OT- How long after dating did you get engaged?

Sorry, this is way off topic, but after a conversation last night with my boyfriend I am curious for everyone else's perspective! We have only been dating for four months, yet at a friend's BBQ he kept introducing me as the girl he is going to marry.... atlhough he did have a few beers in him at this time. But, either way, I have to say that freaked me out! I am in my late twenties and ready to settle down, but four months just seems like way too little to know this.

How long did you date your spouse before getting engaged/married, or how long did you date before knowing you would marry them?

Sun. Apr 13, 4:03pm

Okay, so I'm not the best example. We met young and dated 7 years before we married BUT I always thought, had we met when we were older (like the age when we married - late 20's) our 'dating' time would've been much, much shorter.

Four months? Hmmm...there's no real right or wrong, although in the early stages you're still kind of responding to the lust factor, that chemical high that only occurs in new relationships. Doesn't invalidate it, mind you - it happens to people all the time - they just know. Some will feel it in their gut much sooner than that, some much later.

Sunday, April 13, 2008, 4:55 PM

How long after dating did you get engaged

I dont think you can put a time limit on knowing someone... we dated a year then got engaged and we are getting married in oct so we will have dated for 3 yrs before we marry. My first husband and I dated 7 yrs then married and we never saw our 2nd wedding annv. so you need to follow your heart. I knew I shouldnt have married my ex. Thats why i belive we waited so long to get married in the first place. Now the man I am with I cant see living without.

Sunday, April 13, 2008, 5:00 PM

my boyfriend and i have been together for 8 months - we knew we were each other's match after about 2 weeks - but I doubt we will get engaged before a year or two.
He's 35 and I'm 24 so I am too young to rush it and he is past the point where there is any point in rushing it.
Who cares how long you are engaged, as long as you give it some time before you are actually married. I thought I was going to marry my high school boyfriend and we were together for 2 years. Thank goodness we never flew to vegas!

Sunday, April 13, 2008, 6:11 PM

We were friends for a couple of years before we started dating and then dated for almost 10 months before we got engaged. We knew with in a couple of months, though, that we wanted to get married. Our engagement was 8 months long. We will celebrate our 11th wedding anniversary this June.

Sunday, April 13, 2008, 6:33 PM

We were a blind date, both separated from our first spouses about 2 years. We both knew pretty quickly that this was it. And yet we did not become engaged for 6-1/2 years. We got married 6 months later. Gun-shy, I guess.

Monday, April 14, 2008, 2:20 AM

We met each other at an insanely busy time in our lives, never even had the chance to go on a date til I moved in with him (3 months after we met - it was supposed to be a temp situation) and I'd say right about 4 or 5 months after we met, we realized we were actually married in our hearts regardless of how little we had actually 'dated'. We got engaged 9 months after that (because the suspense was driving our families insane ;-) ) and married ~1 year after getting engaged. We probably would have married sooner, but since we were both students we needed to wait til after graduation or it would have adversely affected student aid. At that point though we couldn't have felt more married, so there was no rush to prove it with some jewelry and a piece of paper. We'll celebrate 7 years this spring.

Monday, April 14, 2008, 2:21 AM

6 months. My mom always told me that if both don't know by 9 months, then you're not right for each other.

Monday, April 14, 2008, 7:27 AM

My fiance and I, like one of the prior posters, met very young. We dated through junior high and high school, broke up around the first year of college, then got back together for another two years before getting engaged.

In the time we were apart, though, I dated a few guys. One of them, after two months, wanted me to move in with him, and I almost did had it not been for the distance he lived from my family. Sometimes connections need to be strengthened, other times they're strong from the start.

Monday, April 14, 2008, 8:23 AM

We were friends for 4years, dated 4 months, engaged 3 months - still together after 5 years...

take your time - it is forever

Monday, April 14, 2008, 11:57 AM

We're engaged and were together for five years before getting engaged but we had already bought a house together. We knew we wanted to be together within the first year. - talked about moving in together and that. But it's really different for everyone. They say the older you are the less time you need.

Monday, April 14, 2008, 12:40 PM

I think there's definitely a range of "too soon" and "too long". I dated my first husband far too LONG before we got married... 7 years. If a guy waits that long, he's just not that into you (and we were adults, not 7 yrs of high school, college etc). But my mother always said don't even consider marrying someone until you've had at least 3 fights/arguments with them. When you're first dating, everyone's on their best behavior. You need to have it out a few times to see how a person handles conflict and if it goes with how you do as well.

Luckily, I re-connected with a childhood friend and we started dating (well, we actually hooked up one night, but it did result in a date) and we knew pretty quickly that this was it. We knew by 6 weeks, got engaged after 9 months, married the following year. I think life experience had somethig to do with the fast track though. I would never have been able to make that kind of decision in my 20's. Just be sure that both of you are completely yourselves all the time. If you're still in the "he's coming over, I better shave my legs and brush my teeth" phase, it's way too soon. If he sees you hairy and smelly and still wants to marry you, he's a keeper! :)

Monday, April 14, 2008, 1:28 PM

I've been dating my bf for almost 7 yrs now. I knew from about year 1 that I'd marry him. I'm almost 27 now. Neither of us are in a hurry to get married; but we know that we will eventually.

Monday, April 14, 2008, 2:02 PM

9 months. Then divorced 3-1/2 years later.
I was 22-23, what did I know.

Monday, April 14, 2008, 2:28 PM

Well let's see I have been married and divorced twice i am now engaged for 3 years now lol...my first I met him when I was 16 a few weeks before my 17 birthday...he was 26 2 weks before his 27 ..anyway I ended up finding out I was pregnant on my 18 birthday had a daughter then 14 months later had another daughter..so this is now like 3 years.. got married when my youngest was three or so this is 6-7 years then had a son 8 months after our wedding was pg didnt know..got divorced a little after a year ...I was too young and he kept me on a very short leash..didn't give me room to grow, didn't want me to go to school etc...
Got with second husband five months after leaving first husband ...got engaged in like 6 months..then married like 2 months later ..had a son ( he had no kids and wanted one badly)..was together for about 4 years married 3 and got divorced..he was an emotional and physical abuser..
Now met a guy dated for 4 months moved in together...a little over a year later he asked me to marry him we have been engaged for 3 years..(with about 3 months broke-up)..I'm a little ify about getting married again..I will not have anymore kids my youngest is now almost 5 (next month) and I have no desire to go back lol..so I got my tubes tied last year..not sure when or if we will ever get married I love him with all my heart but we do have our problems and there are some changes I need to see before I would tie the knot again..after being through two horrible marragies I'm not sure if I can stand the chance of another failed one..it's kinda like "three strikes your out" and I only have one left..

Monday, April 14, 2008, 3:03 PM

I knew from the first day I met him that he was the man I would marry. We got engaged 3 months after we met, moved in 6 months after we met, bought a house together 1 year and 3 months after we met. Got married 2 months before our 2 year anniversary. We are happily married now....for 7 months.

Just to note we were 34 and 37 when we met. We had both been in very long term relationships before we met - both shacking up. Me for 7 years and him for 13 and had both been single and dating others for a few years before we met.

We both knew after our first date...just wish I would have found him sooner :)

Monday, April 14, 2008, 3:26 PM

I just moved in with my boyfriend of three years. We both think this is it, and we talked about having kids within the next few years, but somehow marriage is not a big topic. Somehow it seems that it wouldn't make a big difference except for having a wedding, and I am just not that much into big poofy dresses. Maybe it does make a difference for other, but I don't think that signing a piece of paper and re-declaring my promise in front of a ton of people would make me love him more or make me more committed to him than I am anyway.

Monday, April 14, 2008, 3:26 PM

I agree with you 3:26, marriage is for the other people in your lives. I've never understood it myself. It's so old fashioned! It's also completely against equality of the genders, etc. I'd rather have awesome yearly parties than one huge expensive party where Im the center of attention for some reason and handed off like Im my father's property and now my husbands? Talk about bizarre.

Monday, April 14, 2008, 6:40 PM

6:40 and 3:26 -- yes!!! So see your point!

I was really mad at a friend a little while ago: one of our mutual friend's lost her boyfriend of five years in a car accident. She was in pieces, completely shattered, so much grief. The friend then told her of another girl she knew who lost her husband (they'd been together for 5 years all together), kinda indicating that she should be happy she "only" lost her boyfriend and not her husband! I could've exploded!!!! SO INCONSIDERATE!

Monday, April 14, 2008, 7:00 PM

To the few pervious posts...I LOVE being married! I've been married 7 years and I've never regretted it and it never seemed old fashioned to me. And to me it wouldn't be the same if we weren't married. However I've got friends who have been together just as long as my husband and I have and I don't think their relationship is any less "real" then ours so I understand where you're coming from. To each her own.

As for the original question...We dated a little over a year before we got engaged. My parents dated only TWO months before they got engeaged and then got married only THREE months after that. (And no, they weren't pregnant). They just knew they wanted to get married so why not just do it.

Monday, April 14, 2008, 7:39 PM

8 years of dating him, 1 year of being engaged to him, marrying in october. i wouldn't have it any other way either.

i used to think marriage was a joke. i used to think i'd have a party every year instead of one big shebang. now i'm having the marriage (very small) and will have the yearly party too. a happy "marriage" of both ideas. so to each his/her own! what works for some might not work at all for others.

Monday, April 14, 2008, 9:00 PM

But what is the actual purpose of getting married? That's what I don't understand/ Especially when so many just end in either divorce or unhappy settling. I think its more beautiful to have the freedom to be somewhere else but choose to be there with the person you love, rather than be there because you love them and because you made this deal that you said you would be. Does that make any sense? It just doesnt feel like marriage has a purpose aside from people who are insecure binding together for keeps, or just doing it out of tradition? I dont know.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008, 9:52 AM

Sometimes you just know

When I met my husband, he was 26 and seeing someone else. I just turned 20 and had been dating another guy for 2 years. However, after meeting him that first day, I went home and told my parents that I met the guy I was gong to marry. We dated for almost 3 months when I moved in with him. We got engaged a year later, and married almost 2 years after that. We are celebrating our 14 year wedding anniversary next month.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008, 10:51 AM

I met my husband, and we both knew within 2-3 months that we would get married at some point. We ended up getting engaged on our 1-year anniversary, but it was a bit rushed b/c his mom was very sick. Had it not been for outside circumstances, maybe we would've waited longer to get engaged, maybe not. I'm not sure. I was 21 when we met, 22 when we got engaged, and 23 when we got married. I'm 25 now, and we've been married a year and a half. Finally, some of our other friends are starting to get married! We were the first, by far, and that was a bit rough!

Tuesday, April 15, 2008, 11:03 AM

We met when we were in our mid and late 30's.
Together for 4 years before we got engaged.
Engaged for 15 months before we got married.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008, 3:16 PM

Why do people feel the need to get married, you ask? Why do people put up Christmas trees? It's a tradition. I don't stay married to my husband because I "have to". It's as much a choice for me to be here than anywhere else as it is for someone in a committed relationship. Obviously with the divorce rate, marriage isn't the life sentence it used to be. I don't think everyone needs to get married, so anyone who wants to live in a committed relationship is, in my opinion, just as married as I am. I was married once before, and believe me, I wouldn't have taken that step again if I wasn't 1000% sure. I was totally sour on the whole institution and never dreamed I'd do it again. That's how right I know it is with this man!

Tuesday, April 15, 2008, 6:39 PM

Yay for uncritically doing stuff because of our patriarchal tradition!

Tuesday, April 15, 2008, 6:48 PM

My husband and I gave a lot of thought to getting married. We were in our 40's, no kids, don't want kids. A lot of people were surprised that we were even tying the knot after 5+ years together. It's a commitment we were both willing to make and we haven't regretted it. We had gone through a lot during those 5 years and had come to the conclusion that come what may, we would always have the willingness to work it out. We want to grow old together, with benefit of the paperwork.

And then when tax season came around and we got over eight grand more than the year prior, we just smiled at the naysayers and pocketed the cash.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008, 10:50 PM

6:40 you described a wedding :) And, I'm sure far too many people focus on that one big party vs. how to make life with someone feel like something worth celebrating on a daily basis, but it's not the institution of marriage that does that.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008, 11:39 PM

Dated for 6 years. Lived together for 5 of those 6 years. Got engaged last summer, but still haven't gotten around to the actual wedding. For us, it won't change anything, so we aren't rushing.

Thursday, May 15, 2008, 1:02 AM

We dated 2 years. We have married for 11 now. I was seventeen when we got married!! The weird thing is that we didn't fall in love until we had been married for two years. Love means something different when you're seventeen.

Thursday, May 15, 2008, 7:34 AM

How long after dating did you get engaged?

The day I met my husband we both knew we would be married. I was 36 and he 38. We were each individually financially secure, had children from our 1st marriages, had our own homes, cars, etc. Our motto: Love is a choice! We believe that no one can make you happy but a partner enhances your happiness. If you are happy with yourself, you will understand this. Three years later, we were engaged and married 8 months after the engagement. I honestly believe the reason our relationship and marriage works is because we do not have "head in the clouds expectations". One knows, from the day one meets a potential mate, if that person is right for them. I did not "feel" that for my ex husband and we were together for 4 years before we married. Crazy, huh? The morale of the story: "Choose who to Love". Don't let lust get in the way, it causes DRAMA!

Tuesday, August 18, 2009, 7:27 AM

My parents got married six weeks after they met and are still happy thirty years later. I asked them how come it was so quick and they said they just knew. And they wanted to be able to sleep in the same bed when they visited my grandparents. They were mid-twenties, met in a pub when my Ma bought Pa a drink.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009, 8:03 AM

What an interesting thread -- sorry I missed it the first time around!

While I like the spirit behind the "why get married" posts, they reflect an amazing amount of naivete. Marriage is a HUGE legal advantage. This is why homosexual partners want to be legally married or have a civil union.

Let me give you a minor example: I am not married to my partner. He needs minor surgery, which means I need to go in to the surgical center with him, drive him home afterwards, and stay with him to take care of him for a day or two. I am a state employee in a conservative state. If he were my husband or child, I could take 2-3 days of sick leave. Because he is "not family" (pfft!) I have to take 2-3 vacation days to do this, which means we can't take a vacation together.

This kind of thing would be magnified were one of us to get sick; any decisions about my care would be thrown back to my parents, with whom I disagree on many things. Were I not conscious to gainsay it, they could even prevent him from visiting me in the hospital or having any information about how I was.

And we are a straight couple. But this kind of thing is the purely practical reason to be married.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009, 8:53 AM

We talked about it at 3months and were officially engaged in 4 months. we were engaged for 8 months, we had a big wedding. I have been happily married for 27 years. I must say we saw each other everyday. Our foundation in marriage has been Christ. We are devout catholics. He got an apartment around the block from me. We saw each other everyday. We didn't have sex until we were married.I find it hard to believ, but I love him more the I did 28 years ago! Good Luck!

Tuesday, August 18, 2009, 10:25 AM

We married on our first anniversary. We were "officially" engaged at six months. We knew we would marry after maybe 6 weeks.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009, 3:34 PM

My husband and I dated about 2 months before he joked about wanting to get married saying he knew I was the one. 4 years later we actually got engaged and were married after knowing each other for almost 5. We just celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary. We were 24 when we got married.

My parents knew each other 2 months and got married before 6 months at 30 years of age...Still together.

My sister got married this year, less than a year after meeting her husband after meeting in a dating site. She was 30...He was 35.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009, 3:49 PM

Dated 6 1/2 months before getting engaged. Actually we didn't have an exact date when we got engaged, no proposal or anything like that. I suppose we talked about our expectations and when we each realized they were going to be met, we just went on to the next steps. I suppose it sounds strange but that's how it was for us. So I'm going by when we started doing things that were going to be visible to other people, and were obviously in anticipation of marriage. We had, however, known something of each other from a distance for about 2 years or so before that, working in different departments at the same company on projects for the same customer.

Our reason for marrying was not religious, although we were married in a Christian church setting. And while I'm mentioning that, let me add that if one comes from a Roman Catholic background or some other denomination with heavy influence from there, you would have been taught that marriage is a sacrament, but a number of other branches of Christian faith have, from the time they became branches, rejected that idea as fictional.

I value marriage as a nearly-irrevocable contract; the commitment to do bedpans every day for 50 years if you should be so unlucky, to give an example. In both our families we have had experience of near-lifelong physical disability and somewhat drawn-out prelude-to-death situations, and I certainly put a lot of value in having someone committed to bear the pains or burdens with me. And in our 16+ years married, it seems like most of the time we have been doing that. Whether I was more on the taking or the giving side at the moment, I've felt glad to be part of a committed married couple.

And I go along with those who said in effect, don't confuse the party with the marriage. We had no attendants (just a couple greeting people at the church door), no giving away, no big entrances, no throwing of anything by anybody, no alcohol (disappointing many I'm sure, but it cuts the cost in half and makes everyone better behaved). In short, we just didn't do anything that wasn't worth it to us. The reception food was good, the music was good, nobody seriously annoyed anyone else in any way as far as we could tell, and we didn't put ourselves in debt. Our purpose with the ceremony was to acknowledge accepting the essentially-permanent commitment. And the main purpose of the other festivities was to try to put the relatives in a good humor about it, but without sacrificing anything really valuable to us in the process. If you want to have a Me Party, I guess you can. It wasn't our goal, and we didn't miss it.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009, 4:19 PM

OP Here:

It made me laugh seeing this thread and knowing a year and a half ago I was the one that posted it! Funny thing is, still not engaged. I guess it was the few beers he had during the BBQ that made those words come out. We are still together and very happy, but weirdly enough, now I am the one pushing to get engaged and waiting.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009, 5:35 PM

Well I knew I was going to marry my husband pretty quickly, but I absolutely refused to get married or engaged. The reason being we started dating when I was 16 and he was 19. We didn't get officially engaged until I was 18 and got married when I was 20, so by that point we had been together 4 years. We celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary back in April and still very happily married. If you feel it don't be too scared, but there is no rush.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009, 3:38 PM

I moved in with my now-husband after about 3 weeks of dating (crazy huh?), but we didn't get engaged for about a year and a half later. We were married 10 months after we were engaged, and we're still married 9 years later.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009, 4:20 PM

Great update, OP! :)

Wednesday, August 19, 2009, 5:08 PM

just engaged!!!

Well...this is a great topic. I just got engaged!!

I used to think marriage was old fashioned but I see its purpose and I see why people don't do it. But for us its what we want. That's what each couple has to decide for themselves.

We have been friends over 3 years. Dating ALMOST 2...and now engaged about 21 hours.

Don't know wedding date yet; I think this spring? We don't live together so that changes things.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009, 5:39 PM

We dated on and off for almost seven years when we got engaged. We've been engaged almost three years, and now we're getting married next month! We like to be very, very sure of our decisions :)

Thursday, August 20, 2009, 7:16 AM

I recently got engaged Christmas Eve 2009.
My fiance and I met when we were in our early 20's. Close to our one year of dating we became pregnant (not planned).
We moved into our new home, had our first son and then 2 years later had our second child.

So for us, we did everything backwards.
We had been dating for nearly 7 years before we got engaged.

Saturday, August 22, 2009, 11:15 AM

same thing happend to me

wow the same thing happen to me, we met online through facebook, realized we were both in the same school, talked on the phone, msn for about 26days, before meeting (mind u before we met, we would talk for about 13hrs a day) so we already knew so much about each other prior to our meeting (fav movies, food everything). we dated just before v-day (6weeks later) he asked me to marry him, and we got engaged, and on our 1yr anniversary we got married. we have been married for just about 2 months now, and really happy.

Thursday, March 4, 2010, 3:24 PM

Me and my fiance dated that amount of time but we were friends before.. so i think in my situation i dont think 4 months was too soon .

Friday, August 1, 2014, 1:42 AM

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