Courtship Article

[ilovesparkles]

Was perusing my mom''s favorite list and found this article. It was quite interesting I thought. ANy thoughts or comments? I am just wondering what other people are thinking.

http://lifestyle.msn.com/Relationships/CouplesandMarriage/ArticleIV2.aspx?cp-documentid=371971&GT1=7996

 

[firebirdgold]

It''s certainly interesting. I don''t think I would be very happy with it if I fell into the last category though!

 

[LAJennifer]

Sounds very accurate to me. I especially like what it had to say about length of courtship - since my fiance and I will have been together EXACTLY 2 years and 4 months on our wedding day.

 

[sumbride]

Yeah... I don''t like what they had to say about the last category either!!! My BF and I have been dating almost three and a half years! But in our case, the first 2 and a half were long distance and we only saw each other on weekends and maybe once during the week. Now that we''re living together and see each other every day, get to spend a lot more time together, and like it, we''re moving faster than I thought we would. For us it was really hard to see the future when we didn''t spend enough time together. Plus his family has a lot of divorces in it so he''s been sort of terrified by that, but in our case, I think that''s been helpful because he wants to make sure we''re going to be together forever. I appreciate that and know that he knows how terrible divorce can be so it''s less of an option for him.

 

[Blenheim]

It sounds reasonably accurate if you''re an average couple with no extenuating circumstances. The problem is that very few couples are "average." I don''t think that the description for the last category should apply to couples who want to wait to get married because of finishing school or cases like sumbride''s. I know of a local couple who is waiting to get married not because they''re fun and freedom loving, but because they want to wait until everybody can get married (i.e., homosexual couples).

Just my opinion though.

 

[MissAva]

I did not agree with much of this, but mostly cause I am gauging things by what I have seen in my own life, Grandparents dated six year, been married 51, parents dated 5 years, married 27, and V and I have been dating 5 years and we are engaged but think it would be best if we had a place to live (in the same state) prior to getting married. I think I am probably a bad case to look at since there is no divorce on either side of my family, and that makes it hard for me to imagine quitting. Every couple has rough spots and no one leads a perfect life, but if you marry the person who will love you, honor you and stand by your side and you feel the same you ought to be all right. I think too many couples today take divorce as an easy way out…some people have real reasons but others are just lazy/foolish.

 

[ilovesparkles]

SUmbride I definitely agree with you! While I think the article has some valid points, I don''t like the fact that a couple has to be boxed into one of the definitions. And like Blen said, there is no average couple, each is unique. My BF has been burned in the past by his ex-FI and both of us are terrified of the divorces rates. That said, we have taken some precautions and are planning our lives so that we can avoid divorce and work around issues that so many couples encounter after getting married before we even get engaged. We also are long-distance and only get to see each other every 2-3 months. I think there are just too many factors that are unthought of in this article. Nonetheless I thought it was an interesting read.

 

[Mara]

I think that article in general has some good points to it, but you can''t just throw every relationship into 3 bins and say done. I know people who have rushed to marriage who have very happy marriages and didn''t need 5 years to figure things out. I also know people like myself who dated for the 1-3 years and then got married, not alot of drama in the relationship (other than our 2 month breakup), and it gave us time to figure things out and learn about each other but not drag it out or rush into anything while still infatuated with each other. Lastly I know people who dated for a long time then got married and it didn''t work out OR those who dated for a long time and got married and it worked out fine. There is no cookie-cutter courtship.

One thing is that I tend to think personally, is that alot of the long, drawn out relationships that people have when they are firmly in their mid to late 20s to 30''s will have less of a chance to work out or culiminate in marriage than those who started out together younger, aka late HS or college. The reason I think this is because with the young people, they still have growing up to do, career establishments to make, lots of change in their lives is okay and having a stable relationship may ground them but not lead them to want to rush into anything, Say you meet your love at 21 but it''s not til 28 that you feel secure enough in your lives possibly to marry. But if you are 25 and feel established and looking for love, then you meet the guy and he is having fun, making good money....if things drag out there, I tend to think these are the couples who in their 30''s and not married yet, the girl is going why won''t my man marry me!

But then again who knows! My old roommate had a BF who was kind of a party boy and they''d been together since college, well they finally got married when they turned 30 which was about 2 years ago. She''d been with him since she was 21 or 22 and she was just waiting and waiting for him to want to marry her, I was kind of not sure it would ever happen, they had broken up and dated others a few times in those 8 years! But now they are married happily, own a house and planning a baby this year. So go figure. Her patience paid off and they were going through alot of life changes in that time from college to established career/grown up mentality. So I guess they fit in my whole ''young kids growing up and ending up together'' scenario. Now if she was 25 when she met him and they were 32 8 years later and he was still being party boy? I would have *really* wondered.

Obviously, each case is different, but I do agree with some of the points in the article, aka don''t rush into things while you are in that infatuation stage, be realistic about who you are marrying and what marriage REALLY entails, don''t let things get too comfortable or drag out, etc. Does it mean that if you have been with your SO for 7 years and he is still dragging his feet if you do get married it won''t work out? Not at all.

 

[anchor31]

My grandparents dated for 3 years (my grandmother was 22) before marrying and had a wonderful marriage until my grandfather tragically died after 17 years. My parents dated for 22 months before getting married (my mother was 19, my father 24) and there are still going strong after nearly 32 years. I don''t know how long my boyfriend''s parents dated before getting married, but they''ve been yelling at each other on a daily basis for the last 6 years. I believe that each situation and each couple are way too different to generalize anyway.

I also agree with Mara. When J and I met I was 17 and he was 21. We''re not planning on getting married before I finish college, which should be in 2, maybe 3 years. That would make 5 or 6 years total, but I don''t think we fall into the third category. As I see it, we are by no means dragging our feet!! Just taking things one at a time.

 

[lilmaria]

My parents were arranged, for the most part, and have been together for 37 years. My bf''s parents dated for a few years and stayed married for about 9 before separating. My brother and sister in law dated for 16 yrs and just got married last september. They''ve been through everything and I think will remain together for a very long time, but only time will tell. Like most of the responses, my bf and I are in the last category but the article doesn''t deal with other extenuating circumstances like blended families. I think that makes a difference to, when children are involved from another relationship. Each case is different, though it would be nice if life was that simple.

 

[Selkie]

This quote is something I''ve said, almost verbatim:

"While we were living together, we used to think, ''Why should we bother marrying? We know each other inside and out; we''re basically married,''" says Laura. "But my mother said, ''You''ll see, marriage is completely different.''

I was the foot-dragger in our relationship, and clearly fall into the "cautious" category they mention. He was ready to get married four years ago, a year after we began dating, but I wasn''t, so he waited until 3 months ago to try again. We''ll be engaged for another 16 months, bringing the grand total to 6 years, 7 months. Sometimes I''m still not 100% sure I''m ready, which probably sets me apart from 99% of PS LIWs! And it''s certainly not because of any issues I have with his personality or the relationship, because there is not a single thing I would change about either one. This is, I think, why the second part of that quote terrifies me, and why I think I delayed: What, exactly, is so different about being married? I don''t WANT it to be different from how things are now!!

 

[roxy7]

My thought on reading that article is the same thought that I have when I read most MSN articles -- Blech.

So people who impulsively marry at 20 years after having dated for 6 months have a lower rate of divorce than the 28 year old graduate students who got engaged after 3 and a half years? Not true.

There''s just way too many variables (i.e., age, education, socioeconomic level, religion, region of the country) that are unaccounted for in this article.

 

[applechick]

I think it is pretty dead-on that 2 years is the sweet spot ... I actually always sort of intuitively figured that IN GENERAL that amount of time would give you the highest probabiility of success. People who get married too quick often don''t know each other well enough to make that decision, and people who wait a super-long amount of time may be ambivlant towards commitment in general or you wonder if they really felt so strongly about each other, why didn''t they do it sooner.

The article does not say this is always true - it says there are plenty of people for whom this is not true, especially in situations such as where couples meet very young or settle their careers later (usually in higher socioeconomic groups) or where couples remarry later in life and therefore might be able to identify a partner quicker.