Read |
Interact |
Login / Signup
Crisis (09:39 04/03/2006)
The neccessary wait time to get married?
I know many people have their own beliefs about moving in before marriage and sex before marriage. How long do you think two people should date before they get married...or would you say there is no real answer and people should just do what is in their heart? Is there a time period which you would consider to fast? Let me hear what you think, I'm debating on asking my girl to marry me but not for about 6 months to a year from now.
Trouvist (10:20 04/03/2006)
I am in total and utter agreement with Caenwyn on this one. I live with Sandra. Before she moved in I felt a whole lot different about her than I did after living with her for 9 months. She's lived with me for 18 months now. Seriously Crisis, the marriages that last and don't end with divorce are the ones where both sides know what they are getting into before they get into it.
You know what she's like in bed. You can hope she will always be like that. That's step 1.
You don't know what she's like to live with. You can hope she will always be a perfect co-habitant. That's step 2.
You need to acknowledge that people don't change. Marriage won't change anything. If she is terrible in bed, marriage won't fix it. If she sucks to live with, marriage won't fix it. Admitting this is step 3.
But if you can live with her, and are ok with every little pet peeve that you develop about how she lives her life, then GET MARRIED!
Crisis (10:20 04/03/2006)
Haha, you respond pretty much to the T of what I think. I think two people who get married without ever living together are insane.
Crisis (11:00 04/03/2006)
Trouvy, I agree 100% my girl is very ethical and believes in marriage first...I don't, I think thats completely retarded in every way.
Trouvist (11:56 04/03/2006)
How is she gonna get you to marry her without her ever living with you first?
Crisis (12:21 04/03/2006)
Well we arent bout to do this now. Just talking.
Caenwyn (10:10 04/03/2006)
Oh boy. Okay. Here's my personal opinion. I think you should live together for a pre-set trial period before deciding to get married. I'm not talking "Let's move in together and see what happens," but a "Let's live together for six months or a year and see if it works."
Setting a pre-set limit prevents the whole "living together but not sure about getting married" limbo. It also ensures forward momentum. If you don't know if you want to marry the girl after living with her for a year, then you don't want to marry her and never will. Simple as that. Cut bait and move on.
But if after a year (or six months, whatever you decide) you still love her and want to marry her, then ask her parents and get down on one knee.
But I definitely think co-habitation is important. It's one thing to love someone when you eat romantic dinners or have hot sex. It's another to love someone when they fart under the covers, forget to put milk back in the refrigerator, lie in bed and think they're dying when they sneeze twice, move the thermostat all around, never check the mail, can't figure out how to put the toilet paper on the roll and leave their empty Dr. Pepper cans all over the place. If you can put up with all this and still love them, you're in it for the long haul.
Caenwyn (10:56 04/03/2006)
Yeah. Cody and I lived together for a year before we got married or even engaged. I graduated from college and moved down here to be with him. But I told him I would only stay a year. If we didn't know after that, then it obviously wasn't meant to be. We lived together a year and he still wasn't sure he wanted to get married. So I moved back to Houston, got a job and was doing well there. We were still dating but now it was long-distance. But I had only been in Houston two months before he put a down-payment on an engagement ring. So yeah, we got engaged and I moved back down here and we've been married for 7 years, a couple for 10.
tedium (04:30 04/15/2006)
I can't help but feel a bit skeptical about living with someone before marriage. I mean, how do you respond to the statistics (I can't quote them, but they are not favorable) for marriages that are based on living together first? I'm pretty sure the divorce rates for people who live together first are not any better than those who don't. In fact, I think they're even worse. I mean, I completely understand wanting to know what it's going to be like, but at the same time it doesn't seem to help (in terms of raw numabers). I think it's great to hear about couples like Caenwyn & Cody, but when I get married I'm not going to be thinking about whether or not it's going to work out.
It seems to me that you could get a pretty good idea of what a person's living habits are like without living with them. I mean, if they're honest you'll know if they are messy or neat, A-type or B-type and a variety of other important personality/compatibility traits.
Regarding people changing, some people do change. Some people do it on purpose, and some just change without even realizing they are changing. Don't take this the wrong way, tho. There are definately some things about a person that will probably never change. But once again, it depends on the person. I mean, I used to be the kind of person who felt guilty about saying 'fuck'. So much so, that I would only say it in my head, when no one was around. Now? I don't feel even the least bit sorry for saying it (assuming I'm around people who aren't offended by it's utterance).
I completely agree that if someone is bad in bed, getting married won't change it. But isn't sex like any other skilled activity? I mean, if you spend time every day shooting guns won't you gradually become more accurate? If you put your mind to it, pay attention to what's happening with the other person, and try to do things differently you will improve the experience for the other person. Hopefully, they would do the same thing and it would get better for both of you.
tedium (04:32 04/15/2006)
Hrm. I should've read over that more carefully. My apologies for the misspelling & how the last sentence of the first paragraph doesn't make much sense.