My (22M) girlfriend (21F) of three and a half months brings up marriage very often and got extremely upset and began crying when I told her I really liked her, but we haven’t been together long enough for me to feel comfortable talking about that. How do I better address this issue?

My girlfriend brings up marriage pretty often and I often just ignore it or laugh it off, but two days ago she brought up something about how after we’re married 40 years from now and I was like, “Hey, hey, that’s a lot to put on me. I really care about you, but we just haven’t known each other long enough or well enough to be talking about that and putting those expectations out there.” She was obviously upset, so I asked her if she wanted to talk about it and she said there was nothing to talk about. I then said that I know there is, in fact, something to talk about, but you can come to me when you’re ready. After that and a little TV she seemed to have moved on.

Last night we’re sitting in my car and suddenly she brings up how she was really hurt about the night before and that she feels like she likes me more than I like her. I reassured her of how much I like her (I sincerely do), but I reiterated my stance that I’m not even close to ready to talk about our futures together in 40-50 years. She then began crying intensely for like 5 minutes or more. She would barely even look at me. I tried to console her, but there wasn’t much I could really say because I wasn’t stepping away from the boundaries I’ve set.

More than this, I wasn’t even going to hang out with her yesterday to begin with because I was going to exercise and do my meal prep for the week. When I said I didn’t really want to hang out and that I had things to do, she was obviously upset saying, “Oh so you don’t want to see me?” “It’s fine.” “It’s okay.” “No we don’t have to hang out.”

The crying over me setting boundaries about not feeling comfortable discussing marriage, and her attitude when I said I didn’t want to hang out makes this all feel manipulative. Maybe I’m just frustrated because I went to bed hungry and didn’t get to make my food for the week, but I need some perspective on this.

EDIT: Just because I think this post has mislead some commenters. She’s never said she wanted to get married today, or a year from now. She just said that she envisions us getting married and having a life together… more than a handful of times. Last time she brought it up, I basically said she was getting ahead of herself (like I made clear in the post). I like her, but I’m not ready to entertain those possibilities.