"Am I wrong for refusing to marry a woman?"

I (26f) am bisexual. I am very confident in my sexuality and have a history of dating both. However, I’ve always known that when it comes to marriage, I want to be able to have biological children with my partner. For that reason, I see myself only marrying a man. In my past relationships with women, I have been very open about this. It’s never posed an issue.

However, ab 3 years ago I met my current girlfriend G (27 f). It started as a hookup, then escalated to a situationship. usually, whenever things get to that point I like to make the disclaimer in terms of wanting to have biological children and not dating to marry. G seemed understanding, thanked me for being straightforward, and assured me that she is not looking for marriage either.

we agreed to keep seeing each other casually, no strings attached. A couple months later, G suggests we start being exclusive. I reminded her that I was not dating for marriage. She asked me if i’m seeing anyone else. I told her no, she said that it would make sense for us to be exclusive until our relationship has run its course naturally.

I really liked her and wasn’t interested in anyone else so after making sure that there was no misunderstanding about marriage, i agreed and we started dating. i understood that this kind of relationship could get complicated. Hence, I was reluctant to bring her to meet my family, etc. but every time she would insist, assuring everything was fine and that she knew exactly what was at stake.

My family loved her and soon people started asking when’s the wedding - to which G would smugly respond that “i didn’t want to marry her." I laughed along, assuming it was a joke but something started feeling off. I confronted her to make sure we were still on the same page, and she told me to “stop treating me like an f-ing child and constantly checking up on my feelings."

She said to back off - we got into an argument about it, but the next day she apologized and asked me to just stop bringing it up so often. I explained i was just looking out for our feelings, but if it was overbearing I would back off. We agreed, and I stopped bringing it up. We’ve been dating for almost two years.

However, my mind hasn’t changed in terms of marriage though i stopped bringing it up as per her request. I came home from work to my apartment covered in flowers and candles and her on one knee. Before she even got around to asking, I immediately said “NO” and walked out, fuming.

She followed me, a fight insued (screaming, crying) as she told me I was a huge b**ch and an a$$hole for leading her on for two years. I explained that my feelings in terms of marriage hadn’t changed (ie biological kids) she called me a bigot and stormed out. We haven’t spoken since. Am I wrong?

What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:

InternationalEast738 said:

Out of curiosity, what would you have done if she didn't do this and blow up the relationship? Specifically, did your relationship have an end point, where you would seek out a man to marry and have kids with?

pkzilla said:

Exactly. It's really weird to me, do you not choose who to marry based on how much you love a person. Why lead women on if your end goal was always with a man anyway. Also I have a few lesbian mom friends, there are ways to have children that don't involve marrying a man?

lovepeacefakepiano said:

You’re not wrong, but you ARE naive. The writing was on the wall. If you keep dating women, next time refuse to go beyond casual, or you’ll find yourself in a similar conundrum again.

Reading-person said:

I think you need to find a man to marry - and stop wasting women’s time. Sure, you’re not dating to marry. But that doesn’t mean that dating for years isn’t going to give off the wrong impression.

So when you do want to get married, and have kids. What are you going to do then? Just break it off with a girl you’ve been dating for years, just to find a man? There are other ways to have a biological child even in a wlw relationship

[deleted] said:

Just to point something out. You can spend a lifetime and not find the love of your life. Hell, you could spend years and never find someone you want to have children with. The point being, you should be dating men now if you want to have any chance of finding a man you want to bring children into the world with.

Remember that separation/ divorce can destroy a child's life, so you need to be 100% committed to your future partner, which means nurturing a long-term relationship with them, not 5 minutes. Start dating men if you want kids, otherwise I think it's selfish .

And Nomdesplumes said:

bi female here, with similar aspirations regarding marriage/bio children. what the F were you thinking?? if you don't see a long-term agreement, why get into a relationship with a woman in the first place? to waste her time?! or your time?? sure, your SO is in the wrong as well for getting herself involved with you, but people change ESPECIALLY AFTER YEARS in a relationship.

are you an a$$hole for saying no when she proposed? no, youre not. you're an a$$hole in getting into a long-term relationship with a woman if you don't see a future with them. that is messed up. break up with the poor girl and grow tf up and just date men if you want bio kids and marriage so bad.

Two days later, she shared this update:

first of all, i want to thank everyone for their comments. it was helpful to see things from a different perspective. i wrote the post still mad from being blindsided, so i apologize if my writing lacked empathy, as some have pointed out. i do care for Grace deeply, and acknowledge my role that led us to end up in this mess. for that I am sorry.

we talked today after taking the weekend to cool down. i explained my perspective to her, saying that i felt blindsided and a bit betrayed by the out of the blue proposal, especially since she was the one who asked to stop bringing up the marriage issue while we were together.

she said she proposed as a sort of last resort, since she knew that if marriage was brought up casually in conversation, i would freak out and leave. her hope was that a grand romantic gesture might work - aka proposing. i explained that i am not ready for marriage with anyone yet - but of all the people ive been with ive cared for her the most, and the last thing id ever want to happen was for her to be hurt.

i also explained that i wished our communication throughout our relationship had been clearer as to avoid the hurt and mess that we ended up in. obviously, we have decided to go our separate ways. after our conversation, the parting was amicable. i wish her nothing but the best.

edit to say: for people asking me “what did i expect to happen going into a relationship with an expiration date” - i’ve been in relationships (with both men and women) like this before. i may be naive, but i am not stupid to set my expectations for something like this without having had prior experience.

granted, they didn’t last three years (longest one was just short of two) but they went very differently. once both sides made clear that marriage was not the end goal, we were together until one of us was ready to have a conversation that it was time to move on. granted, each time hurt - but when you set the expectations from the start, its only natural that the relationship had run its course.

each of those relationships ended amicably - there were no fights, no proposals, no hurt feelings. going into this, i expected the same.