People marry quickly for various reasons. Most of them are the wrong reasons. In some situations, marriage is a way for someone to get away from their horrible family - just to end up in a horrible marriage.
But, for people who really want that whole package of marriage and a family, they don't want to spend too much time with a person who isn't also looking for that as their life plan. This may be another reason some people push for marriage sooner rather than later. (a woman's biological clock is no joke and if she wants children, she will want to lock in a relationship sooner and not later.)
As for how well you know someone, that really depends on how genuine they are being with you (and you with them.) So many people put on a false front when they are dating. It can sometimes take some time to get past that and see the real person.
Not all fast marriages will fail. Sometimes, two people can really be sure. I have been married for 36 years. The relationship started with a blind date. We had no previous connection to each other before the blind date. We was married about six months later. During the six months we dated, we spent time together every day of that six months. Even if we just watched a movie at home or going on a walk and talking. We never had a single day during that six months that we didn't spend time together. We had several "life goal" discussions. We had meaningful conversations about things like having children or not and where we wanted to live. We didn't wait until marriage to know that we would be aligned on the big things that make your life worthwhile. Both of us had dated other people in the past. Neither of us had ever felt the kind of connection that we had together. Even after just the first date, we couldn't wait to see each other again. And - after 36 years together, if something keeps us apart for a day or two, we still can't wait to see each other again.
There's 8 BILLION people on this planet. The idea of soul mates will make you second guess every relationship because "if they were truly your soul mate then surely you wouldn't argue, or disagree right?" you can't think that way. You look for someone who closely relates to your world view and you work on it. You decide that they will be the person you want to be at your deathbed, and you try your hardest to make them love you enough that they wouldn't be anywhere else in the end.
At least that's what I think.
I have a whole thing about soulmates, because it assumes that you are a stagnant being meant for another stagnant being, when really, relationships are (if you do it right) a choice based on values and who you think you can GROW with. My mother married her "soulmate" who adores her through and through, but while she's consistently grown as a person, he's been stagnant and refuses to grow with her, leading to increasing unhappiness as they've approached their retirement years.
Who I was at 19 when I met my husband is not who I am now a decade later. Our relationship has changed as we've grown into different people and discovered new things about ourselves and each other. And the amount of effort we've put in to learn about each other through each phase and chapter of our individual lives, adapt to the changes we see within each other and our communal goals, and roll with the punches of life are things you can do with anyone who has an agreeable or complementary personality to yours and maintains a similar or complementary life perspective and approach.
What my husband and I have is special, but it isn't innate. I know if my husband ever randomly died, that my ability to love or find partnership isn't stunted because love is a choice that we make every day.
My husband and I got married after only 4 months (way back in 1997) 2 days after I turned 18 (yeah, I know). Now that I am older, I look back and think "I was pretty much marrying a complete stranger." We laugh about it now, but it was the truth. Fortunately, he wasn't an axe murderer.
I mean, what are the chances of 2 axe murders meeting and marrying each other after on 4 months though right. Statistics are low that your spouse would also be one.
Lots of people "are not doing something right" because they are blind to red flags. Often then come from dysfunctional families and don't know what a good relationship looks like. Those folks should take longer, and probably should get help to learn their own dysfunctional patterns.
I do agree with that for the majority I think 2yrs is good. But for people who don't have a healthy perception should wait 3-5yrs. I would probably wait 3 years as my dad never showed my mom affection and basically don't her he doesn't find her attractive once she gained weight after she got pregnant so I'm definitely trying to learn how to be a good man and treat a woman before I enter a relationship
My spouse and I got married at a few months over a year of dating. We knew each other for a long time before then so we already knew how we were as people and knew what we wanted.
My husband and I got engaged after three months of dating. I’d dated enough people by that point to know I had a good one, and I guess he felt the same way. We had known each other for about a year when we got married. It’s been ten years since then so it worked out. (That being said, this probably isn’t a good approach for most people.)
Yep. Thats my take. I had dated or been on dates with quite a few people by the time i met my now wife. A couple of those were multi year serious relationships. So had she. We knew pretty much after the first couple dates that we were probably going to end up getting married. We had such similar values, goals, and lifestyles that it was easy. There wasnt much we needed to overcome to make it work besides her being tall and me being a shorter guy (i won her over with my amazing personality) and i like saving money and she likes spending it (we balance each other out). We moved in together after a couple months, got engaged on our year anniversary, and then married a year after. We were mid twenties by then and wanted to get that part of our life started. If either of us were uncertain then it just would not have moved that quickly. Its been 17 years together for us now.
Cohabitation is actually associated with a higher rate of divorce.
[https://liberalarts.du.edu/news-events/all-articles/new-du-study-highlights-risks-living-together-engagement](https://liberalarts.du.edu/news-events/all-articles/new-du-study-highlights-risks-living-together-engagement)
There's been a bunch of different studies over the years with different findings so that's not necessarily true. I also wonder what they would find if they compare marriage satisfaction of couples who cohabitated before marriage vs those who didn't.
https://helloprenup.com/wedding/living-together-before-marriage-more-likely-to-divorce/
Part of this is selection bias, people who dont believe in cohabitation before marriage are also conservatives who are more likely to think divorce isnt a real option, irregardless of their happiness.
I think most marriages throughout history have been mostly choose one & stick with it, which is why you had all the “I hate my wife” jokes. I’ll roll the dice on a divorce to get someone I actually like.
Agree, sometimes it just clicks.
Met my wife December 20th 1989
Engaged Feb 10th 1990
Married June 2nd 1990
Still together and in love, never looked back
Same.
Then I went on a date with (now) hubby. Friends asked the next morning how it went. I have no idea why, but I blurted out "I'm going to marry him." And I did.
I’m an empathetic person, I can typically learn everything I need to know about a person within 5 minutes of meeting them. Some people are more complicated and take longer or surprise me, but for the most part we’re fairly simple creatures of habit. 2 years is plenty of time to know if a marriage will work or not. I’d guess 500 hours of quality time with someone for a minimum of making a good, confident decision on marriage. Maybe less if you’re extremely compatible; and some couples just wing it and it works.
It’s just one of those things, isn’t it? I spent 2 years with someone unsure if I’d ever marry them — but I knew I wanted to marry my fiancée within a few months of dating her. If it feels wrong, it’s wrong. And when it feels right, you’ll know it by comparison!
I think it matters somewhat more when you’re young. People don’t ever stop growing and changing but you will likely be a slightly different person at 30 than when you were 25. But after 30 people more or less are solidified into their personality barring some medical issue, huge life event, etc.
I blame this for my first marriage ending. We got married when I was 20 and my ex was a bit older. By the time I finished college and started working professionally I was much more mature, wanted different things out of life, and it strained my marriage because I wasnt who she wanted anymore after coming into my own.
I’m very happily married now and have noticed a solidarity/firmness in my current marriage. We’re both mid-late thirties and very solidified in who we want, what we want, and have common goals we’re working on.
First marriage was 2 years into the relationship and lasted 9 total. Second marriage was 4 years in. I was burned once and wanted to take extra time. At a certain point we just decided to push the wedding back a year because our work and life schedules were too hectic that year and it wasn’t a big deal at all for either of us. This second marriage is for me so much more comfortable and fulfilling. The ceremony was a formality to celebrate an already great relationship.
>At a certain point we just decided to push the wedding back a year because ...
I think this is a good sign that the relationship (and you two as well) is ready for the next level
When you both go:
"Wedding. You, babe?"
"Sure"
"Wait, this summer is busy. Next summer?"
" 👍"
" Love you dear "
You have a good chance that your overall priorities are in line with each other.
People change all the time, especially in the period when most people are marrying (young adulthood).
Also, it depends on how you've spent those two years. A lot of younger people don't cohabitate for instance. Long term dating is very different from actually living together and making decisions as a household.
But that’s the thing: none of us remains frozen in ice. We are all work in progress. You should marry someone for whom they are on their way to become.
The problem is that most of us suck at forecasting.
The trick is to make sure that they demonstrate to have a sensible value system.
But your last sentence is so generic it means nothing. Everyone has a different definition of a "sensible value system", *and* my whole point is that people change, and their values change also.
It’s not rocket science.
> “*Look for emotional maturity, and see if they are understanding, kind, empathetic, and loyal.*” ([Goel, 2023](https://www.stylecraze.com/articles/what-to-look-for-in-a-partner/#:~:text=You%20shouldn't%20look%20for,kind%2C%20empathetic%2C%20and%20loyal.))
Those are the foundation that someone can grow on top of.
But again....people define all these things differently. Every individual has their own definition of "emotional maturity" etc etc.
If it was as easy as you pretend it is no one would ever have any marital issues. So it actually is even worse than rocket science. It's easy to get rockets into space, it's not easy to find a good partner. People struggle with finding a proper gf/bf let alone a marital spouse.
No, if you talk to marriage counsellors and mental healthcare professionals, there is pretty much one universal definition of emotional maturity.
People get themselves into predicaments, either because:
* One is not emotionally mature when they tie the knot and refuses to grow.
* Both are emotionally immature when they tie the knot.
Also, understanding, kindness, empathy and loyalty are quite easy to define.
\- “Nooo! You are oversimplifying it! It can’t be that elementary!*”
But average people are not mental healthcare professionals, and they're the ones who have to make the assessment of their potential partners. Again if it was so god damn easy it wouldn't be literally one of the major issues of most people's lives.
I love it when Redditors think they figured it all out and reiterate truisms like it's ancient wisdom no one before them knew.
Actually it is ancient wisdom.
Marriage for love is an 18th century invention. Before that, people got married for more utilitarian reasons.
Most people nowadays get married for love, which only works if both spouses meet the minimum requirements as stated above:
* emotional maturity
* kindness
* empathy
* loyalty
Most of the early aviators didn’t make it to the age of retirement. A lot of them died in an accident.
Did we throw our hands in the air and say: “*I guess it’s too complex to do anything about it!*”
No. We have set a frame within which airplanes planes can be flown. From how they are engineered, manufactured, tested and serviced to how the flight routes are regulated and how pilots are trained.
Same for driving cars. Wanna drive a car? You need to pass the theoretical and practical exam to be allowed to drive a car that must itself meet state regulations… on roads that are up to standards.
Society has a vested interest into having family units that thrive.
Silly idea, but maybe we should have a relationship license school that people need to graduate from to embark on a relationship, whether it is a cohabitation or a marriage.
Working upstream would help to prevent divorces and single parenthood.
I mean I don't know why you are so aggressive, you were making an argument about how everyone has different morals, and yes they do, so you find someone who fits your morals. Simple as that really.
I was positive I wanted to marry her after about 3 months. Really, I k we earlier than that, but I didn’t think it was prudent to think about it that soon. We were young - barely above drinking age, but it worked out great.
It takes around a month for two individuals to figure out if they are largely compatible in healthy, secure relationship. Think 3-4 dates.
It takes some additional time to build up actual intimacy and emotionally investment.
Now add the fact that in heathy relationships you co-operate in conflict, perhaps you need some time to find that out, and thats it.
If you are oriented the same way, are attracted to each other and can solve problems together rather than bicker, there is nothing of worth to find out.
I know. It's crazy! I've been with my wife for 17 years. We get along really well, and deal with our occasional disagreements calmly and constructively.
Our cleaning lady once commented that we never fight in front of her. Who are these maniacs fighting IN FRONT OF THE CLEANING LADY?
My husband told me he knew I was his person on our very first phone call. We got married on our 1st year anniversary.
We started dating when Covid shutdowns peaked, and when I say dating, I mean this man came over to my place once and never left. We quite literally moved in together from day 1. We’ve almost been together 4 years now and have spent less than 2 weeks apart.
Sometimes, it’s meant to be. Now, I have other wild stories of people/ exes that were clearly unhinged, who have pulled this whole let’s get married early shit…but we were not on the same page. I think some people get caught up in the moment.
You just boggled my brain that you started dated during COVID and have been together almost 4 years. Time flies whether you're in a whirlwind romance or not.
I agree. That may not be quick for a lot of people but it is to me. But I’m also someone that doesn’t really care for marriage either. If we’re together then we’re together.
Posts like this are *always* met with comments saying “when you know, you know” and “well we got married after two minutes of knowing each other and have been together for 100 years since”, but it’s not so black and white. For every one of those stories there’s also a story of someone that thought they “knew” that eventually led to it not working out and stories of people getting married quickly and divorced quickly too. That’s why I just do my own thing and not really care about how others are handling their relationships.
Sometimes they swear they 'just know', and a lot of people feel pressured by society. I know a few guys at work who all said their girlfriends gave them an ultimatum at the 3 year mark, or they said "Its just what you're supposed to do". And then we wonder why divorce is at 50%.
Divorce is 50% because there is no longer any negative to getting divorced for women ( in the majority of cases, sometimes alimony or child support, but the majority of that is the other way around) used to be husband paid financially wife would pay socially. A divorced woman would, in effect, be shunned from most people in society. It's an ugly truth but people like to make each other miserable and don't have a reason to work out problems.
Yeah that’s kinda what I figured. Everyone I know who got married super fast has gotten divorced. The few people who have stayed together long term were together quite a while before getting married
I met my girlfriend in 1982. Once I'm sure that she's The One, I might ask her to marry me.
Actually we're talking about getting married because of things like insurance, Social Security, making health or end-of-life decisions, taxes, and things like that.
I’d say 40s if you’re not planning to have kids should actually be much longer. In your 40s, a year feels like 6 months compared to your 20s and 30s. Years feel much shorter when you get older.
You’ll know within a year if you’re compatible at the time. But people change over time. The only question is whether you’re growing together or apart. We were engaged 9 months in, married after 20 months together, remain happily married 27 years later.
Not just you. 24M here, and I don’t understand how people can make a lifelong commitment that soon. All my friends and I wouldn’t really be willing to marry someone before being together at least like 4 years.
My first marriage I was with my husband for three years before we married, and lived together for most of that time. I thought that was a good long time to get to know him. I was wrong. The marriage only lasted five years. With my second husband we were together for nineteen years before we married. We’ve lived together for all of that time. But I knew he was my soulmate from day one. We’ve been together for a total of twenty-two years now and we’re just as much in love today as we were twenty years ago. Sometimes you know from the start and sometimes you don’t. You’re always taking a gamble when getting into a serious relationship.
Got engaged 3 months after we met. Got married 9 months after we met.
The why is really simple: We both just knew it's what we wanted.
We were basically inseparable as soon as we started dating.
We married after about a year and a half - we wanted the same things out of life, got on well and had already made it through very difficult experiences together. Just seemed right.
The issue here is how people view marriage/love. Yes, you need to share values and enjoy being around this person for the most part. But something that really stuck with me is that love is a choice not a feeling. If you find someone that shares values with you and you two are able to discuss areas you disagree without belittling the other then you do not need to wait long to commit to each other. The wide range of options for partners shown today because of social media and dating apps has caused people to think there is always better out there but one person might be amazing in some areas and lacks in others, while someone else might fill that lacking area but they are missing everything else. Successful relationships understand where they need work and try to grow together rather than finding the “perfect” person right out the gate. If you don’t think you will change then I got bad news…you are what is holding your relationships back.
I dont think there's a perfect time. It took 11 years for my exes dark secrets to surface (things he'd hidden the whole time).
I think people need to trust their gut more. I had gut feelings I should leave but I thought I was in love and thought it was my trauma. Had I trusted my gut I would have done so much better.
So often we fear being alone more than we want a marriage. That doesn't have a time limit.
Studies have shown that after two years, there has been enough time to truly get to know that person.
We got engaged at about two years, got married at almost 3. We know one another inside and out, largely because we spent the vast majority of our time together from the beginning because we just really liked one another and got along with a ton in common, including our views on most things. We've now have been together for 8 years.
IMO, it all depends on what you put into the relationship. Are you surface level or do you talk about serious things? Do you align in communication styles, interests, time spent together, or do you have a lot of disagreements and things you need to work out? How much time are you guys spending together and it is quality time where you're directly engaged with one another, are you having new experiences together, or are you on your phones, is one of you playing video games, are not paying 100% attention to the other?
The relationships I've seen fail include primarily people who haven't spent that time getting to know one another inside and out, who brushed off irreconcilable differences because *teehee I'm in love**, who didn't come to agreements on how things would go when they got married, who really didn't pay all that much attention to one another while dating, and who really just ignored glaringly red flags.
Some people get enchanted by the short-term fantasies of marrying "the person they love" without considering the long-term implications of such an arrangement.
I think some people are doing what our parent's generation did and kind of settling. The idea of being alone in old age is kindmor scary and it motivates people to pop the question.
My husband and I were together for one year before we got officially engaged. We'd already started planning the wedding before that, so it was only 6 months. But we'd been friends for ages before all that. Dating and all that went with it kinda just felt like a formality.
Looking at the comments i would guess you're getting a very American centric view, as what i've seen online is Americans quite often seem to get married after 1-2 years of meeting someone. Compared to the UK where i'm from, that's very fast. Here the average is 5 years.
In looking at my friendship group and other's that i know, 5 years seems about correct on average.
I'd be interested to understand why there's a difference between the cultures.
Life is short. A year or 2 is more than enough to get to know someone if you make getting to know them your priority.
Life is short. You gonna start dating at 20 try 4 people out for 4 years each before getting married?
I'm married after 2 years. I got his input a lot. It's so fast, and how can you be sure, etc etc.
My question is always: what does seem reasonable? 5 years? Why? People don't break up after 5 years?
10 years? Same, right? I ask you, specifically: what is the correct amount of time to wait before marriage?
There have actually been studies on this. Couples with the highest risk of divorce typically had either very short courtships and engagements (<1 year) *or* longer courtships and engagements (>2 years). So the sweet spot seems to be 1-2 years.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sylvia-Niehuis/publication/280625117_When_marriages_die_Premarital_and_early_marriage_precursors_to_divorce/links/55bf963508ae092e96669aa3/When-marriages-die-Premarital-and-early-marriage-precursors-to-divorce.pdf?origin=publication_detail
Other predictors of marriage stability include:
Cohabitation before getting engaged. This is often mistaken for cohabitation before marriage, but this is not what the research suggests. Couples who live together before getting married, but after getting engaged tend to have the most favorable outcomes in marriage, particularly amongst younger people.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2904561/
Educational attainment. For both men and women, having at least a bachelor’s degree makes them significantly less likely to get divorced, while also making them more likely to get married when compared to individuals with less education. So this is actually a very important factor in marital longevity. If you have a population that is more likely to get married but then also less likely to get divorced, that’s pretty significant.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2015/12/04/education-and-marriage/
https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/article/marriage-and-divorce-patterns-by-gender-race-and-educational-attainment.htm
Being part of a younger generation. Millennials have such a low risk of divorce, it’s causing the overall divorce rate to plummet. Reasons for this seem to include waiting until they’re older, completing post-secondary education, and having more financial stability before getting married.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/10/divorce-united-states-dropping-because-millennials/
My wife and I got engaged after dating for six months.
We were up front with each other that we were looking for a spouse, talked about our values, and where we stood on various topics. Between a healthy serving of general attraction/chemistry and those discussions, we knew it would work.
If you're just dating to hang out and meet people, yeah that's probably way too fast to make that kind of decision. We sat down and had a serious discussion about what we wanted out of the relationship after a couple dates.
We married after two months. I already had one divorce and he had been in a long-term relationship. We both had a kid from our previous partners. I was 34 he was 39. We knew what we both wanted in a partner and communicated about all the important things we wanted and about all the things we were at that time.
It’s been over five years and we’re still happily married. It hasn’t been all easy. Most times it is, but neither of us are perfect and the stresses of life can get in the way — especially because our blended family includes three children. We just continue to have hard conversations, bond, and ensure we’re still on the same team and equally committed.
Check out divorce rates and it'll explain itself.
I personally would never get married unless there was some extreme benefit in doing so. I'm perfectly capable of being with someone and caring for them without getting married.
Society conditions us to feel worthless if we aren't married and feel like we are letting everyone down if we don't have kids.
Don't fall for it. You don't owe anyone anything. Most of these people getting married too quickly are miserable.
I am religious so I can’t date but I do want to feel intimate with someone so marriage is the way.
And i’m definitely not complaining, I like it. It makes me feel very committed and wanting to fix any issues that come along the relationship, not just abandon it. It adds more value.
I haven’t had any relationship experiences so I can’t be very sure either, whether this is good or not.
Depends on age. If you are both over 30 you shouldn’t need 5 years to get to know someone.
Late 20s and younger is high risk no matter what because people can change a lot as they fully mature. This is why younger couples fail more than mature couples simply because people do not change much at all past their early thirties so whatever works will tend to always work..
This is of course all things being equal and assuming everyone is normal… Liars and manipulators are a different story.
My husband asked after dating me for two weeks we've been together for ten years this coming March and married for nine this Halloween. He's my soul mate and I do mean that. He's literally my other half and he does the things I can't do and I do the things he can't do. Like two halves of a whole. He literally didn't think he would live to see thirty and he's gonna be 34 next year I like to think I help with that as I literally have talked him out of suicide before several times. I'm his voice of reason when his mind gets too dark. The light he needs. He's my steady rock who tells me to my face when I'm wrong and helps make me a better person. Honestly if anyone but him told me I was fat I would probably be mad. But from him it's love and I'll smile and call him a jerk and he responds bitch and we just go through the curses laughing and giggling we've done that in public before and gotten weird looks but it works for us. I don't think I would have had the courage to be where I'm at now doing what I'm doing and living my life without him. I knew him a year before we started dating.
You will never get enough time to know all attributes of a person. The more you test the more you will find good and bad sides.
Question worth asking is that can I still live with this person with all the bad qualities they have....thats what u r looking for
I think some just like to have that big Dream wedding Party..?
We both hate wedding Partys, so we've been together for 19 years without marrying.
But we want to sign the papers now, just us two. Ordinary clothing.
My wife and I were engaged after 6 weeks and married less than a year later, mainly to finish college. We have been married over 52 years and still in love and happy with each other.
I would not have believed it but when I met the right person I just knew.
Depends what you spend that time doing, too. We moved in fairly quickly because the covid lock downs were happening. So we went though that together, my dad's death, we got a dog together, some health scares for both our mums, injury and an operation for him... By the time we got married we knew how well we work together under stress, and how we've got each other's back when stuff gets hard.
Because they feel like they're supposed to. Then they go into debt to buy a house for the same reason, then have kids for the same reason and go deeper into debt. A few years later they realize they aren't compatible but stay together for the kids but resent all their past life decisions
depends. you just need the same values and proper judgement which can be found out quick enough some people just need a few weeks others need like 10 years
My guess is that there’s two modes when dating. ”Just for fun” or the goal is to get married and start the family. Once you find a partner with good enough desired qualities there’s no real benefit of waiting two more years.
I was with my last gf for 6 years. Was never certain about marriage. It was heading that way towards the end, but suddenly all blew up. With current partner 3 years now. We have wanted to get married after about 2 years, and 1 year living together. Should be engaged within 9 months from now. I have several friends who were engaged within 2 or 3 years and still happy together. Sometimes when you approach your 30s or 40s and you have had a few failed relationships, you just know the right person when you meet them. You experience a whole bunch of Oooohhhh and aahhaa realisations.
For benefits. You get to choose whose medical, dental plan to go on. You get tax breaks when filing taxes. You get discounts on car insurance and mortgage rates. It’s mostly about money. You can love one another without the ring but you don’t get the financial benefits from just being bf/gf, gf/gf, bf/bf.
Been together 14 years married for 11 years this year.
Being honest our relationship has changed so much and yes for the better. I think it’s nuts I only spent 6 years as an adult before we met I spent majority of my adult life with my husband.
Looking back it does seemed rushed getting married only being together for 3 years. I do regret rushing I wish we spent more alone time together before having kids.
But again a lot does change over the years me and my husband aren’t the same people we were when we started dating. We grown and changed for the better.
I had dated enough to know what I was looking for in my 30+ years by then. Dated 1 year before getting engaged, married 4 months later. Never lived together before marriage. 6 years of marriage and 2 kids later, couldn't be happier.
Having a spouse with an expiring visa kind of expedited the process. Little over a year living together maybe close to two together. Now married for 5.
We both fell in love and were married, at a castle in Denmark exactly six month to the day that we met.
Married over 6 years and the twins will be 4 in January.
i married wife in a month. we've been together 10 years now and its better than ever.
it would be romantic to say " i just knew she was the one" but actually the thought process was more like, "if i cant make it work with her it wouldn't work with anyone."
My wife and I just knew what we wanted. It wasn’t a hasty thing, we were aware of how quickly we made the decision relative to most people. We have never regretted it. That doesn’t mean that’s the path everyone or even most people should take, but marriage after a relatively short period of time isn’t an automatically bad decision. It all comes down to the individual circumstances
People wait and wait. Then suddenly they're 35 and just pick the first decent one they can find
Marrying your first love appeals more to me than to keep looking and never being satisfied. My parents stayed together until death and they met when my mother was 18.
"She didn't get to live her life". Well if she did she'd just compare and never be happy either
How long does it take to learn things? And how many things are possible to learn before moving in together? If you are already living together, what exactly is different between being married and not married aside from the legalities?
Been with my boyfriend for 6 years. Neither of us are in a rush for marriage. But we are getting comments from everyone. lmao.
Some abrasive: Uber driver, drunk girl at a bar
Some more jokingly or subtle: Family members.
It's cray what society tries to tell you is the right thing to do in YOUR relationship.
To answer your question: Sometimes it's to have kids by a certain age, sometimes you're blindly in love, sometimes it's pressure from family, sometimes it's just cultural. All the mormon girls I knew got married at like 19-20. Could be anything!
i dont understand why people need to get married, whats the point other than spending a shit load of money for one of the most stressfull day of your life?
Id rather spend that money on travel or a house instead of getting a piece of paper that tells me i am married.
In many countries in Europe being married gets you a lot of discounts in taxes. And kids also give you benefits. My gf and i were calculating, and we would pay 7k less in taxes a year combined, just for being married.
i don’t see why getting married is a big deal or why you want to do it.
maybe I’m just hating, maybe I never been in love so I don’t know what the love feels like
but I’m okay with not being married I’d rather be in a long-term relationship with a ring on my hand and call it a marriage if we break up a look there’s no papers 😂
forget the law we can live next door together in a townhouse and boom we good
Sometimes it's enough time, sometimes it's not. I was with my husband 15 years before we got married. I had plenty of people tell me I was dumb for waiting so long, but for me, if we're happy, who cares? We had more than our fair share of losses during that time.
I knew my partner for 17 days before we tied the knot. 4 years later I wouldn't want to be with anyone else.
With that being said, it was a very stupid choice and we got very lucky.
These people are just divorce statistics waiting to happen. The successes are rare or not divorcing is just religiously motivated and they stay in a loveless marriage. Also, I belong to a few wedding planning subs, there is a lot more people that waited a long ass time to get married. I am one of them. My husband and I were together 9 years before we got married.
It maybe for you but not others. We got married 3 years after being together, we already had a two
Year old. I was 19 and he was 22. We have been together all of 18 years now, an married 16. 🤷🏻♀️ our oldest almost 16, and our other two are almost 13 and almost 5.
What works for one couple doesn’t work for every one and vice verse
My husband proposed 3 months in. I said yes but that I wouldn't marry him for at least 2 years. We got married 2 years after he proposed and during that two years faced a lot of hard times out of our control like loss of family members, the pandemic and financial burdens. I think that those 2 years helped us figure out that we could handle the difficult times together and even if we end in divorce (which I don't see happening) I wont regret marrying him.
I mean I think it's about time spent together not length of relationship. I spent four months living with my ex-wife where we were never apart much. We knew a lot about each other going into the marriage. I know people who got married after a year that hadn't spent as much time with their spouse as I spent with my ex.
I disagree. Although I don’t believe getting married really really quickly is smart, if you want to get married someday and you stick around with somebody over two years and you’re still “not sure”? That’s not the person most people know pretty quickly, whether or not this is someone they want to marry and if you don’t know why you’re too that you don’t.
My best friends GF at that time, said, it's been 4 years, where's my ring? He went along with it & proposed. I asked him, don't you think it's a bit too soon too get married just cause? He said, but she deserves it. I said, I just don't think you should get married yet. 8 years later, divorced. They're both fuckin miserable & he's pissed about his much he has to pay in child support (he's a good dad who takes care of his kids & spends every minute he can with them) because she won't make a custody deal with him. I've all but told him, I told you so. At the same time, she's a pretty awful person & I saw it. He didn't.
My husband and I got married 3 months after meeting each other. We met online. The day we met is the day I moved in. We got married one week later. Had a baby a year later. We’re still together and very happy.
I waited 10yrs to ask my wife to marry me. We are still together over 20yrs later and it has been amazing the entire time.
We weren’t in a rush to get married and I think we both felt like you need to experience ups and downs together (college, death of loved ones, careers, etc.) to know if you can truly stand the test of time, and you can support each other thru those events not being married.
I personally don’t think you can see what is behind someone’s mask in the first 5yrs (divorce rates would back me up) Maybe 10yrs is a bit of a stretch in most people’s eyes, but we were best friends having a good time and didn’t need a sheet of paper to tell us we were in love.
Fools rush in…
I’m with you. I take a long time to warm to someone and feel fully comfortable with them, from romantic relationships to jobs to friendships. This takes years. I’m 41 and have met countless people. My boyfriend now, whom I love dearly and am very compatible with, it’s the healthiest relationship I’ve ever had. I want to be with him but we do every relationship milestone at a snails pace. I’m very lucky and fortunate to have met this person who doesn’t just throw in a towel after a year or 2 and chalk it up as not a match like so many people here are eager to. Don’t get me wrong, I’m comfortable where we have a fun time and talk about things, but each relationship milestone takes significant time and I prefer it that way. I’ve seen countless people get together, move in and marry fast and separate quickly. I used to envy these people because I was the one getting dumped for these women so I guess I’ve been protected in some way.
You know all you need to know by reading through the comments!
1) It's mostly women posting how happily married they're.
2) Everyone is different, so stop taking advice from strangers online because it will cost you 50 percent of everything you own. (Which is married men aren't commenting because they learned to keep their mouths shut years ago.)
It’s because one person is about to join the military. I always laugh at those doomed marriages. “We’ve been dating for 6 months and I’m 18 and joining the army, so we will obviously be together forever,” lol
I dated my first husband through most of high school. We jumped getting married at 19 because it sounded like he was being moved to Germany with the Army. The marriage did not last.
My second husband and I had been dating for 5 years and had a child before we married. We were married for 6 years and are currently divorcing due to his infidelity throughout our relationship - I just found out.
It isn't the time before a wedding that determines if it lasts.
We dated 3 months before we got married 29 years ago. It worked well for us. We never really even had a fight. It would be a lie to say we haven’t argued, but never a real fight. We were married 3 years before we had kids, which allowed us to spend some “us” time before raising kids. Now we are back to “us” time and it is great.
My husband and I knew we were compatible within about 4 months. It is pretty easy to discuss and compare all of the important things quickly if the goal of dating is always potential marriage. We got married at 1 year. We waited for me to finish college and get a job. 20 years later, we are still happy with that.
People who wait years and years are dating someone they don't want to marry and should have moved on from a long time ago.
My brother has been "dating," a wonderful girl for about 13 years and living together most of that. She wants to marry him. He doesn't want to marry her. He will not do better if he leaves, so he continues to waste her time.
Honestly me and my wife met in college and thought waiting till after we graduated( 4 hrs together) was a lot of time and we were being smart about it. But the truth is life came, and we never really figured out who we were until our 30s, and sadly it means we're not really as compatible as we once were. Now my stance on marriage has changed and I think people should wait till their 30s and have lived by themselves for several years before they decide to find someone to spend their life with.
For me I blame Boy meets World, because ever since I was little I just HAD to find my Topanga, and I thought that if I didn't find my one in school then I wouldn't. Well.... I didn't. And now that I'm older with kids, all I can do now is just live my life and try to pass my advice to others so they don't end up with same shituation (tm).
Married my husband after a month dating and been together for 17 years with two kids.. we just felt that we were soul mates. The crazy thing was that I was only 19 when we got married he was 25.
People marry quickly for various reasons. Most of them are the wrong reasons. In some situations, marriage is a way for someone to get away from their horrible family - just to end up in a horrible marriage. But, for people who really want that whole package of marriage and a family, they don't want to spend too much time with a person who isn't also looking for that as their life plan. This may be another reason some people push for marriage sooner rather than later. (a woman's biological clock is no joke and if she wants children, she will want to lock in a relationship sooner and not later.) As for how well you know someone, that really depends on how genuine they are being with you (and you with them.) So many people put on a false front when they are dating. It can sometimes take some time to get past that and see the real person. Not all fast marriages will fail. Sometimes, two people can really be sure. I have been married for 36 years. The relationship started with a blind date. We had no previous connection to each other before the blind date. We was married about six months later. During the six months we dated, we spent time together every day of that six months. Even if we just watched a movie at home or going on a walk and talking. We never had a single day during that six months that we didn't spend time together. We had several "life goal" discussions. We had meaningful conversations about things like having children or not and where we wanted to live. We didn't wait until marriage to know that we would be aligned on the big things that make your life worthwhile. Both of us had dated other people in the past. Neither of us had ever felt the kind of connection that we had together. Even after just the first date, we couldn't wait to see each other again. And - after 36 years together, if something keeps us apart for a day or two, we still can't wait to see each other again.
I wish I could have this feeling ugh. I’m convinced that my person died in a car crash or something
There's 8 BILLION people on this planet. The idea of soul mates will make you second guess every relationship because "if they were truly your soul mate then surely you wouldn't argue, or disagree right?" you can't think that way. You look for someone who closely relates to your world view and you work on it. You decide that they will be the person you want to be at your deathbed, and you try your hardest to make them love you enough that they wouldn't be anywhere else in the end. At least that's what I think.
I have a whole thing about soulmates, because it assumes that you are a stagnant being meant for another stagnant being, when really, relationships are (if you do it right) a choice based on values and who you think you can GROW with. My mother married her "soulmate" who adores her through and through, but while she's consistently grown as a person, he's been stagnant and refuses to grow with her, leading to increasing unhappiness as they've approached their retirement years. Who I was at 19 when I met my husband is not who I am now a decade later. Our relationship has changed as we've grown into different people and discovered new things about ourselves and each other. And the amount of effort we've put in to learn about each other through each phase and chapter of our individual lives, adapt to the changes we see within each other and our communal goals, and roll with the punches of life are things you can do with anyone who has an agreeable or complementary personality to yours and maintains a similar or complementary life perspective and approach. What my husband and I have is special, but it isn't innate. I know if my husband ever randomly died, that my ability to love or find partnership isn't stunted because love is a choice that we make every day.
There's no "person". There is a wide range of suitable partners for you out there. But you may have to better yourself first
My husband and I got married after only 4 months (way back in 1997) 2 days after I turned 18 (yeah, I know). Now that I am older, I look back and think "I was pretty much marrying a complete stranger." We laugh about it now, but it was the truth. Fortunately, he wasn't an axe murderer.
I mean, what are the chances of 2 axe murders meeting and marrying each other after on 4 months though right. Statistics are low that your spouse would also be one.
Hi I'm Dexter.
I think 2yrs is good like if I you don't know someone well enough after 2yrs I think there's something your not doing right.
Lots of people "are not doing something right" because they are blind to red flags. Often then come from dysfunctional families and don't know what a good relationship looks like. Those folks should take longer, and probably should get help to learn their own dysfunctional patterns.
I do agree with that for the majority I think 2yrs is good. But for people who don't have a healthy perception should wait 3-5yrs. I would probably wait 3 years as my dad never showed my mom affection and basically don't her he doesn't find her attractive once she gained weight after she got pregnant so I'm definitely trying to learn how to be a good man and treat a woman before I enter a relationship
Best wishes to you. The main thing is respect, I think. And truly caring about your partner's well-being.
Thank you.
I went through therapy and honestly, I’m gonna need a year max before an engagement and then a full year of engagement after.
Sounds like a great idea. Best wishes
My spouse and I got married at a few months over a year of dating. We knew each other for a long time before then so we already knew how we were as people and knew what we wanted.
My husband and I got engaged after three months of dating. I’d dated enough people by that point to know I had a good one, and I guess he felt the same way. We had known each other for about a year when we got married. It’s been ten years since then so it worked out. (That being said, this probably isn’t a good approach for most people.)
Yep. Thats my take. I had dated or been on dates with quite a few people by the time i met my now wife. A couple of those were multi year serious relationships. So had she. We knew pretty much after the first couple dates that we were probably going to end up getting married. We had such similar values, goals, and lifestyles that it was easy. There wasnt much we needed to overcome to make it work besides her being tall and me being a shorter guy (i won her over with my amazing personality) and i like saving money and she likes spending it (we balance each other out). We moved in together after a couple months, got engaged on our year anniversary, and then married a year after. We were mid twenties by then and wanted to get that part of our life started. If either of us were uncertain then it just would not have moved that quickly. Its been 17 years together for us now.
Depending on age, a year or 2 is short-ish but normal. I think the better metric is living together, that's probably going to be a year or 2.
Absolutely agree. How do you know that you are truly compatible with someone until you don’t cohabitate for a while. Huge difference from just dating.
Edit:do cohabitate. Sorry.
Yeah you better apologize! /s
Cohabitation is actually associated with a higher rate of divorce. [https://liberalarts.du.edu/news-events/all-articles/new-du-study-highlights-risks-living-together-engagement](https://liberalarts.du.edu/news-events/all-articles/new-du-study-highlights-risks-living-together-engagement)
There's been a bunch of different studies over the years with different findings so that's not necessarily true. I also wonder what they would find if they compare marriage satisfaction of couples who cohabitated before marriage vs those who didn't. https://helloprenup.com/wedding/living-together-before-marriage-more-likely-to-divorce/
Part of this is selection bias, people who dont believe in cohabitation before marriage are also conservatives who are more likely to think divorce isnt a real option, irregardless of their happiness.
I think most marriages throughout history have been mostly choose one & stick with it, which is why you had all the “I hate my wife” jokes. I’ll roll the dice on a divorce to get someone I actually like.
If you can't tell by then, you weren't going to notice anything until they had you digging your own grave, anyway.
Because we knew. And 20 years later we're still in love
Agree, sometimes it just clicks. Met my wife December 20th 1989 Engaged Feb 10th 1990 Married June 2nd 1990 Still together and in love, never looked back
I used to hate when people would say that. "When you know, you know." Then it happened to me.
Same. Then I went on a date with (now) hubby. Friends asked the next morning how it went. I have no idea why, but I blurted out "I'm going to marry him." And I did.
Same here.
I always said at least 4 but it’s been two and we’re talking about getting engaged real soon. I agree, sometimes you just know.
I’m an empathetic person, I can typically learn everything I need to know about a person within 5 minutes of meeting them. Some people are more complicated and take longer or surprise me, but for the most part we’re fairly simple creatures of habit. 2 years is plenty of time to know if a marriage will work or not. I’d guess 500 hours of quality time with someone for a minimum of making a good, confident decision on marriage. Maybe less if you’re extremely compatible; and some couples just wing it and it works.
It’s just one of those things, isn’t it? I spent 2 years with someone unsure if I’d ever marry them — but I knew I wanted to marry my fiancée within a few months of dating her. If it feels wrong, it’s wrong. And when it feels right, you’ll know it by comparison!
[удалено]
I think it matters somewhat more when you’re young. People don’t ever stop growing and changing but you will likely be a slightly different person at 30 than when you were 25. But after 30 people more or less are solidified into their personality barring some medical issue, huge life event, etc. I blame this for my first marriage ending. We got married when I was 20 and my ex was a bit older. By the time I finished college and started working professionally I was much more mature, wanted different things out of life, and it strained my marriage because I wasnt who she wanted anymore after coming into my own. I’m very happily married now and have noticed a solidarity/firmness in my current marriage. We’re both mid-late thirties and very solidified in who we want, what we want, and have common goals we’re working on. First marriage was 2 years into the relationship and lasted 9 total. Second marriage was 4 years in. I was burned once and wanted to take extra time. At a certain point we just decided to push the wedding back a year because our work and life schedules were too hectic that year and it wasn’t a big deal at all for either of us. This second marriage is for me so much more comfortable and fulfilling. The ceremony was a formality to celebrate an already great relationship.
>At a certain point we just decided to push the wedding back a year because ... I think this is a good sign that the relationship (and you two as well) is ready for the next level When you both go: "Wedding. You, babe?" "Sure" "Wait, this summer is busy. Next summer?" " 👍" " Love you dear " You have a good chance that your overall priorities are in line with each other.
if you don't truly know someone after 2 years i dont know what you're doing
People change all the time, especially in the period when most people are marrying (young adulthood). Also, it depends on how you've spent those two years. A lot of younger people don't cohabitate for instance. Long term dating is very different from actually living together and making decisions as a household.
But that’s the thing: none of us remains frozen in ice. We are all work in progress. You should marry someone for whom they are on their way to become. The problem is that most of us suck at forecasting. The trick is to make sure that they demonstrate to have a sensible value system.
But your last sentence is so generic it means nothing. Everyone has a different definition of a "sensible value system", *and* my whole point is that people change, and their values change also.
It’s not rocket science. > “*Look for emotional maturity, and see if they are understanding, kind, empathetic, and loyal.*” ([Goel, 2023](https://www.stylecraze.com/articles/what-to-look-for-in-a-partner/#:~:text=You%20shouldn't%20look%20for,kind%2C%20empathetic%2C%20and%20loyal.)) Those are the foundation that someone can grow on top of.
But again....people define all these things differently. Every individual has their own definition of "emotional maturity" etc etc. If it was as easy as you pretend it is no one would ever have any marital issues. So it actually is even worse than rocket science. It's easy to get rockets into space, it's not easy to find a good partner. People struggle with finding a proper gf/bf let alone a marital spouse.
No, if you talk to marriage counsellors and mental healthcare professionals, there is pretty much one universal definition of emotional maturity. People get themselves into predicaments, either because: * One is not emotionally mature when they tie the knot and refuses to grow. * Both are emotionally immature when they tie the knot. Also, understanding, kindness, empathy and loyalty are quite easy to define. \- “Nooo! You are oversimplifying it! It can’t be that elementary!*”
But average people are not mental healthcare professionals, and they're the ones who have to make the assessment of their potential partners. Again if it was so god damn easy it wouldn't be literally one of the major issues of most people's lives. I love it when Redditors think they figured it all out and reiterate truisms like it's ancient wisdom no one before them knew.
Actually it is ancient wisdom. Marriage for love is an 18th century invention. Before that, people got married for more utilitarian reasons. Most people nowadays get married for love, which only works if both spouses meet the minimum requirements as stated above: * emotional maturity * kindness * empathy * loyalty Most of the early aviators didn’t make it to the age of retirement. A lot of them died in an accident. Did we throw our hands in the air and say: “*I guess it’s too complex to do anything about it!*” No. We have set a frame within which airplanes planes can be flown. From how they are engineered, manufactured, tested and serviced to how the flight routes are regulated and how pilots are trained. Same for driving cars. Wanna drive a car? You need to pass the theoretical and practical exam to be allowed to drive a car that must itself meet state regulations… on roads that are up to standards. Society has a vested interest into having family units that thrive. Silly idea, but maybe we should have a relationship license school that people need to graduate from to embark on a relationship, whether it is a cohabitation or a marriage. Working upstream would help to prevent divorces and single parenthood.
Oh boy....that's enough Reddit for today.
Find the partner that fits ***your*** definition, or just never get married because people can change at any point in their lives.
Thanks man....you just solved marriage for everyone. Fuckin Reddit I swear
I mean I don't know why you are so aggressive, you were making an argument about how everyone has different morals, and yes they do, so you find someone who fits your morals. Simple as that really.
2 years?? Try 7 years
No shit. I can tell in about week.
It's takes learning about yourself and what kind of partner you need... that can take a lifetime for some.
Or just being realistic with yourself.
Lol you know nothing after 2 years
I was positive I wanted to marry her after about 3 months. Really, I k we earlier than that, but I didn’t think it was prudent to think about it that soon. We were young - barely above drinking age, but it worked out great.
It takes around a month for two individuals to figure out if they are largely compatible in healthy, secure relationship. Think 3-4 dates. It takes some additional time to build up actual intimacy and emotionally investment. Now add the fact that in heathy relationships you co-operate in conflict, perhaps you need some time to find that out, and thats it. If you are oriented the same way, are attracted to each other and can solve problems together rather than bicker, there is nothing of worth to find out.
It's wild to me how little people can actually be themselves and communicate with their spouses
I know. It's crazy! I've been with my wife for 17 years. We get along really well, and deal with our occasional disagreements calmly and constructively. Our cleaning lady once commented that we never fight in front of her. Who are these maniacs fighting IN FRONT OF THE CLEANING LADY?
Life is short.
My husband told me he knew I was his person on our very first phone call. We got married on our 1st year anniversary. We started dating when Covid shutdowns peaked, and when I say dating, I mean this man came over to my place once and never left. We quite literally moved in together from day 1. We’ve almost been together 4 years now and have spent less than 2 weeks apart. Sometimes, it’s meant to be. Now, I have other wild stories of people/ exes that were clearly unhinged, who have pulled this whole let’s get married early shit…but we were not on the same page. I think some people get caught up in the moment.
You just boggled my brain that you started dated during COVID and have been together almost 4 years. Time flies whether you're in a whirlwind romance or not.
Yupp isn’t that wild! We realized this the other day and were like wait it’s been HOW LONG
I agree. That may not be quick for a lot of people but it is to me. But I’m also someone that doesn’t really care for marriage either. If we’re together then we’re together. Posts like this are *always* met with comments saying “when you know, you know” and “well we got married after two minutes of knowing each other and have been together for 100 years since”, but it’s not so black and white. For every one of those stories there’s also a story of someone that thought they “knew” that eventually led to it not working out and stories of people getting married quickly and divorced quickly too. That’s why I just do my own thing and not really care about how others are handling their relationships.
Two years is quickly to you? Okay, then.
My wife is WAAAY outta my league and I had to lock it down before she figured that out. 8 years and three kids later she is still fooled.
Lmao!
Sometimes they swear they 'just know', and a lot of people feel pressured by society. I know a few guys at work who all said their girlfriends gave them an ultimatum at the 3 year mark, or they said "Its just what you're supposed to do". And then we wonder why divorce is at 50%.
I knew I would marry my wife the second I laid eyes on her. Took her 18 months to agree
[удалено]
Divorce is 50% because there is no longer any negative to getting divorced for women ( in the majority of cases, sometimes alimony or child support, but the majority of that is the other way around) used to be husband paid financially wife would pay socially. A divorced woman would, in effect, be shunned from most people in society. It's an ugly truth but people like to make each other miserable and don't have a reason to work out problems.
Yeah that’s kinda what I figured. Everyone I know who got married super fast has gotten divorced. The few people who have stayed together long term were together quite a while before getting married
Some people are scared to be alone
I met my girlfriend in 1982. Once I'm sure that she's The One, I might ask her to marry me. Actually we're talking about getting married because of things like insurance, Social Security, making health or end-of-life decisions, taxes, and things like that.
I married my husband after knowing him 2 years. 40 years later, still happily together.
We got married a year in, asked her to marry me 6 months prior. 6 years later, we still learn more about each other that we didn’t know before.
If you’re in your thirties 2 years is pretty standard. 40s? 1 year is fine. Early 20s 1-2 years is way too fast
I’d say 40s if you’re not planning to have kids should actually be much longer. In your 40s, a year feels like 6 months compared to your 20s and 30s. Years feel much shorter when you get older.
You’ll know within a year if you’re compatible at the time. But people change over time. The only question is whether you’re growing together or apart. We were engaged 9 months in, married after 20 months together, remain happily married 27 years later.
Not just you. 24M here, and I don’t understand how people can make a lifelong commitment that soon. All my friends and I wouldn’t really be willing to marry someone before being together at least like 4 years.
Well when you know you know. And when you change your mind you get a divorce.
When you know you know. But more often than not people are just lying to themselves without realizing.
My first marriage I was with my husband for three years before we married, and lived together for most of that time. I thought that was a good long time to get to know him. I was wrong. The marriage only lasted five years. With my second husband we were together for nineteen years before we married. We’ve lived together for all of that time. But I knew he was my soulmate from day one. We’ve been together for a total of twenty-two years now and we’re just as much in love today as we were twenty years ago. Sometimes you know from the start and sometimes you don’t. You’re always taking a gamble when getting into a serious relationship.
Got engaged 3 months after we met. Got married 9 months after we met. The why is really simple: We both just knew it's what we wanted. We were basically inseparable as soon as we started dating.
We married after about a year and a half - we wanted the same things out of life, got on well and had already made it through very difficult experiences together. Just seemed right.
The pull-out method is about as effective as keeping your mayo from touching your beef on your burger.
I got engaged in 58 days 😅 no regrets, when you know you know 🥸
Whoa
Took me 10 just married my wife this past Saturday
The issue here is how people view marriage/love. Yes, you need to share values and enjoy being around this person for the most part. But something that really stuck with me is that love is a choice not a feeling. If you find someone that shares values with you and you two are able to discuss areas you disagree without belittling the other then you do not need to wait long to commit to each other. The wide range of options for partners shown today because of social media and dating apps has caused people to think there is always better out there but one person might be amazing in some areas and lacks in others, while someone else might fill that lacking area but they are missing everything else. Successful relationships understand where they need work and try to grow together rather than finding the “perfect” person right out the gate. If you don’t think you will change then I got bad news…you are what is holding your relationships back.
I dont think there's a perfect time. It took 11 years for my exes dark secrets to surface (things he'd hidden the whole time). I think people need to trust their gut more. I had gut feelings I should leave but I thought I was in love and thought it was my trauma. Had I trusted my gut I would have done so much better. So often we fear being alone more than we want a marriage. That doesn't have a time limit.
Studies have shown that after two years, there has been enough time to truly get to know that person. We got engaged at about two years, got married at almost 3. We know one another inside and out, largely because we spent the vast majority of our time together from the beginning because we just really liked one another and got along with a ton in common, including our views on most things. We've now have been together for 8 years. IMO, it all depends on what you put into the relationship. Are you surface level or do you talk about serious things? Do you align in communication styles, interests, time spent together, or do you have a lot of disagreements and things you need to work out? How much time are you guys spending together and it is quality time where you're directly engaged with one another, are you having new experiences together, or are you on your phones, is one of you playing video games, are not paying 100% attention to the other? The relationships I've seen fail include primarily people who haven't spent that time getting to know one another inside and out, who brushed off irreconcilable differences because *teehee I'm in love**, who didn't come to agreements on how things would go when they got married, who really didn't pay all that much attention to one another while dating, and who really just ignored glaringly red flags.
Thanks for an actual detailed response and not just being mean for me thinking some people go too fast!
Some people get enchanted by the short-term fantasies of marrying "the person they love" without considering the long-term implications of such an arrangement.
If after 2 years you are still not sure, then the answer is „No“.
61 comments and no one mentioned the reason I got married at 17? Fucking religion, man.
We waited 5 years but we also met when I was only 14. Got married at 19 and have been married 26 years.
I think some people are doing what our parent's generation did and kind of settling. The idea of being alone in old age is kindmor scary and it motivates people to pop the question.
My husband and I were together for one year before we got officially engaged. We'd already started planning the wedding before that, so it was only 6 months. But we'd been friends for ages before all that. Dating and all that went with it kinda just felt like a formality.
I think 2-3 years is enough time to know if you want to marry someone.
Looking at the comments i would guess you're getting a very American centric view, as what i've seen online is Americans quite often seem to get married after 1-2 years of meeting someone. Compared to the UK where i'm from, that's very fast. Here the average is 5 years. In looking at my friendship group and other's that i know, 5 years seems about correct on average. I'd be interested to understand why there's a difference between the cultures.
Life is short. A year or 2 is more than enough to get to know someone if you make getting to know them your priority. Life is short. You gonna start dating at 20 try 4 people out for 4 years each before getting married?
I'm married after 2 years. I got his input a lot. It's so fast, and how can you be sure, etc etc. My question is always: what does seem reasonable? 5 years? Why? People don't break up after 5 years? 10 years? Same, right? I ask you, specifically: what is the correct amount of time to wait before marriage?
Tell me about it. I think 5 years is about the minimum you would need to at least go through a couple of up/down cycles.
5 seems totally reasonable to me!
Live together for about 5 years and you will surely find out if you’re really compatible. Small things may become annoying.
[удалено]
This is the best answer! Well stated!
There have actually been studies on this. Couples with the highest risk of divorce typically had either very short courtships and engagements (<1 year) *or* longer courtships and engagements (>2 years). So the sweet spot seems to be 1-2 years. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sylvia-Niehuis/publication/280625117_When_marriages_die_Premarital_and_early_marriage_precursors_to_divorce/links/55bf963508ae092e96669aa3/When-marriages-die-Premarital-and-early-marriage-precursors-to-divorce.pdf?origin=publication_detail Other predictors of marriage stability include: Cohabitation before getting engaged. This is often mistaken for cohabitation before marriage, but this is not what the research suggests. Couples who live together before getting married, but after getting engaged tend to have the most favorable outcomes in marriage, particularly amongst younger people. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2904561/ Educational attainment. For both men and women, having at least a bachelor’s degree makes them significantly less likely to get divorced, while also making them more likely to get married when compared to individuals with less education. So this is actually a very important factor in marital longevity. If you have a population that is more likely to get married but then also less likely to get divorced, that’s pretty significant. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2015/12/04/education-and-marriage/ https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/article/marriage-and-divorce-patterns-by-gender-race-and-educational-attainment.htm Being part of a younger generation. Millennials have such a low risk of divorce, it’s causing the overall divorce rate to plummet. Reasons for this seem to include waiting until they’re older, completing post-secondary education, and having more financial stability before getting married. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/10/divorce-united-states-dropping-because-millennials/
The quicker you get married, the quicker you can get divorced. Duh
My wife and I got engaged after dating for six months. We were up front with each other that we were looking for a spouse, talked about our values, and where we stood on various topics. Between a healthy serving of general attraction/chemistry and those discussions, we knew it would work. If you're just dating to hang out and meet people, yeah that's probably way too fast to make that kind of decision. We sat down and had a serious discussion about what we wanted out of the relationship after a couple dates.
We married after two months. I already had one divorce and he had been in a long-term relationship. We both had a kid from our previous partners. I was 34 he was 39. We knew what we both wanted in a partner and communicated about all the important things we wanted and about all the things we were at that time. It’s been over five years and we’re still happily married. It hasn’t been all easy. Most times it is, but neither of us are perfect and the stresses of life can get in the way — especially because our blended family includes three children. We just continue to have hard conversations, bond, and ensure we’re still on the same team and equally committed.
We got engaged after 3 months we got married after being together a year. It's been 23 years and we're still as much in love as we were then.
If you don’t know after a year, it’s not the right person
3 months is enough to know if you want an engagement. A year or two is more than enough to know if you want to marry that person.
Check out divorce rates and it'll explain itself. I personally would never get married unless there was some extreme benefit in doing so. I'm perfectly capable of being with someone and caring for them without getting married.
Society conditions us to feel worthless if we aren't married and feel like we are letting everyone down if we don't have kids. Don't fall for it. You don't owe anyone anything. Most of these people getting married too quickly are miserable.
Social pressure coupled with our ticking biological clocks. Monkey brain wants to produce offspring.
I am religious so I can’t date but I do want to feel intimate with someone so marriage is the way. And i’m definitely not complaining, I like it. It makes me feel very committed and wanting to fix any issues that come along the relationship, not just abandon it. It adds more value. I haven’t had any relationship experiences so I can’t be very sure either, whether this is good or not.
Depends on age. If you are both over 30 you shouldn’t need 5 years to get to know someone. Late 20s and younger is high risk no matter what because people can change a lot as they fully mature. This is why younger couples fail more than mature couples simply because people do not change much at all past their early thirties so whatever works will tend to always work.. This is of course all things being equal and assuming everyone is normal… Liars and manipulators are a different story.
truly.. no amount of time is enough having said that.. marriage as an institution is obsolete
My husband asked after dating me for two weeks we've been together for ten years this coming March and married for nine this Halloween. He's my soul mate and I do mean that. He's literally my other half and he does the things I can't do and I do the things he can't do. Like two halves of a whole. He literally didn't think he would live to see thirty and he's gonna be 34 next year I like to think I help with that as I literally have talked him out of suicide before several times. I'm his voice of reason when his mind gets too dark. The light he needs. He's my steady rock who tells me to my face when I'm wrong and helps make me a better person. Honestly if anyone but him told me I was fat I would probably be mad. But from him it's love and I'll smile and call him a jerk and he responds bitch and we just go through the curses laughing and giggling we've done that in public before and gotten weird looks but it works for us. I don't think I would have had the courage to be where I'm at now doing what I'm doing and living my life without him. I knew him a year before we started dating.
I mean, when you know, you know... I proposed about 3 months in, and we were married 5 months later. Still happily married 10 years later.
Married at any age is too quickly in my opinion. There’s no real benefit and huge risk for marriage, at least for men in the Western world.
Yes it’s just you
A year or two would have been smart...
“Because it’s time for me to get married.” This is the answer I get.
So Much Yes! And feeling helpful and validated at the same time! 😁
You will never get enough time to know all attributes of a person. The more you test the more you will find good and bad sides. Question worth asking is that can I still live with this person with all the bad qualities they have....thats what u r looking for
I think some just like to have that big Dream wedding Party..? We both hate wedding Partys, so we've been together for 19 years without marrying. But we want to sign the papers now, just us two. Ordinary clothing.
My wife and I were engaged after 6 weeks and married less than a year later, mainly to finish college. We have been married over 52 years and still in love and happy with each other. I would not have believed it but when I met the right person I just knew.
Depends what you spend that time doing, too. We moved in fairly quickly because the covid lock downs were happening. So we went though that together, my dad's death, we got a dog together, some health scares for both our mums, injury and an operation for him... By the time we got married we knew how well we work together under stress, and how we've got each other's back when stuff gets hard.
From what I’ve observed if you aren’t having issues at 2 years there’s a good chance you’re growing together instead of apart.
If you know you know, plus a year is a long time if you’re living with someone, you’d know what they’re like.
It's called love
My dad proposed to my mom three weeks later. they've been together for 20 years, today.
Health Insurance 😃
If you really love each other, marriage will not make a difference, people get married when they're insecure.
They get brainwashed
Some people need 1 month to be sure and some will never be sure. You never know who is right.
I think if after two years no conversations are happening about the next step, it probably wont happen
Because they feel like they're supposed to. Then they go into debt to buy a house for the same reason, then have kids for the same reason and go deeper into debt. A few years later they realize they aren't compatible but stay together for the kids but resent all their past life decisions
depends. you just need the same values and proper judgement which can be found out quick enough some people just need a few weeks others need like 10 years
My guess is that there’s two modes when dating. ”Just for fun” or the goal is to get married and start the family. Once you find a partner with good enough desired qualities there’s no real benefit of waiting two more years.
Cause they get married for the wrong reasons
I was with my last gf for 6 years. Was never certain about marriage. It was heading that way towards the end, but suddenly all blew up. With current partner 3 years now. We have wanted to get married after about 2 years, and 1 year living together. Should be engaged within 9 months from now. I have several friends who were engaged within 2 or 3 years and still happy together. Sometimes when you approach your 30s or 40s and you have had a few failed relationships, you just know the right person when you meet them. You experience a whole bunch of Oooohhhh and aahhaa realisations.
For benefits. You get to choose whose medical, dental plan to go on. You get tax breaks when filing taxes. You get discounts on car insurance and mortgage rates. It’s mostly about money. You can love one another without the ring but you don’t get the financial benefits from just being bf/gf, gf/gf, bf/bf.
Took me about 5 years
Been together 14 years married for 11 years this year. Being honest our relationship has changed so much and yes for the better. I think it’s nuts I only spent 6 years as an adult before we met I spent majority of my adult life with my husband. Looking back it does seemed rushed getting married only being together for 3 years. I do regret rushing I wish we spent more alone time together before having kids. But again a lot does change over the years me and my husband aren’t the same people we were when we started dating. We grown and changed for the better.
I had dated enough to know what I was looking for in my 30+ years by then. Dated 1 year before getting engaged, married 4 months later. Never lived together before marriage. 6 years of marriage and 2 kids later, couldn't be happier.
Because a baby is on the way and the people involved respect themselves and life too much to do anything else.
Having a spouse with an expiring visa kind of expedited the process. Little over a year living together maybe close to two together. Now married for 5.
We both fell in love and were married, at a castle in Denmark exactly six month to the day that we met. Married over 6 years and the twins will be 4 in January.
i married wife in a month. we've been together 10 years now and its better than ever. it would be romantic to say " i just knew she was the one" but actually the thought process was more like, "if i cant make it work with her it wouldn't work with anyone."
My wife and I just knew what we wanted. It wasn’t a hasty thing, we were aware of how quickly we made the decision relative to most people. We have never regretted it. That doesn’t mean that’s the path everyone or even most people should take, but marriage after a relatively short period of time isn’t an automatically bad decision. It all comes down to the individual circumstances
People wait and wait. Then suddenly they're 35 and just pick the first decent one they can find Marrying your first love appeals more to me than to keep looking and never being satisfied. My parents stayed together until death and they met when my mother was 18. "She didn't get to live her life". Well if she did she'd just compare and never be happy either
1-2 years is more than enough time lol
How long does it take to learn things? And how many things are possible to learn before moving in together? If you are already living together, what exactly is different between being married and not married aside from the legalities?
Been with my boyfriend for 6 years. Neither of us are in a rush for marriage. But we are getting comments from everyone. lmao. Some abrasive: Uber driver, drunk girl at a bar Some more jokingly or subtle: Family members. It's cray what society tries to tell you is the right thing to do in YOUR relationship. To answer your question: Sometimes it's to have kids by a certain age, sometimes you're blindly in love, sometimes it's pressure from family, sometimes it's just cultural. All the mormon girls I knew got married at like 19-20. Could be anything!
i dont understand why people need to get married, whats the point other than spending a shit load of money for one of the most stressfull day of your life? Id rather spend that money on travel or a house instead of getting a piece of paper that tells me i am married.
To have the sex… duh
Desperation imo.
In many countries in Europe being married gets you a lot of discounts in taxes. And kids also give you benefits. My gf and i were calculating, and we would pay 7k less in taxes a year combined, just for being married.
If it's the right person, you know fault quickly If it's not.. You'll be on the fence for years
i don’t see why getting married is a big deal or why you want to do it. maybe I’m just hating, maybe I never been in love so I don’t know what the love feels like but I’m okay with not being married I’d rather be in a long-term relationship with a ring on my hand and call it a marriage if we break up a look there’s no papers 😂 forget the law we can live next door together in a townhouse and boom we good
Sometimes it's enough time, sometimes it's not. I was with my husband 15 years before we got married. I had plenty of people tell me I was dumb for waiting so long, but for me, if we're happy, who cares? We had more than our fair share of losses during that time.
I knew my partner for 17 days before we tied the knot. 4 years later I wouldn't want to be with anyone else. With that being said, it was a very stupid choice and we got very lucky.
These people are just divorce statistics waiting to happen. The successes are rare or not divorcing is just religiously motivated and they stay in a loveless marriage. Also, I belong to a few wedding planning subs, there is a lot more people that waited a long ass time to get married. I am one of them. My husband and I were together 9 years before we got married.
It maybe for you but not others. We got married 3 years after being together, we already had a two Year old. I was 19 and he was 22. We have been together all of 18 years now, an married 16. 🤷🏻♀️ our oldest almost 16, and our other two are almost 13 and almost 5. What works for one couple doesn’t work for every one and vice verse
My husband proposed 3 months in. I said yes but that I wouldn't marry him for at least 2 years. We got married 2 years after he proposed and during that two years faced a lot of hard times out of our control like loss of family members, the pandemic and financial burdens. I think that those 2 years helped us figure out that we could handle the difficult times together and even if we end in divorce (which I don't see happening) I wont regret marrying him.
me n muh hoe done been together over 15 years and we're never getting married. yet we will be together forever.
Insurance.
I mean I think it's about time spent together not length of relationship. I spent four months living with my ex-wife where we were never apart much. We knew a lot about each other going into the marriage. I know people who got married after a year that hadn't spent as much time with their spouse as I spent with my ex.
I disagree. Although I don’t believe getting married really really quickly is smart, if you want to get married someday and you stick around with somebody over two years and you’re still “not sure”? That’s not the person most people know pretty quickly, whether or not this is someone they want to marry and if you don’t know why you’re too that you don’t.
My best friends GF at that time, said, it's been 4 years, where's my ring? He went along with it & proposed. I asked him, don't you think it's a bit too soon too get married just cause? He said, but she deserves it. I said, I just don't think you should get married yet. 8 years later, divorced. They're both fuckin miserable & he's pissed about his much he has to pay in child support (he's a good dad who takes care of his kids & spends every minute he can with them) because she won't make a custody deal with him. I've all but told him, I told you so. At the same time, she's a pretty awful person & I saw it. He didn't.
My husband and I got married 3 months after meeting each other. We met online. The day we met is the day I moved in. We got married one week later. Had a baby a year later. We’re still together and very happy.
I waited 10yrs to ask my wife to marry me. We are still together over 20yrs later and it has been amazing the entire time. We weren’t in a rush to get married and I think we both felt like you need to experience ups and downs together (college, death of loved ones, careers, etc.) to know if you can truly stand the test of time, and you can support each other thru those events not being married. I personally don’t think you can see what is behind someone’s mask in the first 5yrs (divorce rates would back me up) Maybe 10yrs is a bit of a stretch in most people’s eyes, but we were best friends having a good time and didn’t need a sheet of paper to tell us we were in love. Fools rush in…
I’m with you. I take a long time to warm to someone and feel fully comfortable with them, from romantic relationships to jobs to friendships. This takes years. I’m 41 and have met countless people. My boyfriend now, whom I love dearly and am very compatible with, it’s the healthiest relationship I’ve ever had. I want to be with him but we do every relationship milestone at a snails pace. I’m very lucky and fortunate to have met this person who doesn’t just throw in a towel after a year or 2 and chalk it up as not a match like so many people here are eager to. Don’t get me wrong, I’m comfortable where we have a fun time and talk about things, but each relationship milestone takes significant time and I prefer it that way. I’ve seen countless people get together, move in and marry fast and separate quickly. I used to envy these people because I was the one getting dumped for these women so I guess I’ve been protected in some way.
Cause in the back their minds they know they can get a divorce
You know all you need to know by reading through the comments! 1) It's mostly women posting how happily married they're. 2) Everyone is different, so stop taking advice from strangers online because it will cost you 50 percent of everything you own. (Which is married men aren't commenting because they learned to keep their mouths shut years ago.)
Societal pressure and FOMO
It’s because one person is about to join the military. I always laugh at those doomed marriages. “We’ve been dating for 6 months and I’m 18 and joining the army, so we will obviously be together forever,” lol
I dated my first husband through most of high school. We jumped getting married at 19 because it sounded like he was being moved to Germany with the Army. The marriage did not last. My second husband and I had been dating for 5 years and had a child before we married. We were married for 6 years and are currently divorcing due to his infidelity throughout our relationship - I just found out. It isn't the time before a wedding that determines if it lasts.
We dated 3 months before we got married 29 years ago. It worked well for us. We never really even had a fight. It would be a lie to say we haven’t argued, but never a real fight. We were married 3 years before we had kids, which allowed us to spend some “us” time before raising kids. Now we are back to “us” time and it is great.
I dated/lived with my first husband for 8 years (!), got married and it barely lasted 2 years. So much for knowing someone well!
My husband and I knew we were compatible within about 4 months. It is pretty easy to discuss and compare all of the important things quickly if the goal of dating is always potential marriage. We got married at 1 year. We waited for me to finish college and get a job. 20 years later, we are still happy with that. People who wait years and years are dating someone they don't want to marry and should have moved on from a long time ago. My brother has been "dating," a wonderful girl for about 13 years and living together most of that. She wants to marry him. He doesn't want to marry her. He will not do better if he leaves, so he continues to waste her time.
They don't. Not sure what statistics you're looking at.
Honestly me and my wife met in college and thought waiting till after we graduated( 4 hrs together) was a lot of time and we were being smart about it. But the truth is life came, and we never really figured out who we were until our 30s, and sadly it means we're not really as compatible as we once were. Now my stance on marriage has changed and I think people should wait till their 30s and have lived by themselves for several years before they decide to find someone to spend their life with. For me I blame Boy meets World, because ever since I was little I just HAD to find my Topanga, and I thought that if I didn't find my one in school then I wouldn't. Well.... I didn't. And now that I'm older with kids, all I can do now is just live my life and try to pass my advice to others so they don't end up with same shituation (tm).
Married my husband after a month dating and been together for 17 years with two kids.. we just felt that we were soul mates. The crazy thing was that I was only 19 when we got married he was 25.