30 People Explain Why They Said 'No' To A Marriage Proposal

My mom had been dating a guy for a few weeks after his wife had just died from cancer his daughter was at college and he was paying for her education/boarding/food. I had just turned 18 and started paying my mom rent money , he proposed but said that I needed to move out because he didnt like me and thought that I was a free loader. my mom told him that she loved me more than him and that he could shove his dead wife's ring up his ass and left him.

I proposed to my boyfriend of three years. He told me he loved me but just wasnt ready because his parents had a really bad marriage and frankly, he didnt know if he could ever get married.

I cried my eyes out and he held me but he was (gently) adamant. I accepted after a while that we wouldn't get married and to be happy that we were together and loved each other.

Two years later he proposed to me.

Married 12 years so far!

He literally only proposed because i caught him cheating. He thought i would say "yes! Omg of course! I forgive you! Please, continue to cheat on me after we both sign a legally binding contract!" Dude was dumb.

I was in my first few years of teaching and one of my nine year old students brought his sister’s play ring to school, got down on one knee when the class was on the field, and he proposed to me. It was very sweet. I declined saying that he was a little young for me.

I’m on the opposite side of this story, but it’s still a good one. This was years ago. My girlfriend and I were at a friend’s wedding, and I got caught up in the romanticism of it and wound up blurting out a proposal at the reception. She said no, and explained that this wasn’t the memory of a proposal that she wanted. It felt tacky to tie this important moment to someone else’s special day, and she told me to ask her again later, in a different setting. Literally five minutes later, they announced that the bride was going to throw the bouquet. All the girls lined up, it went into the air, and sailed straight into my girlfriends arms. She laughed, turned to me, and said, “That moment is pretty good. Okay, I guess we’re engaged.”

We were on the verge of a breakup when he asked. We'd been having problems for a few years. His idiot friend told him it was a good idea to propose and that it would make everything magically better. I told him no, we broke up and I moved away for a while.

As they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder..it was true in our case. We were able to work things out. I moved back and 2 years later, we got married. We've been together for 24 years, have 2 daughters and 1 grandchild!

A coworker of mine, happily married for a good long while, told me that the only man she dated before her husband was obsessed with her, and pursued her even after she broke up with him and had proposed multiple times before and after they broke up. He just had this unhealthy obsession with her for some reason. The last time he proposed to her was the day before her wedding to her husband. She of course turned him down, and he finally moved on and married a different girl.
I told her jokingly that he sounded unhinged and she really dodged a bullet there. She went quiet for a moment and then said, "Well, he killed the woman he DID end up marrying."

He was that weird stoner patron that came in just to talk to me even though I wasn’t interested. He told me he was the heir to the commonwealth and should be king after Elizabeth dies, because he had the 3 out of the emblems of the United Kingdom, and once he got the 4th it would secure his position. He would also make airplane noises when I had my attention turned to other tasks. That’s a no Jason.

Because she was like 30 years younger than I was, and I already married her mother, who gave birth to her 5 years ago.

I love her 3000 so there’s that.

My mother was engaged to a man while she was in college. The wedding plans were well underway and as the wedding got closer, her fiancé started acting super clingy and possessive. She called it off a few months before getting married. He has lived locally their whole lives so she's run into him a few times. Apparently he's the super jealous type who doesn't let his wives have male friends and he has been married three times. My mom definitely dodged a bullet.

My abusive girlfriend tried to get me to marry her. Then, she beat me with a chair for slightly overcooking the Thanksgiving turkey. Yeah, turns out that beating somebody so bad that you break their arm is a good way to get your proposal turned down.

My now wife asked me to marry her. I told her I needed to think about it and eventually told her no. I thought I would had held her back. my store was closing down and 2 months before that happened, I turned down a different offer to stay. so, I knew I was gonna be without work for some time. She didn't take it well and we didn't speak for a couple years. Eventually though our paths crossed again and we both missed each other tons. One night she tells me "so molecule, you make up your mind yet?" i instantly broke down laughing and 2 weeks later we were married.

Proposed to my college girlfriend when I was 20 and she was 21. We had been dating for a year and she got pregnant. I thought we were in love because everything was great and I genuinely loved her. I had a great job and so I proposed because I wanted to marry her and start a family. She then broke down and started crying, she told me she had been sleeping with her ex boyfriend for the past month. She then said that she didn't know who the baby belonged to so went and got an abortion without consulting me or him. She got back together with him and I spiraled into alcoholism for the next few years.

Im about to turn 30 now, went back to college 2 years ago and no longer use drugs or alcohol (besides weed sometimes). I'm starting life over again at 30 after all that, and having to take care of my grandfather who had a stroke.

My husband proposed one month into dating. I declined because, you know, one month.

A year later we moved in together and he proposed and I declined because I wasn’t ready.

Almost three years later and two more declined proposals I said yes on the 4th time. I finally felt ready.

We have been married 11 years. In retrospect, his instincts were probably better than mine :)

Well, he proposed as I was breaking up with him, which was awkward and for some reason he thought it would make me change my mind.

Also he had threatened to kill my family the day before (hence the breakup) so there’s that.

He was very bold about it, calling it out loudly in public so others would hear him. I felt the weight if people staring at us, and it was too much. I said no.

I mean, some people are into the homeless look, but 17 year old me just wasn't ready to make a cardboard home with the first hobo on the street who hollered at me. I had to find myself first.

Joking aside, I was visiting my cousins in Cali and a homeless man with a huge scruffy beard, Hagrid style, asked me to marry him at the top of his lungs. I froze, shook my head, and then hurried along. He yelled after me that I was missing out.

Maybe I was, old man. Maybe I was.

He asked me, on condition that I changed myself into something that he wants, so he can fulfill his dreams. All this while ignoring all my dreams. So... I chose to go forward alone

He told me he wouldn't say that he loved me until we were married. Big red commitment flag

I was 29 and had been with my boyfriend four years when he "proposed." I put scare quotes around it because he didn't actually say anything - he just got down on a knee and showed me a ring. Every time we had talked about marriage, I told him I wasn't ready. Our relationship was solid, but I felt sort of listless in it and like we never really fully connected, or had real talks of any depth. I always felt like it was me talking and him listening but not giving much back. We never ever fought. The proposal felt like a microcosm of that dynamic: instead of having a real talk about what he wanted, which would have been hard, he just bought a ring (a diamond, btw, which I told him I didn't want but he didn't believe me) to try to sidestep dealing with any difficult feelings or conflicts.

We stayed together after that, though - I felt so confused, he seemed so devoted, I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. A year and a half later, I found out he had been pursuing other women through much of our relationship, including my best friend, who he was infatuated with (she did not realize), and was having an emotional affair with a woman at his work. He acted like a complete crazy person after this all came to light, and all the resentments he had secretly buried came up (culminating in a letter to my parents where he essentially blamed me for his cheating, based on offenses like my doing my laundry separate from his and not accepting his money/liking to keep our finances separate). I felt validated about the vague unease I had had for so many years and was glad I listened to that intuition that there was something not right, though I wish I had sooner.

About a month later, I met my now-husband, and we married a year and a half later - I never hesitated with his proposal, even though it was only a few months in. It's been three years now and I am so happy with him - we're expecting our first child in November!

Gorgeous 19 year old girl I worked with. We had been a little flirtatious with each other but were just close work friends. I was under 25 (m)

She got knocked up by a guy she wasn’t dating seriously. She was opposed to abortion so was planning to keep the baby but wanted to end it with that guy

She took me aside and slowly and seriously proposed marriage with me. Her rationale being that we loved each other even though we were just friends and that I would be a wonderful father, so we should give it a shot.

She was sincere, but seeing as her proposal was insane (though oddly tempting) I said no

She married the father of her child shortly after. They’re still married, going on 20 years now. Only one child

So I suppose I said no because I was a young man and that wasn’t my child. I do wonder what would have happened if I’d said yes... but that would have been insane... right?