How Long Did you Know Each Other Before Your You Discussed Marriage?

[truncated]

I read once that knowing your potential spouse for a long time before you seriously discussed marriage/got engaged can actually lead to a less than happy marriage.

 

I have no idea if that's true or not, but it is food for thought.

 

How long did you know our current spouse before you became engaged?

 

In my own situation, we became engaged the second day we were dating, and we've been married 20 years.

[carhill]

Ha, I had to laugh because, had I discussed such a matter on the second date with the only person I had ever actually felt that way about that early/immediately, I would have found out she was already married!

 

Perhaps that experience is why I was so circumspect in getting to know someone more before bringing marriage to the table. In the case of my exW, I don't believe we discussed marriage until about six months into our relationship and I proposed about ten months or so in. We were older so perhaps that has bearing on the specifics.

[Kingston100]

I am not married, but my boyfriend and I discussed marriage on our first date. It was abstract though.... "do you want marriage and children?" type talk. I guess it is because we are older (in our 30's) and neither of us wanted to waste time with someone who didn't have similar goals.

 

We didn't start talking about marriage with each other until about 8 months in. Even then, we asked each other "do you see yourself marrying me?"

 

We are now 10 months in and things are still going strong. We haven't talked about timelines or anything. I know he doesn't want to rush into anything, and he knows I don't want to wait too long because it might become an issue when trying to get pregnant. I think we will approach the topic more seriously when we get closer to a year or a year and a half.

[MissBee]

I can't fathom being engaged to someone the second day of dating personally, while it worked for you, I don't think this is the norm.

 

I'm marriage-minded so in dating I find out a man's views on marriage pretty early on. If he doesn't ever want to be married for example, that's something I want to know before we start seeing each other a lot or get into a relationship. With my ex in his dating profile it was stated plainly that he was looking for a serious relationship and to eventually "get down on one knee" so right away I knew he was marriage-minded and we spoke about potentially getting married several times throughout the relationship. We never got engaged but marriage wasn't some phantom, hush-hush topic, but a pretty open thing that we knew we were either going to do with each other OR we'd break up.

[central]

We moved in together after about 15 months dating. We lived together for a year before even discussing marriage. It was another 6 years before we actually got married. We've been together 15 years now, and it's still wonderful. Marriage is not important to us - the relationship is.

[cerridwen]

The second date?! Wow! Congratulations on 20 years.

 

My current and I got engaged almost 2 years to the day we met.

 

It's been long distance though, so it converts into about 7 months of actual face time.

 

First marriage, we were engaged after 6+ years of knowing one another.

Lovely man. Great relationship. Terrible marriage.

[d0nnivain]

We probably discussed the concept a few weeks in. I don't remember but I know that I most like wanted to know if he'd ever been married & if he parents were still married.

 

Somewhere in the 1st several months I learned his story. He had a ring in his pocket & was planning to propose to his GF when she announced over dinner that she wanted to break up because she didn't think he was serious enough about the relationship . He hadn't dated seriously since her. I only learned much later, like days before our wedding, that it had been 10 years.

 

I remember one specific conversation right before Christmas but I don't know if it was our 1st Christmas together (dating since July) or the second one, a few weeks before he proposed, when he said I was the kind of woman he'd like to marry but he didn't want to talk about it because it was too soon so I kind of think it was the 1st Christmas I remember being very reassured by the conversation.

[No Limit]

If it's any help, the average time among young people seems to be a year. Maybe even a little less from the stuff a buddy from university tells me.