How long did you wait before you got married?

[Steel]

LC: I am surprised that your ex-DH called time. I felt you would be the one to do that - once you took enough. So maybe he did you and your little fella a favour? Who knows, but I am very happy that you have a new love interest. I hope you have fun with him!

To answer your question - dating 6* years before marriage. Looking back if we knew it would have lasted I would have gotten married asap.

LC, I must ask though, as a lawyer - would you be so keen to mix assets again?

Edit: Dating for 6 not 5 years...Doh!

 

[snlee]

LC, so glad that you have found happiness! You and Miller deserve the best!

DH and I were together over 6 years before we got married. It was right for us since we met very young. Although at the time it seemed like too long!

 

[omieluv]

LC - I am glad you have met someone you have been able to connect with! I remember reading about your troubles with your ex a while ago and my heart went out to you.

As for me, my BF and I have been dating for 10 years. However, we felt that connection you describe right away. We have just never been in a rush to get married, as we are very confident in our relationship and have always known we were going to be together for the long term.

 

[IloveAsschers13]

Me and my BF have been together for almost 5 years, and we are 21. We will get married in most likely 2012, after being together 7-8 years. We aren't really "waiting" either- we're living. We're both in college, working part time jobs, getting our degrees and jobs, and then getting married. It just makes so much more sense to us. But I *knew* we were going to get married since our first kiss when we were 15-

haha call me crazy, but I'm dead serious.

 

[LaurenThePartier]

DH and I have had a history of completely anti-traditional routes through our relationship, from becoming roommates through a post I made on our local VW forum, to him moving out of that house when we started dating, to me selling my house and us moving back in together, and really, we had planned to not get married for some time.

But, life happens and we made an instantaneous decision to get married, and I planned a wedding in 8 weeks, 5 of which I spent unofficially engaged.

So, all told, we were together almost 4 years when we finally got married.

 

[zoebartlett]

We bought a condo together (and permanently moved in together) a little over 2 years after we began dating.

We got engaged almost 4 years after we began dating.

We got married almost 5 years after meeting each other.

I'm glad we waited as long as we did, but I do sort of wish we had both been a bit younger. I'm probably contradicting myself. I'm 35, my husband's 37, and we'd like kids. For US, this isn't the ideal age to have kids but that's where we are now.

LC -- I'm glad you're happier now. Best wishes!

 

[waxing lyrical]

We "courted" for 8 months.

 

[kama_s]

We got engaged 3.5 years into dating, getting married just a little past the 5 year point. We''ve been living together for over 3 years now.

I dont think we necessarily ''waited'' to get engaged - he proposed when it felt right and we both felt it was time to move our relationship to the next level. I was actually a tad bit surprised when he proposed, I wasn''t really expecting it for another 6-12 months. In hindsight, I''m really glad he did

 

[anchor31]

5 years. We were 18/21 when we started dating, so it wasn''t exactly "waiting", more like getting to know each other and ourselves and building our individual lives before we sharing a life together. Seems perfect to me.

 

[ahappygirl]

Three-and-a-half months meeting/ dating, 11 months engaged, married happily 11 yrs TODAY!

The timing was perfect for us.

 

[vespergirl]

With DH, we dated for a year, then lived together for another year, then got married. We were only engaged for 7 weeks before we got married (DH proposed when he found out I was pregnant, and then we eloped). We got married exactly 2 years and 2 weeks after we met

With my first husband (I was married at 23) we dated for a year before he proposed, and then we were married after a 5 month engagement, so I guess for us we were together a year and a half before we married.

 

[Dandi]

DH and I were together for 5 years when we got engaged (we were 17/24 when we met, so I was happy to wait!) and together nearly 8 years when we married. Seems like a long engagement but during those three years we both changed jobs, bought new cars, sold two properties, bought an investment factory AND built our own house (whew, what a mouthful!) so it was a fast and furious 3 years for us!! At least we achieved all we wanted to before we were married, and can now relax a bit and travel, and be good parents to our two miniature fox terriers

 

[Mediterranean]

Date: 4/23/2009 4:03:51 PM
Author: iwannaprettyone
Known him for 12 years

4 years as a bf

1 year as a fiance


We married in Sept 08

WAYYYYY tooooooo long- hah, it was great to wait!

WOW, too freaky!!! Are you me from some alternate dimension????

Our story is pretty much the same!! 1.5 years as boyfriend/girlfriend, I think, is the only difference. We will have been engaged a little over a year when we marry. We were "those" friends: either people thought we WERE a couple, or people thought we SHOULD be a couple, but we were friends for 12 years. Then I moved away, and realized that, HOLY $#!&, I''m in LOVE with my best friend!!!!! So, when I moved back, we started our relationship, and next month we''re getting married.

Was it too long of a wait? He didn''t really wait all that long to ask me to marry him, but I guess we waited quite a while to finally move from being friends to being a couple!

 

[iwannaprettyone]

Date: 4/26/2009 1:18:42 PM
Author: Mediterranean

Date: 4/23/2009 4:03:51 PM
Author: iwannaprettyone
Known him for 12 years

4 years as a bf

1 year as a fiance


We married in Sept 08

WAYYYYY tooooooo long- hah, it was great to wait!

WOW, too freaky!!! Are you me from some alternate dimension????

Our story is pretty much the same!! 1.5 years as boyfriend/girlfriend, I think, is the only difference. We will have been engaged a little over a year when we marry. We were ''those'' friends: either people thought we WERE a couple, or people thought we SHOULD be a couple, but we were friends for 12 years. Then I moved away, and realized that, HOLY $#!&, I''m in LOVE with my best friend!!!!! So, when I moved back, we started our relationship, and next month we''re getting married.

Was it too long of a wait? He didn''t really wait all that long to ask me to marry him, but I guess we waited quite a while to finally move from being friends to being a couple!

Awwww we should be PS twinks!!!!!!

 

[mia1181]

OMG!!!!!! I am soooo happy for you LC!!!! I''ve followed some of your previous posts, and felt so badly for you. When I saw the title of this thread I thought "oh she must be thinking of leaving him again.... hope she does." But I am very glad to see that the relationship has been over for a while.

I have a close friend who was in a similar relationship and her husband treated her poorly. She also had children and would have never left him either. I was soooo glad the day he asked for a divorce. Even though she was crushed, I knew it would be best for her!

To answer your question, we dated for 9 years before finally getting married. We were engaged for 4. It seems like a long time, but we were 17 when we met and it took me a while to finish college. My only regret would be that I didn''t finish college on time. If I would have, we could''ve married sooner, and maybe had children sooner then we will.

 

[naeem]

I won''t read all 75 replies, I''ll just tell you how it was for me and my sister. My sister married when she was around 35 and her husband had 3 kids already. I''m 58 and never married. So, if the average marrying age is in the 20''s...? something went wrong in my family. Not sure what happened. My Mother married my Father when he was 30 and she 21.
So, your family life as you head toward age 20 may be very important in when, and whether, marriage happens.
Sad but true. I still do not have the answers.

 

[Dannielle]

We got engaged almost four years of dating and will be married 2 years after that.
So married after 6 years of dating

This is right for us due to our age and finances.

 

[LaraOnline]

Date: 4/26/2009 4:26:19 PM
Author: naeem

So, your family life as you head toward age 20 may be very important in when, and whether, marriage happens.

I agree! It is surprising! My DH and I knew each other in high school.. and I think that early link was a fab way of overcoming a lot of emotional game-playing, or cross-checking... we trusted each other in a way that seemed so straight forward because we had so much in common, and could ''trace'' each other all the way.

I never would have dreamed that I would end up marrying a high school crush! But it still seems to work that way for a lot of people, even though we are as a group marrying so much later in our lives now than we used to!

 

[MrsG]

My husband and I met 5 years ago. We moved in together after 5 short months of dating. Got engaged a week before our 4 year anniversary and got married 7 months later.

 

[LitigatorChick]

Sounds like quite a diversity of time together. And what I find strange is that it doesn''t seem to really correlate to the outcome very much. The first time around, I figured we were together so long before we got married (5 years), that it had to be right. Oops!!!!!

This time, we are just over a month in and have been looking at rings. And I feel closer, more connected, more loved, more everything with him than I ever once felt with my ex. Bizarre. I truly believe we are soul mates.

 

[sba771]

Date: 4/27/2009 9:44:38 AM
Author: LitigatorChick
Sounds like quite a diversity of time together. And what I find strange is that it doesn''t seem to really correlate to the outcome very much. The first time around, I figured we were together so long before we got married (5 years), that it had to be right. Oops!!!!!


This time, we are just over a month in and have been looking at rings. And I feel closer, more connected, more loved, more everything with him than I ever once felt with my ex. Bizarre. I truly believe we are soul mates.

We were looking at rings a month into our relationship...ok it was more like me showing him what I wanted

When you know you know and from reading your previous posts I know you are a smart educated woman who has been through something bad and you now know what you want and deserve. If you have found that then go for it. Life is too short so be happy! I wish you the best of luck.

 

[asscherisme]

Waaaaay too fast. I don''t know what the heck I was thinking.

He asked me to marry him 5 months after we met and we were married within a year of meeting.

Waaaaayyyyyy to fast and something I would never recommend or do again.

Its made me a commitment phobe because the marriage turned out so awful.

I know know that you can''t get to know someone well enough to make a lifetime commitment in such a short period of time.

And whats the rush? If things are right at 5 months, they will still be right at 2 years. And if they are not right at 2 years, be thankful you were not married at 5 months!

I had no idea what he was really like until after we were married. You can put on an act for only so long and after awhile the cracks show and thats what happened. After we we were married I realized fairly quickly I''d make a mistake but it took over a decade until my final straw brioke and I got divorced.

 

[swimmer]

LC, it totally depends on where you are in life.

Like the poster above me, we got engaged after 5 months, but like you, that was after knowing for months that this was "the person." Not one person asked if we were rushing into things, and we also didn''t question the length of time because it just made sense; we were 30/31 and had dated enough and lived enough to know what we wanted. Married a year now, but ask again in 29 to see how its going.

 

[Sha]

Date: 5/11/2009 1:04:04 PM
Author: asscherisme
Waaaaay too fast. I don't know what the heck I was thinking.

He asked me to marry him 5 months after we met and we were married within a year of meeting.

Waaaaayyyyyy to fast and something I would never recommend or do again.

Its made me a commitment phobe because the marriage turned out so awful.

I know know that you can't get to know someone well enough to make a lifetime commitment in such a short period of time.

And whats the rush? If things are right at 5 months, they will still be right at 2 years. And if they are not right at 2 years, be thankful you were not married at 5 months!

I had no idea what he was really like until after we were married. You can put on an act for only so long and after awhile the cracks show and thats what happened. After we we were married I realized fairly quickly I'd make a mistake but it took over a decade until my final straw brioke and I got divorced.

Agreed. I was married before, at age 23. We got engaged after 6 months and married after about 9 months of being together - but some of that was long distance. It was a whirlwind kind of courtship - we were in love and both felt we had found 'the one'. I wasn't really ready to get married so soon - but succumbed to his constant pressure

, and ended up doing it sooner than I really felt comfortable. Big mistake! When we engaged and living together and planning the wedding, I started finding out all these questionable things about him (like him being abused by his father and his complete disdain for his mother - which later translated into it's own abusive behaviour towards me). I also realized he couldn't keep a job longer than 6 weeks! At the point - the wedding was almost upon us and I rationalized all my fears away and went ahead with the wedding. Big mistake again! We are no longer married.. but I really think it was for the best that we went our separate ways.

To make a long story short - I really don't think it's a good idea to rush into a marriage, like asscherisme said, whether or not you feel you're soulmates. If it's right now, it should still be right a year or so after. And the benefit of waiting is that you get to see and learn more about the person, and also experience new challenges with them, which will help you see how compatible you may be together in the long run.

 

[blingmyring]

DH asked me to marry him the day after we met (no I didn''t accept, I just laughed it off). We got officially engaged 4 months later (although we had already booked the reception hall and church before he gave me the ring). We got married 14 months after the engagement - we would have done it sooner but we thought our families would think we were nuts - we later found out they thought we should have done it sooner too !!!! We''ll be celebrating 16 happy years of marriage this fall.

 

[mrssalvo]

met my hubby and we got engaged 8 months after that, married 5 months after engagement, so met and married in 13 months. first marriage for me, 2nd for him. we''re going on 9 years.....

 

[Lilac]

DH and I met when I was 16 and he was 17. After a week we knew we were falling in love with each other (we had never thought we *could* be in love so young, we had thought we were too young to know what it meant before we met each other, but I guess when you meet the ONE, you just know...)

We were talking about spending the rest of our lives together after about two weeks of dating, and we spent the next few years getting to know more and more about each other, growing up and growing closer together. I finished high school and we went to college together. When he proposed we had been together for 3 years, 8 months, and 6 days (yes, I know the exact amount of time - I REALLLLY wanted to get engaged to him!)

We were engaged for 10 months and got married 4 and a half years and one week after our first date.

We absolutely would have gotten married sooner if we could have - we knew we were perfect for each other immediately, but we had to wait until DH graduated and got a job so we would be more financially secure. I think every relationship is different - there are people who can date for 10 years and still not be sure, and there are people who can date for 2 weeks and know they have met the person they''re meant to spend the rest of their life with. The only thing I would say is I think you can fall in love with someone at any age and after any amount of time, but before getting married you should just make sure you really know them well. I don''t think you can FULLY know a person unless you have dated for several months (or often even years) after the "honeymoon stage" at the beginning of the relationship has worn off.

 

[HollyS]

Way too long after meeting, courtesy of his personal demons; vanquished finally. And some excess baggage from my past; eventually unpacked.

Met January 1994.
Proposal in August 2006.
Married October 2007.

I might just win the PS prize for the loooongest relationship in a holding pattern prior to engagement. What should we call that . . . the "Til Death We Do Wait" trophy?

It was worth it.

 

[ksinger]

Well, I didn''t read each and every one in here so I could be wrong, but I suspect I win in the "stick a fork in him to check if he''s done" category. Met at 16, dated seriously from 18 to 23, broke up for 11 years, each married other people during that time, got divorced - strangely enough - from those respective people, in the self-same month, ran into each other quite by accident, dated again for a year, broke up AGAIN (he was MESSED up) for 8 years, during which time - at the 5 year mark, I got a very raw and heart-felt apology letter which I contemplated for about a year and a half. (end huge run-on sentence) Some where in there around year 6 or 7?, I emailed him at his work, we corresponed casually for about a year, and had dinner in Nov of 2006. We were strictly "friends" until June, and knew we were going to get married about 3 weeks after we figured out we still loved each other. This last has been the easiest thing I''ve ever done. So, it only took us 28 years to figure it out. Who says an old dog can''t learn a new trick? Oh, and during ALL that time, in a very non-creepy way, each of us always knew in general, where the other was in life. Where I live is a "small town" and we did and do, have many friends in common. I always knew how he was doing, and he knew how I was.

Shoulda figured it out sooner....oh well. So, do I ever worry about divorce? HA! Not likely. I mean, it''s not like either one of us had any luck either running away or pushing away. We''re stuck and we know it. The spoken vows were truly only a formality.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

Date: 5/13/2009 8:12:35 AM
Author: ksinger
Well, I didn''t read each and every one in here so I could be wrong, but I suspect I win in the ''stick a fork in him to check if he''s done'' category. Met at 16, dated seriously from 18 to 23, broke up for 11 years, each married other people during that time, got divorced - strangely enough - from those respective people, in the self-same month, ran into each other quite by accident, dated again for a year, broke up AGAIN (he was MESSED up) for 8 years, during which time - at the 5 year mark, I got a very raw and heart-felt apology letter which I contemplated for about a year and a half. (end huge run-on sentence) Some where in there around year 6 or 7?, I emailed him at his work, we corresponed casually for about a year, and had dinner in Nov of 2006. We were strictly ''friends'' until June, and knew we were going to get married about 3 weeks after we figured out we still loved each other. This last has been the easiest thing I''ve ever done. So, it only took us 28 years to figure it out. Who says an old dog can''t learn a new trick? Oh, and during ALL that time, in a very non-creepy way, each of us always knew in general, where the other was in life. Where I live is a ''small town'' and we did and do, have many friends in common. I always knew how he was doing, and he knew how I was.

Shoulda figured it out sooner....oh well. So, do I ever worry about divorce? HA! Not likely. I mean, it''s not like either one of us had any luck either running away or pushing away. We''re stuck and we know it. The spoken vows were truly only a formality.

Wow! I''d have to say that this one wins for most unique story!

We dated for around 15 months and got engaged and then got married two months later. We decided to have a small wedding and go ahead and get married sooner! We have been married for 32 years!!!!