept going on with her life.
Then right after my dad was like ‘dude will you marry me?’ And my mother said ‘of course we will don’t worry.’
And then my dad decided oh, maybe I should get down on one knee and my mother finally understood and accepted.
They only corrected us last year after they heard us tell my brother’s fiancé how they got engaged and they were like no that’s not true. I’ve been lied to.”