Ready for the next step?

So it seems like the key here is you want to be engaged, not necessarily married (right now at least). Which I totally get, being the "girl friend" doesn't carry the same weight as being the "fiance" and it doesn't sound as permanent.

I dealt with the same thing, and what I realized was that when I wanted to be the fiance, it was for a selfish reason. I wanted the title, I wanted the marriage too, but I desperately wanted the recognition and security from that step more so.

For my fiance, being engaged and being married were the same thing to him, he didn't want a drawn out engagement because that's basically just dating in his eyes and there was no reason to make that step until he was ready to say "I Do".

I understand feeling like everyone else is married but you, I was the only girlfriend for years when my fiance was in the military and had to deal with the "wives" looking down on me and saying I "wouldn't understand because we weren't married" even though we had been together longer than them and our finances had been merged since before they had even met their spouses. BUT their husbands weren't mine. And honestly, when I was nagging him to propose, we weren't at a good point in our relationship, which should have been more obvious since I was nagging him to do something he was actively telling me he wasn't ready for. It took over a year of me not bringing getting engaged up, couple's counseling to better understand each other and how to take care of one another and a change in environment for him to feel like it was time and he was ready.

There's nothing wrong with discussing your futures, but when your partner says he isn't ready to be married, you don't get to counter with "well I just want to be engaged" and expect him to go along with it. Being engaged sounds like it means two different things to you, I know it did for us when we had this issue.