Haylie Duff’s 12-Year Engagement Ends: How Waiting to Marry Could Have Cause Relationship's Demise

Haylie Duff’s relationship once looked like a modern love story that didn’t need a traditional ending.

Engaged to Matt Rosenberg for 12 years, the actress often spoke openly about why the couple never made it down the aisle. Now, their quiet split is putting a spotlight on a growing relationship phenomenon: the long engagement that never quite becomes a marriage.

“We didn’t plan to not get married, we just have been busy having kids and filming shows and him working,” Duff said in a 2021 interview with Access Hollywood. “Life kind of got away from us, to be perfectly honest.”

The couple, who began dating in 2012 and got engaged in 2014, shares two daughters and often described themselves as already feeling married.

Experts say that sense of comfort can be both stabilizing and, eventually, destabilizing.

“Engagement is ‘commitment light’, meaning it's a way for stating and feeling ‘I am committed to you’ but without the permanence socially, psychologically, economically that marriage is,” said Dr. Gail Saltz, clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College and host of the “How Can I Help?” podcast.

“Without the legally binding feeling of marriage couples may feel less motivated to HAVE to work out issues they have between them,” Saltz explained.

In Duff’s case, life milestones seemed to take precedence over wedding plans.

“Initially, it's very romantic and you are in love, but the longer the engagement goes on, the more it shifts into a partnership and a quasi marriage dealing with real life problems,” said Susan Trombetti, matchmaker CEO of Exclusive Matchmaking.

“Like some marriages, they don't stand the test of time due to differences in shifting priorities, lifestyles, and communication. It's natural,” Trombetti added.

The pressures aren’t always dramatic. Career changes, financial decisions, or even geography can quietly reshape a relationship. Questions like whether to take a job in another city or how to balance family expectations can create friction that’s easier to avoid than resolve.

“Priorities that shift over time can be the practical side after the emotional high wears off. What was once a rush to have children and marry take a backseat to other life logistics,” Trombetti explained.

“If both partners feel they are hedging their bets and feeling that they don't want to marry until they are ‘perfectly aligned’ on all issues, then over time the stress of not getting aligned… can drive a wedge between them,” Saltz said.

In those cases, ending the relationship can feel simpler than confronting their issues.

Duff and Rosenberg’s split reflects that quiet unraveling. There was no dramatic public fallout, just a relationship that, over time, never crossed the threshold from engagement to marriage.