'AITA for rejecting my BF's proposal? I've been dropping hints I want to get married.' UPDATED 2X

There are a few places you should never propose, and a funeral is one of them.

"AITA for rejecting my boyfriend's proposal even though I've been dropping hints that I want to be married?"

My(26f) and boyfriend (30m) have been dating for three years we don't live together cause we both want to get married first because our parents wouldn't agree to cohabiting before marriage. I've been fairly obvious about wanting to get married and my boyfriend has picked up on it.

Last week, we went to my great aunt's funeral although I didn't know her very well I was still upset and it was really hard to see how much it hurt my mother. So, after the funeral we went to a hall that we rented to cater to the other mourners, and to remember her. My boyfriend saw this as a chance to propose. This left me mortified. Everyone was staring at us for making this about ourselves.

I said no. He got angry and walked off, saying that I'm the one who wants to get married so I shouldn't care where he proposes. He also said that if I truly loved him I would say yes. He's ignoring me right now and won't give me a chance to explain. In any other scenario I would say yes but I didn't think it was the right place or time. I'm wondering if I'm the AH because I rejected him even though I want to get married.

When I asked my co worker she agreed that what I did was wrong but want some more opinions from people who don't know me.

So, AITA?

Not long after posting, OP shared an update.

EDIT: I'm seeing a lot of comments talking about how we let our parents dictate our lives so I just want to clarify that we both live on our own and have spent long periods of time at each other's apartments. The only reason we don't live together is out of respect to our parents' views I have a roommate and he doesn't so I spend most my time at his place we just don't officially live together.

Thank you for all your responses we're both speaking to each other about everything we both agree that we should have communicated more about our future together. The situation is progressing however I'm re-evaluating our relationship and things that have happened recently and in the past.

He's adamant about being in the right cause he believes that he was trying to cheer everyone up by giving us something to celebrate instead of mourn. I didn't realize how emotionally immature he really is.

The internet had a lot of hot takes.

mdthomas wrote:

I'm going to say NTA

A funeral is no place to propose.

Music_withRocks_In wrote:

NTA. The only explanation I can think of is that he doesn't want to get married - but also wants YOU to be the reason. So he proposed in the absolute worst possible way so that you said no, then he can hold that over you for the rest of the relationship whenever you imply you should get married. 'I proposed and you said no! I'm not going to ask again!'.

2ndcupofcoffee wrote:

His stating that you are the one that wants to get married is interesting. So he doesn’t want to get married? Since he doesn’t want to get married, why is he pouting and telling you to say yes; he doesn’t want to get married, proposed at a funeral (which pretty much guarantees a no to the proposal) so he should be happy you said no.

Shin-kak-nish wrote:

NTA, either he’s a moron or he wanted you to say no for some reason. Either way this doesn’t bode well.

DoHeathenThings wrote:

Definitely not the place to propose, seems like he is looking for a way out or just really really stupid.

Edit: coming from a dude who don't really care to be married, it mattered to her. I got engaged couple months ago. At least I picked a nice beach at sunset but, my god the bugs got horrible once the sun went down though.

Months later, OP shared an update.

A lot has happened since my first post. Firstly, me and my boyfriend have since broken up. This was for a multitude of reasons the biggest one being that he cheated on me. My former boyfriend and I had not been living together but I did spend most my time staying at his place as I had a roommate and he never.

However, when I went to visit him his friend told me that he had been cheating on me and had gotten another girl pregnant. This crushed me cause we had been dating for nearly four years. This lead to us breaking up.

When I questioned him about why he had cheated he told me he wasn't the type to commit to anyone despite initially pursuing me with the promise that we would be in a committed relationship. This was hard for me to understand as we had been speaking about marriage and the future.

When we used to talk about marriage he would always say that he would never be happy in a marriage were he got proposed to as it would be an insult to his masculinity. Looking back on this I should've realized that he had many noticeable toxic traits. He proposed to me at my aunt's funeral which is something I will never understand.

When I asked him why he did that he initially claimed it was to make everyone happy but when I pushed him for more information he told me it was to show his lover that I was a bad person. This is because he was cheating on me with my aunt's friend's daughter who was at the funeral. So he proposed to me to show that our relationship is over to that girl in order to justify why he was cheating.

Even though he knew that I was grieving. Since we broke up about three weeks after the funeral his friend who exposed the affair to me told me that because she was pregnant he had to find away to make her not leave him and chose the funeral to make a public display for her. I haven't seen him since the breakup and his friend moved all of my stuff out of the apartment for me so I don't have to see him.

His family is very strict and because he's having a kid out of wedlock they have refused to help him so he has been contacting me for help. I haven't responded, nor do intend to respond because I will not lower my self worth to help someone who never truly cared about me.

Since our breakup my life has improved, I can now do the things that he never wanted me to do and I've now realized how lucky I am that we never married.

The internet had OP's back.

aeroeagleAC wrote:

I am lost, how is proposing (even at a funeral) a way to show that the relationship is over?

OP responded:

He knew that I'd reject the proposal so he used my rejection to tell her that I had broken up with him.

AtomicBlastCandy responded:

OP when I saw your original post that was my thought as well, that he was trying to get you to break up with him without having the balls to do it himself.

One-Confidence-5868 wrote:

Contacting you for help? What does he think you’re going to help with. I’m so sorry this a$$hat wasted your time.

seerightthruyou wrote:

I got such a sense of relief for you reading this...I can just imagine how light and relieved you feel! I'm sorry you had to go through that but at least you know that you're onto better people and not wasting your time anymore.

OP responded:

At first I was so heartbroken that our relationship ended this way but now I'm so relieved that we never got married because i cant imagine how trapped I would feel in a marriage with him.

Ok-Music-8732 wrote:

Wow! I think it's all for the best. He will always be a toxic jerk. Asking you for anything is truly bizarre! Thank your lucky stars he and his baby are not your problem! Delete, block, move on, do not look back!

Hopefully, OP is off to much better relationships in her future.