30 Women Joined This Thread To Share Their Proposal Stories When They Said ‘No’

I'm just anti marriage in general. When I was pregnant, I guess my boyfriend went into a nervous crisis and decided he better propose in case that's what I truly wanted and was just not saying it. We've actually since then had an unofficial "marriage" ceremony that we created and designed, it was lovely. I often refer to him as my husband and a lot of our family believes we are actually legally married since they attended our "marriage", but nope, it was just a private marriage between me and my boyfriend, the government was not invited.

I said no when I wasn’t quite proposed to.

The first year I was with my ex, I went to Christmas at his family’s place. We’d been together close to a year, and we’d had a lot of problems already. 3 months prior to this, I had nearly broken up with him, but we “worked it out.” *Cue massive eyeroll*

His family had this weird tradition, where they watched each person individually open each gift while the rest watched on. I thought I was done opening gifts, and was chatting with his mom on my right, when she motioned for me to look to my left.

There was my boyfriend, down on one knee, holding a small jewelry box, and smiling. I didn’t wait for him to say anything, I just said, “No! Please excuse me,” and ran out of the house. His BIL later told me all the color drained out of my face, and I looked at my ex with “abject terror.”

Anyway, he followed me out of the house, and explained that what he was holding wasn’t an engagement ring, but a Diamond necklace. He convinced me to come back inside and his family was nice, but there was definitely tension for the rest of the night.

We ended up staying together for 2 more years, and actually *did* get engaged later on, but it was an incredibly poor decision, and I’m very relieved that I did not actually marry him.

I was literally breaking up with him because he was abusive, manipulative, and our life goals did not match up (i wanted to get married and maybe have children and he didn't). I had packed up most of my things while he was at work and when he got home, we had the long-awaited conversation and he pulls out a taco bell hot sauce packet that said "marry me" on it. When I told him absolutely not, he then grabs the keys to his shotgun cable lock along with the ammo and hands them to me and says "take this, cause I can't be trusted with it." Implying he was going to kill himself. This was about 5 or six months after my dad had committed suicide.

My then boyfriend wanted to marry me because of how much money I would eventually make; upon getting into my field.

He then wanted to share a cell phone bill, rent an apartment, and be a stay at home dad. While trying to convince me to have sex with him, without a condom. All while having anger issues, and almost hitting me twice. This isn’t even half of what went on.

🚩We dated for three months... 🚩 I left that relationship fast. Thought he was a good person initially before we dated. Which is why I went out with him.

Edit 1: I forgot to add this because I’m on mobile. He wanted all the birthday gift he gave me back. Said he never had money for anything, but, would smoke almost three packs of cigarettes a day.

He would also tell try to condition me into things by stating “we will never go to XYZ.” Or “we will always be poor and never travel.” To “No offense babe, I will never buy you a Diamond ring as I don’t believe in it.” Tried to teach him how to drive, get a better job because he asked me. To helping his family out.

He only wanted to continue wilting as a wallflower, and complain about his circumstances rather than grow.

I loved him, If he asked me to get married 3 days before I would've said yes, BUT I received a message 2 days before the proposal from someone telling me that he was part of a gang, with proof and everything.

Was 18 and had just graduated high school when the guy I dated on and off since sophomore year texted me that he wanted to marry me. Assumed it was just a flirt thing people do but he wasn't joking and called me, telling me if we got married we could get money for college from the state (not sure if that's even true?) and go ahead and have kids that same year so we could have our parents insurance (again, not sure if that's how that works either!).

It blew my mind because he was so serious about it. He said, "let's go pick out a ring and have dinner." I asked why would he ask to marry me without a ring, he said because he wasn't "wasting his time" trying to find something when I could do it myself. Oh, and we needed to go half and half on my ring. 🤔

I turned him down obviously and we argued for a week straight then broke up for good. Met my soon to be husband two months later. The ex ended up dating my friends little sister who was in high school (he was 19, she was 17) and did the same thing to her. Not sure how that's going for them

My ex Andrew asked three times. Each time was during a rough patch of our relationship and was his way of trying to “fix” things. I told him no each time because when I get married, I want to get married because I care about someone and want to share my life adventure with them, not as a bandage to a problem. I’ve seen what happens when two people get married for the wrong reasons and it never ends well. Well Andrew didn’t like that and told me I wasted his and broke up with me.

It’s a bit of a relief as now nearly a year later I’ve meet someone who is absolutely amazing that I click with really well and has similar life goals named Chris. Chris has been respectful of my decision to not make our relationship official just yet so that already speaks volumes about how things will go if we reach the point of considering getting married.

I think I always knew he wasn’t husband material even though I wanted our family to stay together. He proposed 4 times with me saying no each time. I agreed to come back after he broke up with me for getting pregnant so that he could have the opportunity to be a father, but deep down I think I just knew he really was never going to be dad of the year 🤷‍♀️ and now our child is 14 and he married the LOHL who made him choose between her and our child and as of January he is no longer involved in any aspect of her life.

He went to see a movie with a friend, and he forgot to hit "send" on the text that would've informed that he was just going to be out really late and was not, in fact, dead or something. (I had some serious anxiety back then.)

I had to work at 5am, and he didn't come home until around 4. Apparently he'd had a very serious discussion with his friend, and he'd decided that he wanted to marry me. So he asked me. Right then, at 4am, an hour before I had to be at work, and after I'd spent several hours laying awake thinking of all the horrible ways he could've died. (Anxiety is a b***h, okay?)

In retrospect, I get the sentiment, but it was a really dumb time for a proposal, so I told him to go f**k himself.

Eventually I did say yes, but that's another story.

A friend from high school whom I had known for about a year proposed to me while I was in my first semester of college. The proposal was made over the phone, long distance (this was in the late 1960's). I never saw him as more than a great friend. My Mom thought he was really great which was nice but, no reason to basis a marriage. He really was a nice guy and we had fun together but, I was not "in love" with him.

A few years ago I found out that he died of cancer in the mid 1980's and I was sorry to learn of his death. We did not keep in touch and I only saw him once after the proposal and he had married a lovely woman who I thought suited him. Seems I was wrong as she divorced him at some point.