My boyfriend was not ready for commitment and left me. Two months later, he showed up at my door with an engagement ring.

• My boyfriend and I dated for two years before I pressured him with marriage and kids.

• He said he was not ready and left for Europe after we broke.

• Two months later, he showed up at my apartment in NYC with an engagement ring.

On a hot July day, I was making my way to a friend's party when my phone beeped with an invitation to join a lunch at a restaurant near the "Friends" building in New York City. Thinking I had some time to spare before the party, I decided to drop by.

Upon arrival, I found two unfamiliar guys. One of them had driven from Philadelphia for the weekend. He had rented a car for a month and wanted to travel around. I didn't have a driver's license and was melting from the heat. We hit it off, and within 10 minutes, decided to take a trip outside the city together.

We set off for Montauk, on Long Island, two weeks later and spent the day together before heading to separate sleeping spots. He drove me back, and I showed him my favorite neighborhood, Brooklyn's Williamsburg, before he took off for Philly at 2 a.m.

Another two weeks passed, and he expressed an interest in moving to New York to learn more about the city. The best places seemed to be in Williamsburg, he said, and so he rented an apartment in my neighborhood.

He told me he wasn't ready for anything serious

Though we felt romantic, I sensed he was holding back on any relationship progression, often claiming he was too busy with work or tired to stay over. Two months later, he told me he wasn't ready for a relationship, which I interpreted as a cue to end. In my head, something either moves forward or backward, so I pulled out.

We didn't text each other for a week. I was coping by meeting with my girlfriends and drinking cocktails. Then one afternoon, he texted me and asked to give it another try.

He explained that he was hesitant to commit because he was recently coming out a marriage and wanted to focus on his career. I didn't mind, I said, but we would either be in a relationship, or I'd rather not spend more time on casual dating. So we started to date again.

Despite my gut feeling of him being, as my friend put it, "good marriage material," he was often talking about something that he had missed and things he had to try before committing to something serious. A yearlong relationship was already serious, I thought. I was confused, but I loved him, so we kept going.

I wanted to know if we were headed toward having a family together

When we hit a year and a half, I wanted to know whether we were headed toward having a family or not.