I'm not sure it was ever spelled out in those terms, but Ned certainly had an ongoing thing of telling Stephen "you like this, you want this," and Stephen could only think to say "no" -- he wasn't able to articulate "I want something like this, but not with you."

He's made Jon wait for him and then he doesn't make him follow through to the end, he changes his mind instead.

Pretty sure Jon considers this an extremely happy situation =)

Jon was never waiting because of anything specifically related to marriage -- he was holding off because Stephen wasn't comfortable with going further. And even without the marriage requirement, he still wouldn't have gotten Stephen's consent if he didn't have Stephen's trust...which he earned in part by not badgering Stephen about whether his reasons were legitimate or not. So it worked out well for everyone.

Only a few chapters left! Now it's just a matter of making sure everything gets wrapped up...