Contents:
Your personalities change, so do your lifestyles, world views and values. The longer you date someone, the more variables there are affecting the fate of your relationship. The Pros and Cons. Dating someone for a long period of time allows you to know them really well.
Both of you go through enough hardship together that makes you stronger as a couple. But it can lead to your relationship becoming more routine and not as exciting as it used to be. You can either feel bored with the relationship or the person you are with. Most of all, you can mistake comfort for love. But you agree to compromise with yourself and get married because you are afraid of starting over with someone else. During the first year or two, you probably spend most of your relationship in the honeymoon phase where everything is all rainbows and butterflies.
Your relationship is new and fresh, and you never run out of things to do or things to talk about. There is always something new to discover about that person you are dating.
It was the couples that moved in together to "test things out" and ended up getting married for whatever reason giving in to pressure, surprise baby arrival, etc that end up getting divorced. Anecdotally, it makes sense to me given the people I have known. That's kind of what I've heard. That it's not about being the kind of people who "beleive in" divorce and pre-marital co-habitation, it is about moving in together because hey, look, we pay less rent this way, or to test things out, and then it's so expensive to move into two apartments even if it isn't quite right, and then everyone starts saying "hey, when are you getting married", and then folks say, the heck with it, lets.
Which I think actually happens a lot. We got married after 5 years, and we did the whole "fuck it-let's just elope! We also had many people questioning whether i was pregnant, everyone is still on baby bump watch and it's been 4 months! No, we just decided that it was the right time, there was no rush!
Compared to dating less than one year before a marriage proposal, dating one that what happens early in a couple's time together tends to happen later, too. The Waiting Game: How Long Is Too Long for Marriage . Maybe he is comfortable dating three years before considering marriage, and maybe you'd like it to.
Great article and comments. My husband and I got together when we were in high school.
We knew he was leaving for the Army, and felt that we were too young to get married so we held off. I had moments of weakness in college where all I wanted to do was get married and move on post to be with him, but thankfully he's a lot more level-headed than I am and we always came to the decision that it just wasn't the right thing to do. I regret that sometimes I was a little immature about it, I think because I was aching so much to be with him.
I would get frustrated that he wouldn't at least ask me to get married with the realization that we wouldn't get married for a few years. Eventually once he returned from Iraq he admitted that he didn't want to ask before he went in case he…you know, didn't come back. In fact he had a friend that took the same approach with his girlfriend, and he was killed a few months before they were set to come home.
Anyway he waited until '09, when we'd been together for 6 years and he'd been out for 1, to propose. I'm so happy, looking back, that we waited as long as we did because we were able to have the wedding we wanted and in our timeframe not the Army's. I guess it really depends on the couple and where you both are. My boyfriends parents are always on us about getting married.
We had our daughter when we were 18 and not even two months later they were asking us about getting married! Four years later and we're about there I think. But its been a long rode and I'm glad that we didnt let his parents talk us into a ceremony in their back yard. My fiance and I were together 8 years before he proposed last year. We haven't made any set-in-stone plans yet and probably won't for awhile, for a number of reasons: He was hurt at work, can't walk without assistance and wants to be able to walk at our wedding.
We've raised his sons from his first marriage and are both more concerned with getting them into college than hosting some expensive party. Most importantly, while we're both excited about our wedding and reception, our actual marriage is something that we're already living day to day. By the time we're legally married, we'll likely have been engaged for at least five years. Is that too long?
Not for us and I'm not really concerned if it's too long for anyone else. My partner and I have been together for 7 years, and we're not getting married for at least a few more years until we're both done with graduate school. Most people who have asked have been quite content with our reasoning for only getting married in we've been together for four years at this point. When we explain that we first want to get rid of our mountain of debt so we can start saving to have the over-the-top party we'd like; that we're geeks and Pi Day means a lot to us; that we see no point in rushing into a wedding that won't fit our personalities; and, most importantly, that it's another way of committing ourselves to a long life together, especially since both our families are extremely long-lived — people nod, shrug and accept it.
If someone does push, or says things like it's such a long time to wait that we may not even be together then, I tell them as politely as I can that I don't allow anyone except those in my relationship, to make any decisions about it. Unless you're the man I plan to marry, it's none of your business.
My family's reticence may be because I've been married before and they don't want to push me; his family is accepting of the fact that, as far as they're concerned, we're just weird. That's okay, as long as it keeps them all off our backs. I know of a couple who've been together for 30 years — and long-distance between Germany and South Africa at that — with no intention of getting married; they only did so two years ago because of some law in Germany that would have affected him inheriting anything.
I don't think there's such a thing as 'too long' if you're both committed to spending the rest of your lives together, in whatever form it may take. It's only 'too long' if one person wants the commitment and the other doesn't. My mother's cousin got engaged when she was 16 yikes!
They had one child by this time and seven sad miscarriages in between. I think that put the wedding off for a long time and it wasn't until her father died that she told her husband to start planning a wedding. I had a different issue. I just got engaged this past Christmas and have been with my guy for 6 years. High school and our 4 years of college. We move out together the summer after we graduated high school. Everyone was in awe that we were always doing things together and always in a good mood.
I didn't think about it before, but that's probably why people thought I was pregnant! So that is the personal note. You can get to know her better on her Insta stories. We got our rings custom-made, so my guy didn't have any when he proposed. I do think the long engagement is making people less excited about our wedding, though — when I try to talk to my parents about wedding planning, they don't really seem interesting in actually going out and helping me do anything like scope venues. We have a 6 year ok who attends Christian academy and I soooo thought her father would have popped the question to me by now, but nope!
We never fought and were unbelievable well matched. Friends who were getting engaged an married within a year or two of meeting their spouses were giving us serious beef. Apparently he and I must be having some secret issues or problem because we weren't getting married.
We, ehem, were strapped for money high school and then college student. What's wrong about waiting to have a career or a life path set? I don't think you can wait to long to get married.
If you are meant to be together, you will be. And if marriage is important to you, then you will get there with your loved one. Maybe it's best that you don't need to go through a messy divorce. Thank you for this post! My BF and I are not engaged, we have been together for almost 6 years and have been living together in our house for just over 5 years. We have two little girls who are 2 and 3 and I often hear people comment that we will never get married or that if we do that I now would have to settle for a little wedding or elope etc. I didn't realize that if I chose to have children first that i was foregoing my right to a giant and fabulous wedding.
Oh, no, you don't: We had our baby first…In fact, we were first engaged in April and planning a wedding for October, then I got pregnant in July and decided that I don't want to be a pregnant bride and we would get married after the baby was born…So instead of 6 month engagement, I had an almost 2 years engagement. I wanted a small wedding, not because of the baby, but because I love small weddings, it just feels so intimate. So, no, you don't have deny yourself from a giant wedding, you can have even 2 if you want!!: My fiance and I have been together for 8 years, 9 in June, when we're getting married.
We've been together since we were 15 and just enjoyed being with each other. I've always been fiercely independent, college and career driven and vowed I would never marry.
Not sure how, we decided to finally do it. When I broke the news to my family, they cried! I couldn't believe it! But, family checks and support came and suddenly I'm having a formal June wedding. I'm really still surprised, my family never made any comments to me about them wanting to see me married, they probably knew better.
My fiance is happy, he's always been a romantic and wanted a wedding. I'm a bit lucky, as my fiance and I are engaged at 21, and really only a few friends know about it, as well as why we aren't rushing to get married jobs, student loans, etc. Also factor in that both sides of our family even though 1 side knows already don't expect up to get married any time soon. So we can ride this engagement boat for a few more years and get things ready. If the question is how long to wait after getting engaged -I got engaged pretty quick and had a long freaking planning process to give me time to double sure.
I hate the planning process but I don't regret the time. Its nice to figure out the hard stuff before you lose the option to breakup.