I knew a guy who asked a woman to marry him.

Sadly, she said no to his proposal and he was so distraught that he was never the same.

It was terribly sad and I often wonder what happened to him since we’ve lost touch.

Bottom line: anyone who is rejected in this way pays a heavy emotional price.

Women who turned down marriage proposals shared their stories on AskReddit.

Let’s take a look.

1. No, thanks.

“He thought asking me to marry him and tattooing “Private Property of OP” would be a good way to make me forget about his serial cheating.”

2. Later…

“He proposed as a knee-jerk reaction when we were going through a rough patch. It was a pretty inappropriate gesture and I told him no and why it was a no.

He wasn’t being flippant, just turns out he was scared of where our relationship was going. We ended up working on ourselves and were married five years later.”

3. A happy ending.

“About 3 or 4 months after we started dating he asked.

It was a moment…we had a fun night out, a little buzzed, in a cab over the Williamsburg Bridge looking at the NYC skyline, weather was beautiful…I think we were both feeling immortal.

But I said, you know…I’m saying no now because we haven’t been dating so long and we’ve had a bit to drink and we’re just caught up in the moment. He seemed dejected. He was still dejected days later.

That said, a few years later after we’d been together long enough I said yes and we got hitched so we still got the happy ending!”

4. I’ll love you one day.

“Dating a guy for a few years. Was 20 years old at the time. Very controlling, wasn’t going great. We were opening Christmas presents with his family when he asked.

He proposed while saying he loved the woman I would become one day. I said yes in public, but no in private. If you don’t even love me now, why propose now? Needless to say it didn’t last long.”

5. Heartbreaking.

“We were both 18 and still in high school. It was around 10 months into our relationship. I broke up with him. I get an urgent call from him to “please come over to my house. I need you.” I was legitimately worried at this point. Went to his house.

There was a dress on his bed and a note to meet him at the bay. At this point I’m just annoyed and didn’t pick up on it. I drive to the bay and I walk up to him dressed in a suit. I’m so confused at this point. We sit down to talk and he goes into the speech and stands up to kneel. At that moment I realize what’s up. I quickly stand with him and ask him to stop.

I didn’t want to ruin this moment for him forever. We just sat there and cried together. He thought that if he made a grand gesture that I would want to get back together. If anything it showed me he would truly do/say anything to get what he wants. It’s was heartbreaking all around.”

6. Yikes.

“A few years back, I was dating this guy. At first, he seemed very kind, sweet and happy. Handsome too.

I thought he was a great catch, especially as some toxic friends of mine were lowering my self esteem. A few months after we started dating, he started changing. It was subtle at first, he would stop spending time with me and blaming me for it. Then came the gaslighting and manipulation. He started isolating me from my family, and hurting me when I refused to do things for him.

Eventually, I got the strength to deal with the situation and tell him that we were over. To get me to stay, he hosted a large party with lots of friends and publicly asked me to marry him. I said no.”

7.  Scary.

“I was literally breaking up with him because he was a**sive, manipulative, and our life goals did not match up (I wanted to get married and maybe have children and he didn’t).

I had packed up most of my things while he was at work and when he got home, we had the long-awaited conversation and he pulls out a taco bell hot sauce packet that said “marry me” on it.

When I told him absolutely not, he then grabs the keys to his shotg** cable lock along with the ammo and hands them to me and says “take this, cause I can’t be trusted with it.”

Implying he was going to k**l himself. This was about 5 or six months after my dad had committed s**cide.”

8. Whoa.

“I loved him. If he had asked me to get married 3 days before I would’ve said yes.

BUT I received a message 2 days before the proposal from someone who told me that he was a gang member.”

9. Bananas.

“Ex asked me over lunch to marry him. He’d broken up with me about once a week for the last few months over nothing.

He had serious emotional/mood issues that have now been diagnosed but he was just a really difficult person to be around in general. I started laughing because it was just absolutely ridiculous, he asked why I was laughing and I brought up how he broke up with me every single week.

He flat out said he wanted to get married because then he knew he wouldn’t be able to leave, as if that stopped people from just getting a divorce ??? We broke up for good not long after this but the whole thing was bananas.”

10. Weirdo.

“One ex always proposed when we were fighting and I was about to leave.

Sometimes literally mid yelling would just drop to one knee.

I always said “no. I don’t want a proposal to end a fight. I want it to be special.””

11. Last ditch effort.

“An ex.

I told him things were going downhill and I wanted to end things so he decided to propose to me (thank god not in public) as an attempt to get me to stay.

I said no.”

12. Not a good strategy.

“He brought me up to his apartment about a 2 hour drive from my college. I was basically trapped there. He asked me while he was feeling insecure about the relationship and figured a proposal would lock me in place.

I dodged it for a few days, but I needed to get back to classes and he wouldn’t take me back till I said yes. I figured he was a bright guy and would come to his senses eventually. He got me back to school. Eventually he realized that coercion is not a good proposal strategy.”

Have you turned down a marriage proposal?

Or maybe you’ve been rejected?

Tell us your stories in the comments!