I just can't figure him out?  

3 years of cohabiting is enough to sue one for not marrying you in my country..i think he has some other motives besides you..be careful& dont push it..let it come from his own mouth& watch his steps not to do something bad.,just love& let him do it to you

hi 1st of all keep patience. it is only you who can make him believe that you are everything for him. it is the love which is missing in your relation. your know the reason and you have the answer with you."attitude" very powerful this word is.

Is yours a state that recognizes common law marriages? If not, I would start separating all the together stuff. If he doesn't want to be husband and wife and the state doesn't recognize you as husband and wife, then you may be in a financial pickle. Speaking from personal experience, you are taking a big risk having everytihng joined to a man that does not want to be legally bound to you. Maybe he will propose, maybe you will be together forever, but I still think you are taking a big risk allowing him access to everything. Ten years is a long time to sit by patiently waiting for a man to make up his mind. Ten years plus a child is even longer. You either have tremendous patience or tremendous trust where this man is concerned.

FIRST of all i gotta say....be careful what you wish for....you just might get it...

I lived with my husband for almost 11 years before we got married.....it was the same as you describe.....he even told his whole family a couple of time we were getting married and then it just never happened....I was like you wonder what the heck was the problem....and i still am not sure what it was except that possible when you are already doing everything a married couple does then why bother with paperwork? lol

But anyway and this sounds cliche i know but after ten years i just stopped caring if we got married or not....didnt mention it any more it just really didnt matter to me though at that point it wasnt a strtegy i just figured it didnt really matter if we got married or not....its just a piece of paper and after 7 years you are considered legally married anyway....and then one day he just takes me to a jewelry store and say lets get married and we got our rings and got married about a month later......
And though we are fairly happy toghether i sometimes kinda wish i jadnt gotten married.....not that i dont want to be with him or anything like that but that piece of legal paper between us now binds us together not only romantically but every other way too....for instance any bills one of you runs up belong to both of you etc.....not so if you are not married.....
But anyway...i think if you stop talking about it alltogether for a while he will probably get concerned as to why you dont want to get married any more and decide he does...lol

Oh my, your a complete family as I might say but it wasn't sanctified through marriage so you are still not considered a legal wife, nor does your daughter. In any which way, your union is not legalize.

Sorry to hear this but, i am fearing that something is really wrong with your guy. Ten years??? who would not want to be secured. You are a female and definitely you would need support, but if not married, what law should you hold on to, is he hiding you something? is there another family or what? i don't get it really why you have agreed to continue for 10 years without getting married, be it in court or civil.

You better make up your mind, what will happen to your kid? is she using your surname or her dad's? No need to rush??? it's been ten years, what is he waiting for? the end of age? girl, think well, whyyy is he not doing this, what does your parents say? aren't they concern too? sad to say but you are living outside the will of God. I have nothing against you, i respect your opinion as I do have mine too.

I dont think you are missing anything. Its just the odd way of men. I have close friends who will admit that tney just werent ready to get married whenthey did. They were pressured into it by their fiance, the church, family ect...

I guess your main concern should be if he loves you and is committed to the relationship. Once he decides he wants to spend his life with you and is committed to his family he's unikely to hurt you and the marriage is less likely to end in divorce unless something bad really happens.

To be honest, thats how I feel now. Maybe another time I'll feel otherwise.

It tok 9 years for my husband to marry me. I always felt like you. Than I was at the point where he would mention marriage...I said I wasn't going to marry him....a couple timesof that and he finally got serious and realized I was about to leave him.
I have a question thou, if things are so good right now, what is incentive to marry you when in a sense he is getting everything ofr free? (I mean no offene by asking the question)

I've been with my BD for 13 years come November. We live together, we have a son together. We are not joined in bank accounts, or mortgage, or anything like that, but money is shared between us. We often refer to each other as husband/wife... I've been married before and he never has... I used to worry that he didn't love me enough, or that he didn't trust me, or that he was worried I was only with him for his money... But then we had a baby together. Because I've been married and divorced, I know just how easy it was to dissolve the union...so in my eyes, being married doesn't give any more security. What gives me more security is having his son. A marriage can be legally dissolved, being parents can't ever change. So in my eyes, he's given me every indication that he loves me and he trusts me because he choose me to have his baby with. So now, I don't care that we're not married. I just care that we are happy together, we love each other, we have a beautiful son together and we both know that we are together because we want to be, not because we're legally bound to one another.

Well you know the old saying, why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free. to him the way you allowed it to be is probably perfect. he can play house without being legally bonded to you, when its time to split there are not legal matters or real obligation besides your child. the sad thing is most men thinks this way. My best friend was with a man for 10 years and he just purposed to her a couple of months ago... how long does it take. She was getting to the point of leaving him because she felt she was good enough to shack with but not good enough to marry. she got fed up and thats when he decided he didn't want to loose her and purposed.

I really feel you should tell him whole heartly how you feel and don't settle for less. I know you guys have a child but explain to him how this doesn't complete you and if he cant understand then maybe its time you looked for a man who wants to be a husband and not a boyfriend

A guy with guts enough to take the big plunge.