Marriage: How do you know when it's time?

[Elise]

Hello-

 

I'm 31...never married, no children...

 

I don't feel desperate to marry, yet I have met this man who

 

I've been thinking that I'd like to spend the rest of my life with. You know, grow old with. I believe that marriage is until death, and take it very seriously....

 

Of course, I have not and will not mention this to him.

 

We're friends, but we haven't known each other for more than a month...I've dated (just dating, NOT sex) and there are a lot of guys out there (and, I am sure, women, too) with so much baggage, game playing, insecurites and fears of intimacy...

 

It's not just physical or an infatuation...I'm not obsessed or in the throes of some passionate (and surely doomed) affair...I've been through that, and this is NOT it...I'm just thinking that he could be 'the one'. We like each other faults and all...

 

Of all of you married or soon-to-be married, or even the thank-goodness-I-DIDN'T-marry folks...how soon is soon?

 

3 months, 6 months, a year?

 

And, should the man be the one to propose or broach the subject of marriage? I'm curious...

 

Thanks.

[Ajay]

Elise:

 

I was 30, never married, no children... Didn't want to marry, but then I met a man and decided he was the one for me. I never mentioned it to him (I think the man should bring it up first), but I think he knew how I was feeling; he proposed to me two weeks later. I believed in until death, and he did too. We met in February married in June. It lasted 10 years.

 

My biggest regret? We should have waited until we got to know each other better. I would NOT have married him if I had waited. The reason I stayed so long? I believed in together, forever, and tried to make it so...

 

It took a while before I was able to get on with my life, because I got caught up in the feeling of "look how much time I wasted trying to hold on to this marriage"; then I wasted almost two more years whining about it.

 

How do you know when? You don't, but I wish I would have given the engagement a year (commitment intact, but with time to get to know each other better before going til death). He asked me to marry him during the second month we were going out; at that time, I didn't think we would marry in such a short time. Waiting is a good thing...

 

Hello- I'm 31...never married, no children... I don't feel desperate to marry, yet I have met this man who I've been thinking that I'd like to spend the rest of my life with. You know, grow old with. I believe that marriage is until death, and take it very seriously.... Of course, I have not and will not mention this to him. We're friends, but we haven't known each other for more than a month...I've dated (just dating, NOT sex) and there are a lot of guys out there (and, I am sure, women, too) with so much baggage, game playing, insecurites and fears of intimacy... It's not just physical or an infatuation...I'm not obsessed or in the throes of some passionate (and surely doomed) affair...I've been through that, and this is NOT it...I'm just thinking that he could be 'the one'. We like each other faults and all... Of all of you married or soon-to-be married, or even the thank-goodness-I-DIDN'T-marry folks...how soon is soon? 3 months, 6 months, a year? And, should the man be the one to propose or broach the subject of marriage? I'm curious...

 

Thanks.

[Tony T]

You can't put a time on something like marriage. From a practical standpoint, a year seems reasonable. But many people have married after knowing each other a month and stayed happilly married for a lifetime.

 

There are schools of thought that suggest that if a couple marries sooner, the discoveries that are made about each other as the marriage grows make it more exciting and challenging.

 

You can never really know somebody...and if a person is going to keep something from you, they can keep it from you for a month or five years.

 

So the best way to judge how long to wait for marriage is to go with your gut feeling.

 

As far as who proposes, in the old days the man sort of took control there. But today, either party can bring up the subject and it should be mutually discussed and resolved. Some compromises may be required here.

 

It's always best to put feelings and thoughts out in the open for discussion. If the other party isn't open to talking about it, you have your first big danger signal.