Help with my situation, please.
 

Thank you for your opinions, guys. I've been enlightened.

Well, there's a lot to cover, so I'll try to hit everything.

1. An expensive wedding will not make you happy. I promise. You think you want those things; you don't. You want to be with your family and be happy and celebrate your union. A white dress, expensive flowers, and catering will not change that for you.

2. Engagement rings are pretty much useless, especially if your engagement period is relatively short. You'll be wearing wedding rings later anyway.

3. How much he spends on you is not proportional to how much he loves you. Times, they are a-changin', and you, as an equal contributor to this relationship, should not expect him to pay for everything. You shouldn't be offended if he asks you to go in half and half on something. And, you should certainly NOT try to get him to ditch his dreams for the sake of money. It's unsupportive and shallow.

4. If you want him to spend more time with you, or more quality time with you, then you need to open up and be honest about it. I used to have this same problem with my fiance. The thing is, he won't always be able to come up with things for you to do together. You'll have to give just as much if you expect to get. And you might have to do a LOT of giving before you get a return on your investment. It's not automatic.

5. You say that he's more materialistic than you, yet you are asking him to do something that makes more money but doesn't make him as happy, you are asking for more gifts, and you are asking for an extravagant wedding over what he's willing to budget for. I just want you to realize that, based on what you're saying here, you certainly seem to be the materialistic one. It appears that your priorities and your relationship are based on what he spends on you.

Trust me, I've been in your situation. All of those things you mentioned resonate with me, because I've been there. My fiance will be $80k+ in debt when he's out of school, and yet his starting salary may be as low as $30k/yr, but it makes him happy and the money isn't important. I'm willing to be the primary breadwinner in our relationship so that he can do what makes him happy, because I love him and I am willing to give anything to allow him to fulfill his passions in life. Until recently, I've been the one who takes care of most of our bills and shared expenses. He still "owes" money to me, but that kind of stuff is stupid and I'm not going to ask him to pay back his debt to me because I love him and money isn't a big deal (provided he spends it reasonably; but he rarely spends money on himself, it mostly goes to groceries or school supplies).

We've also pushed our wedding back, several times (though, for different reasons that you mentioned). I somewhat regret getting an engagement ring, because we're tight on money and could use the funds on other things, but on the same level, we've had an extended engagement, so it works for us. However, he spent less than $200 on it (bought it online, precious metal to keep my finger from turning green but no rare gems because they look just as pretty as "artificial" ones that are a bahjillion times cheaper), and he didn't get diamonds (which I specifically requested of any jewelry he gives me), so I wasn't too upset.

We're also extremely tight on our wedding budget in general. Luckily, my extended family is pitching in (dad is unemployed so he has no money, I'm unemployed so I have no money, and my fiance is basically paying both of our bills so he has nothing left over), but my budget will still exceed $1000 just because we're having so many guests. I wish I could trim way down, but right now our budget is sitting at $3000, we're not having a ceremony (we're being married by a justice of the peace in a courthouse while I wear sweatpants and a tshirt lol), but we are definitely keeping the important parts, and that's a party the night beforehand with all of the friends we hold dear to us, and a reception the following day where our extended families will meet (many of them for the first time).

So, tl;dr: Stop caring about the money. It's not important. Talk to him about spending time with you. You might have to give a lot (in coming up with ideas to spend time together) before you'll see him suggesting things or coming up with stuff. Ask him how he feels: does he think you're spending enough time together? Does he really think that sleeping with you is enough? (trust me, if you make him think about it, he'll eventually realize that it's not--I live with my fiance full time and every once in a while he'll still tell me he misses me because he's so busy and he wants to spend more time with me)

You have to communicate, you have to prioritize, and you have to let go of things that just aren't important.

Basically, you guys are fighting about all the things that couples fight about the most: money, time, privacy, jobs, things like that. You have to figure out how important these standards you have are in these areas. Are you willing to possibly compromise them or is there no compromise? Do you need these things? Because the choice isn't yours about whether or not he's going to change in these areas. The choice is between whether or not you're able to accept him if he doesn't change. Assume that he won't because most men don't.

I disagree with Keyori. "Times are a changin'" as she put it. I don't care. People can have whatever standards they want to in a relationship, whether they are extremely old-fashioned, extremely strange, or extremely normal and modern. You just have to know what your limits are and what you are willing to give up as a standard. Don't give up too much or you lose yourself and are miserable in a relationship. Don't expect too much or you are again going to be miserable. Although it's better to expect too much than too little.

Anyway, I want to address some of the issues you talked about more individually as well.

First of all, it doesn't matter how much your boyfriend is willing to pay for a wedding. That, in and of itself, is not an indicator of how much he loves you, so try to throw that part out of the equation. Look at the rest of him instead. Is the other things he is doing giving off signs that he finds you worthless and not that important to him? Because if he does think you're worthless and all that, then he'll show it in other areas as well. It is possibly that he just thinks weddings are frivolous and that it has nothing to do with you.

Also, I've spent a lot more on my boyfriend than he has spent on me. We have a long distance relationship and I'm always the one to pay for the plane tickets and things, so that isn't necessarily an indicator that things are going wrong.

Also, are you planning on working as well? There's nothing wrong with someone wanting to be a teacher and I do agree with Keyori that you are focused a whole lot on the money aspect of it. Being a teacher isn't impractical. If you want more money, then you, yourself should get a good job instead of expecting him to. I don't think there's anything wrong with one person being a home maker in the relationship, but they should be happy with the sacrifices and the loss of money that that means they are going to experience. It's not impossible to live on one teacher's salary. Maybe difficult, but not impossible.

The part that bothers me is that you both seem materialistic and angry about the other person being materialistic. His standards on you of expecting you to not like clothes at all or make-up or anything like that are ridiculous, unless he's willing to give up on all the money he spends on entertainment and anything else unnecessary like he's expecting you to do. That's not how people work or are expected to work.

And I disagree with Keyori. Either a man will spend enough time with you or he won't. I guess there are some occasions when a man just doesn't realize what he is doing, but most of the time, they either make time for you or they don't because they are tired of you or feeling tied down by the relationship and when you start asking them about it, they usually accuse you of being clingy and wrong. When my boyfriend is feeling annoyed by me or tied down, he'll spend a lot less time with me and the more I bring it up, the more annoyed he gets.

I'm going to say though, if a standard that you can't compromise on is that you need a rich man, I don't think you are a bad person for it, but you're not going to get it from this guy.