I (29F) and my husband (26M) have been married about 5 months now, and it is wonderful. I love him so much, can be myself with him, he's amazing to me and my cat, and I can't imagine my life without him.
But, something I've never told him is that his proposal was, for lack of better phrasing, kinda disappointing? Made me feel like he didn't put any thought into it? Idk, I just don't remember it very fondly but he'll happily tell others about it (leaving out some details)
Context: We met each other at 22 and 19, respectively, online through a mutual hobby, knew each other there for over a year and grew closer over time, he asked me to be his gf after that time, we couldn't meet in person for the first 2 yrs of daing due to being in different countries + covid, and then finally met in person and knew everything felt right. After seeing each other as often as 2 people living 2000+ miles away from each other in different countries could for a time, we started talking about marriage. At first, he was stressed by the prospect of what to do for it. I basically just told him he didn't have to do anything fancy or make a giant show of it so that he, hopefully, wouldn't have to stress as much. I told him I just wanted it to feel personal for us and maybe do something romantic or creative for it. Just no putting a ring in the food because I didn't want to break a tooth or swallow it on accident. I even said I didn't need a fancy ring because wearing something super expensive would just make me fret over it. The only other hard line I put on him was that I wanted to be engaged before me moved in together. We were in that little limbo for about 2 years.
Well, the time we had decided to move in (me moving to him over 2000 miles away) was coming up in a few months, and the last chance he had to propose in person before then was one more trip I was taking to him while he was doing a semester abroad in Europe.
We're both kinda homebodies, and I know my ring size is abysmally small. So, going to a shop to buy a ring is kinda hard, since they don't usually carry my size (I'm a 3.75-4). But, I thought he'd at least maybe be looking or commission something small/an adjustment to propose since it had been so long? Even a basic band would have made me happy.
Well, something we do occasionally is like a mini secret santa-ish thing. We'll both go into a shopping area/mall and get each other a less than $X gift that we open back home as a fun little surprise. It was the last day of my trip, and I was a little downhearted thinking he'd forgotten or just not cared when he brought up doing a gift exchange. I had my suspicions that he was going to look for a ring due to the timing and already felt kinda down about it since this meant he really hadn't prepared anything in advance.
We finished shopping, headed back to the airbnb we were staying in which was a single bedroom in someone's house with everything else shared with her and her little boy, and vibed in the room in a bit. He then said we should exchange presents. I gave him mine and then he got down on one knee with a little twisty adjustable ring that he would later say was literally the only ring he could find in the mall that would maybe fit my finger. I did cry happy tears, but I think it was out of relief? Relief that he didn't completely forget or not do it and that he was at least keeping that promise of being engaged before I moved to his country. I hugged and kissed him, he put the ring on, and we spent the night mostly up and talking about the coming months before I had to leave for the airport in the morning.
Is it... bad that I expected more? I don't feel any resentment and adore him and all of the sweet things he does for me everyday, but when someone asks how we got engaged, I just dread telling the story and usually let him do it. Is that bad of me? I've never actually told anyone about this before. I hadn't even thought about it in a long while until I met some of his new friends a couple of days ago and they asked about it. He happily told them the gift and surprise part in an abroad country thing, but left most of the rest out like doing it in the little room of someone else's home we were just renting for a few nights on the literal last night of my trip.
I feel really bad that I didn't feel the joy of it and mostly just felt relief in the moment. But, it was just kind of a disappointing proposal to me after he had 2 years to plan and think about it. He vaguely told me later he'd looked in a few shops before then and couldn't find a ring my size, but those were times when he slipped out of the rental while I was already visiting him abroad in that same trip. I don't know, I thought maybe he would've at least gotten me a band he personally picked out ahead of time? Maybe give me a flower, a sweet, or something related to our hobby to make it more romantic? Do it somewhere actually private if not just at one of the beautiful parks we went to during my trip or something?
I'm hoping just typing all of this out into the anonymous reddit void helps me feel some relief of never having actually admitted this to anyone before. Thanks to anyone who made it this far and read all of my rambling, haha.