I think my boyfriend is going to propose, and I don't want to marry him.

I’ve been with my boyfriend for 4 years now, he’s great and we’re very comfortable. He’s given me a few hints that he’s going to propose this month. He said it’ll be before the end of the year and I think he’s going to do it for my birthday.<br><br>I don’t want to marry him. I love him but I don’t feel like we’re ready for that step and I don’t want to do it just for the sake of doing it.<br><br>I know he’s excited about it and if I say no I know it’s going to hurt his feelings and I don’t know what to do.<br><br>I just wish he knew how I felt or if there was a nice way to let him down easy and not make him feel like he failed or anything.<br><br>This all started with the hint he gave me last weekend. I was looking at some books on our bookshelf and he came up and said “you’re probably going to have to move all your stuff in the near future and we’ll be putting all our stuff together.” I tried to play it off like it was random but he was right next to me and I could tell he meant something else.<br><br>I don’t know what to tell him or how to get out of this.