People Are Sharing The Real Reasons They Turned Down Marriage Proposals, And It's Definitely Not Like The Movies

    Some things just aren't meant to be...

    Morgan Murrell
    by Morgan Murrell

    BuzzFeed Staff

    Marriage proposals come with a lot of positive connotations, but we rarely talk about what happens when someone turns a proposal down.

    man proposing
    Tristar Pictures /Courtesy Everett Collection

    I asked the BuzzFeed Community to give me a little insight on what that experience was like. Here are a few of their stories:

    1. Wrong Place, Wrong Time

    NBC

    "When my divorce decree came in — we divorced because he cheated/abandoned me — the guy I was casually seeing during the process proposed. I laughed and then said,  'NOOOOOOOO! NO, NO, NO, NO, NOOOOOOO!' I didn’t mean to hurt his feelings, but had he paid attention he would’ve known better than to do something so foolish."

    —catladyjo82

    2. Third Times A Charm

    NBC

    "I've been proposed to by three people, but turned down two: my high school boyfriend, my college boyfriend, and my graduate school boyfriend, who I ended up marrying.

    High school was normal first love (well-meaning but melodramatic) and he proposed via a promise ring when we reached our one-year anniversary. But by the time we made it to college, around fall break, we realized we had serious faults in our relationship. We didn't make it to winter break. I gave the ring back.

    My college boyfriend proposed officially over text the night Obama won, so that was...weird? He was manipulative and made me believe I needed him. After three years I realized I didn't. I gave the ring back."

    —mdmpuddifoot

    3. Too Fast, Too Serious

    BuzzFeed Celeb

    "No formal proposal, but he was discussing our future like our marriage was a foregone conclusion, and I started to get a little weirded out. And I mean like 'house we don't own, kids we don't have' kind of talk. We'd been friends for years, but only in a relationship a few weeks. I was 18 years old. I broke up with him because it was just too much, and a year later, we tentatively started our friendship again. He'd joined the military in the interim and tried to get me to drop out of college and come live with him where he was stationed across the country. Yeah, no. He unfriended me when he got married a few years later and last I heard, they were still together and had a couple of children. So it all worked out."

    —lobsterlemonlime

    4. The Fake Out

    Freeform

    "He cheated, kinda. We were in a weird spot in both of our lives; I was divorced, he was going through a custody battle with his ex-fiancee. We were living in my dad's house (rent free, mind you) and one night when I was making dinner he was sitting at the table and smiling at his phone. I didn't think anything of it. He said he had to meet a friend up at the gas station. Cool, go for it, get me a slushy while you're there. Few hours later, I had screenshots from who we found out later was the ex-fiancee using a different number and acting like a girl he had met online. Obviously, that 'girl' never showed up to meet him that night. I was dumb and decided we could try to work things out. He proposed a week later, thinking that would fix everything. I said, 'Absolutely not! We can go back to my dad's house and you can pack your stuff!' Even though it was not actual cheating, the meaning behind the texts were enough."

    —ashleenooo

    5. It Just Wasn't Right

    CBC

    "The first proposal I was pregnant. He was actively cheating on me (again) at the time, so I said no, yet we stayed together. Things got really good after our son was born, but by that time I had no desire to be with him. So, I moved across the country, and haven't spoken to him since. He hasn't tried to be a part of my son's life, which is fine. I moved knowing he wouldn't, but we've both gone on to enter healthy marriages, and I hope he's doing well.

    As for the second proposal, he wasn't asking me because he wanted to be together at 75. I think he asked because we were around the age that small-town people shack up — I come from a small US town where 26 and unmarried is spinstership, haha! Respectfully, I declined, but we are still friends and he's a great human."

    —smellsbells

    6. One Big Ball Of Yikes

    20th Century Fox

    "When I was 18, I worked at a remote resort over the summer. Only one other person had the same days off as me, so we spent all our days off together hanging out. A month in, he asked me to go for a walk. Suddenly, everything came out: He broke up with his girlfriend for me. He thought paying for my lunch at Subway one time meant we were not only dating, but in a committed, exclusive relationship. He wanted to meet my parents so he could ask for my hand in marriage. I tried every excuse in the book: 'I'm not interested in dating anyone right now,' 'I don't date coworkers,' 'I see you as a friend",' and even, 'I see you as a brother.' He kept telling me he'd wait for me, so I hid from him for the rest of the summer. Fast forward to my birthday in September and he sent me flowers with a note that said, 'I'm still waiting. Are you ready?' I told him no and threw out the flowers. THAT NIGHT, he proposed to his ex-girlfriend. They divorced & remarried 3x before the divorce finally stuck."

    —moderncaptain55

    7. Young & Reckless

    Universal Pictures

    "I initially said no to my now-husband. I didn't want to get engaged before college graduation, because we were going to different states. We spent a year apart, but he managed to get a job transfer to my city, and then we got married after living together for a couple years. We just weren't ready at 22, when he initially proposed. I'm really glad we waited until we were 25 to get married. We've been married for ten years now."

    —singingeachtoeach

    8. Drunk & Delusional

    Freeform

    "We were 22 and he was drunk as hell when he asked. I said no without missing a beat. Surprisingly, he remembered asking me and the next morning asked again. I looked at him and asked him, 'Do you really want to marry me?' He said, 'I mean, it's just something we should do, right?' Hard no, again. So, in less than 10 hours, got proposed to twice by the same guy, and I said nope both times. We stayed together for another nine months after that, but he never asked me again."

    —morgan_le_slay

    9. Coitus & Conversation

    Netflix

    "He asked while we were having sex."

    —shannon1740

    10. Treat Yo Self...And Your Sanity

    OWN

    "I was engaged to my high school boyfriend, who was three years older. We were very young, but he was insistent. He bought me a ring he liked and told me it was what looked best. I personally thought it was ugly, but I didn't want to sound selfish or rude. For two and a half years I put up with him constantly making decisions and ignoring my own needs and wants. I dealt with him using his depression and anxiety to quit numerous jobs and to be alternately clingy and ignoring me. I finally decided this would never work and left him and moved in with a friend from work. He later married a girl he met in a bar at a wet T-shirt contest and had a baby, they divorced, and he married someone else. Not sure if that relationship lasted or not. I have been with the same person for nearly 18 years."

    —celticcopper

    11. The Ring Seen Around The World

    NBC

    "He was literally still seeing the woman he cheated on me with! Plus, we weren't even in a relationship anymore. Years later I saw her with the ring he tried to give to me."

    —jenavieve141991

    12. He Planned Our Whole Life

    Hulu

    "At first, I was confused. We hadn’t been dating very long. Then he tried to sell me on what he thought the ideal married life for us would be, and that included him being a stay-at-home dad with our SIX kids, while I serve as the breadwinner.

    Fortunately, he proposed in private. Had that been in public, that would have been even worse. Unfortunately, he told his mom and all his friends he was proposing that night. His mom even helped him pick out the ring.

    I let him down as gently as I could, reminding him that I had no intention of remaining in Ohio and had been very clear about that. And while I was more than happy to consider adoption someday, I absolutely did not want SIX kids. I also wasn’t interested in being the only partner working. Above all, none of this looked as if I mattered at all. The house, the kids, the lifestyle…all of it was what he wanted, and I seemed like an afterthought. 

    The ring was very nice, though."

    —angels4d4906ef4

    13. No Room For Jealousy

    NBC

    "It was my first boyfriend. He hadn’t proposed yet but made it known to me that he had bought a ring. He asked my dad for my hand and everything. But during the course of our long-distance dating, I moved states and met a new group of friends, and of course there were guys in the friend group. My BF got really jealous and yelled at me for being ‘close’ with a guy friend and that’s when I learned about my boyfriend’s anger issues. After that, our relationship just turned south and I found myself realizing that I deserved better. I was afraid his anger would turn into abuse later on, so I ended things. It was hard because I loved his family, but it was ultimately the right call. His next gf after me ended up writing me and asking if he had anger issues…he was even worse to her! I told her to get out and thankfully she did!"

    —ellave

    14. Sometimes You Just Know

    PBS

    "He just wasn’t the one."

    —yayayaya16

    15. Promises Are Meant To Be Broken

    HBO Max

    "Not exactly a marriage proposal, but I grew up in a the South where promise rings were treated as a sort of pre-proposal for people in high school. At 17, my high school boyfriend was a lot more into me than I was into him. He was convinced we were going to get married and have kids, and live a good little Southern Baptist life, and I was...not. He told our mutual friends that he was planning to buy me a promise ring to give me that Christmas. Thank God they told me, and I told them to SHUT IT DOWN. They did and convinced him to buy a normal necklace instead. We obviously broke upa whole year later, because I was young and dumb, and bad at confrontation. I didn't have to dodge any more almost-proposals after that."

    —taylynngabbey

    16. Stuck Around And Found Out

    Starz

    "We’ve been dating for about five months. I was 19 and he was 25. He proposed to me during his parents vow renewal. I declined, because I was so young and we were barely dating. He was really pissed. I should’ve ended it right then and there. Stuck around in that toxic relationship for two more years."

    —mellie06

    17. Don't Walk, Run

    Paramount Pictures

    "I had an on-again off-again high school boyfriend. We had a tumultuous relationship stemming from us being jealous, immature, and insecure. Looking back, it was more of a 'we’re dating because we’re bored and like the attention' type of relationship. I never had the expectation that we would be married. When I was 18 and started college three hours away, I found out that he was cheating on me, and we broke up. After a few months we rekindled, but things just weren’t the same and I realized that we didn’t align in a lot of values (religion, finances, child bearing, etc.). Anyway, I met him for dinner to break up with him for the final time when I was 19 because I thought he deserved to be broken up with in person.

    In the middle of all of this, he immediately changed the subject and said, 'What if we just get married tomorrow? I have my grandmas wedding ring that I’ve been saving for you. I would marry you tomorrow if you say yes today. Please just marry me!' I told him no, and comforted him while he cried in the car.

    He kept texting me here and there after that, but it eventually died out after a few months when he finally understood that it was over, and time to move on."

    —kylied492e92aa0

    18. It's Not Me, It's You

    Apple TV+

    "I was 21 and had known the guy for a month. We had seen each other maybe 10 times. I knew way too little about him, and just didn't feel ready in any way. I had maybe a mild crush, whereas he was obviously very much in love.

    He took the rejection okay, but eventually I broke up with him because all kinds of nasty shit started to come up about him. Later, I figured out his behavior was full-on love-bombing and he was abusive. Really glad I didn't accept his proposal."

    —whale_tail