Man refuses to propose to BF; instead tries to force BF to propose to him. UPDATED x3

My boyfriend and I want to marry each other but neither of us are willing to propose.

OP writes:

My boyfriend and I both want to get married, and our families and friends are on board (honestly, he's become my mom's favorite child at this point). However, he insists that I should be the one to do the actual proposal, and I argue that it should be him.

He believes that since I dislike every restaurant he takes me to (I work in food service, so I know what I'm talking about, and he chooses bad places), I should take charge of the proposal. On the other hand, I think that since he earns much more money and is incredibly picky about jewelry (he knows all about different gemstone cuts and has strong opinions on them – I'm marrying a gemstone connoisseur), he should be the one to buy the ring.

We both want it to be a special, romantic surprise, so we're not willing to go for a co-proposal or anything like that. To complicate matters, we're both guys, so there aren't any traditional rules to guide us.

Overall, we've managed to navigate this disagreement, but things escalated when his 30th birthday came around recently. He's genuinely upset that I didn't propose during that time. We went on a trip and had dinner with his entire family (we live a 2 1/2-hour flight away), so if I were going to do it, that would've been the perfect moment.

I reiterated that I wouldn't be the one proposing, and suggested that he can do it himself or we can remain boyfriends until his 70th birthday. His response was, "If we're not married by the time I'm 70, you'll be lucky if we're still boyfriends," and he stormed off to our room.

Now, he claims to be fine, but I'm almost certain he's been secretly training the cat to bite my hands. It's happened every single time I try to pet her, and he looks very smug about it.

OP provided an update:

I don't want to disclose our location, but suffice it to say, neither of us are American, and gay marriage has been legal here for less than five years. For both of us, this is the first relationship where marriage was even an option, and I think that's where we've been getting some of that whole 'this has to be a REAL proposal with EVERYTHING' idea.

I need to figure out how to explain this properly. So, I'm pretty used to being the GUY guy in relationships? I was always the one who did the nice gestures, not the one they were done for. Before I met my dream guy, I didn't really notice or care that it was such a thing; I just assumed that's how relationships worked.

Also, I promised I wouldn't talk a lot about his stuff here, but his last boyfriend before me SUCKED. Anyway, the point here is, it turns out we both REALLY like feeling swept off our feet sometimes, and a big part of finding each other has been getting to feel special for once.

That's a sappy way of putting it, but the point is, I think all that's what morphed into "I need to be the one getting proposed to, also it has to be completely perfect," and then our Petty & Extra genes got involved.

So, I'm sitting in bed thinking about all that up there, and watching all the comments coming in, basically saying "Dude, you are BLOWING this" on repeat, and telling me to compromise. I look up and see him flossing in the bathroom and making all these doofy faces at the mirror, and it's like a switch just flips in my brain.

I'm like, "Oh, I'd rather he gets to have his perfect proposal than we both have an okay one." I'm gonna do it. Morning rolls around, and while I'm 'out for my jog like normal,' I hit up a pawn shop for a temporary ring (the ring pop thing is cute but NOT HIM).

I found one I was at least confident wouldn't get ruined the first time he got his hands greasy (he fixes old machines as a hobby, and it's hot as hell). I got back home and hid the box in the toe of my nasty-ass workout shoes in the bedroom closet since I figured he'd check there last.

He was still asleep, because he stays up late no matter what and then is SHOCKED he's tired the next day. So, I called and booked a table at our usual anniversary spot. (Side note about the 'he picks bad restaurants' thing. This isn't an 'I like Greek, you like Chinese' situation. Dude's just BAD at finding places.

He either assumes pricey is tasty, and I end up eating overrated gourmet bullsh%t, or he'll try and find something hip and underground and risk giving us food poisoning again. He also REFUSES to pick somewhere we've been before when it's his turn to plan date night. I'm obsessed with him. Date was set, I'd propose on the 21st.

Last night, I'm doing dishes, and he's been sent to our room for mug collection duty, and he's taking FOREVER. So, I go check, just in case he found the ring because the man's a gift-tracking BLOODHOUND. Turns out he hasn't; he's found my Angry Box.

I assume other people have an Angry Box? Basically, we had this huge messy fight right when we first moved in together, and I never want to let it get that bad again. So, I have this shoebox where I keep a bunch of our stuff I can look at if we're fighting and hopefully cool off.

There's one of those photo booth rolls, letters we wrote when he moved back with his parents for COVID, the wine cork from our first date, and sh%t like that. Anyway, he's just sitting on the floor, staring at it, and I explain about the Angry Box, and then he! Proposes!!! Kind of.

He definitely didn't have anything prepared because by 'propose,' I mean 'ugly cried & rambled at me for several minutes before I figured out it WAS a proposal.' But once I got on the same page, it was amazing. I said yes, and he had to admit he didn't have a ring for me because he was CONVINCED he'd win, and I'd do it.

So, I grabbed mine because, yeah, he was right. He was like "this is the ugliest ring I've ever seen," and I was like, "yeah well, the plan is to replace it later," and he went "No. You can pry this off my cold dead fingers. After I'm buried with it." So, I guess it's not a temporary ring anymore.

I'm just gonna go ahead and skip to this morning. I pointed out we still have the reservation, and he said I should propose there anyway because "We can get a free dessert. They have those creme brulee shot glasses you like.

And for love, or something." I said okay, deal, but that means you gotta get me a ring to keep it fair, and his eyes LIT UP. When I swung by his work for lunch, he was still on the phone with a jeweler and had a whole page of notes on three other ones. Pray for me.

OP provided a wedding planning update:

AITA for planning the seating for our wedding in a logical way?

I got engaged in June, apparently in part because of my partner writing into this blog (I don't know how to find or link to his posts, but I'm the man who got the cat to bite him, if that rings any bells?). For the past ten weeks, I've been in the early stages of planning our wedding with my fiancé, whom I have been secretly trying to remove from the planning process as much as possible.

I've already received a list of his must-haves, and I'm incorporating as many as our budget allows. This has nothing to do with the emotional side of the event and everything to do with the fact that he lacks real planning experience or taste and thinks he knows more than me.

For the most part, this has worked very well. I'm the one who's been collating all the contact information for vendors, so I just replaced all the emails for the less desirable companies with false addresses, responded to his inquiries as the companies, saying the date was already booked or the price was outside our budget, and let him filter his way to the ones I do like on his own.

I've also made a fuss about being "willing to compromise" on the few things he's picked that I'm completely fine with, in the hopes that I can use it to make him compromise later. I've been humming portions of the songs I want on the playlist, hoping he'll think he came up with the idea to include them himself.

None of this is the real problem. The problem is that he is deliberately ruining my seating chart by moving our troublesome friend's seat when I'm not looking. The man in question dated both of us at one point in our very early 20s (both relationships ended badly).

He is generally the messiest person we know, and will almost certainly get sloppy drunk and try to make a speech if he does attend. I'm banking on the fact that he won't, as he's also ridiculously wealthy and will almost certainly send us a lavish gift instead.

He is supposed to be sitting beside my fiancé's aunt, at the same table as his grandmother, his work friend, and her girlfriend because all four of these women are confident enough to keep him in check on the slim chance he does come.

My fiancé insists they won't be able to have any fun if they're running interference all night and keeps moving him to sit at the head table instead, where we are. I finally caught him switching the label magnets on my planning board last night and confronted him.

I tried to leverage how much I've already compromised, the likelihood that he'll RSVP no, and that I shouldn't have to deal with him on our big night. My fiancé said he knew about all the fake emailing and such, and told me, and I quote:

"Look, the mind game sh%t was hot when it was just about the color scheme or whatever, but I actually care about this. So you can suffer with everybody else, or you can do the normal thing and not invite a guy you hate to our wedding, you weirdo."

I said that if I did that, it would take out half his groomsmen. He called me an a%#hole and suggested I explain this to "literally any rational adult" so they could tell me I was in the wrong. Now here we are.

Here's what the top commenters had to say about this:

___mads says:

The tone/wording of these posts is so specific that these fiancés are definitely either this is the same person or they are absolutely soulmates. Either way, I’m kind of into it?

Taco__MacArthur says:

God I wish I had an invite to this wedding.

stolenfires says:

Well, at least they seem well-suited to each other.

What a journey! Would you want to be at this wedding?