Friday, November 7, 2008

Love and Marriage, abbreviated

I know someone who recently got engaged after an extremely short courtship. We're talking blink of an eye.

Now, I know that everyone has an aunt, or a grandma, or someone like that who says, "Well, I met my Joe when he was on leave, and we just knew - we were married 6 days later and here we are, still in love after 30 years" or whatever. But those success stories are necessarily a long time ago, because, well, you need like 30 years to be able to deem it a success.

Anyway, just because everyone knows someone with that kind of story doesn't meant that that's a good idea. This person I know is engaged after 3.5 weeks, and seriously planning the wedding already. I mean really, I'm a bit shocked. Hopeful for the person because I'd like them to be happy, but still a little shocked.

How long did you date your spouse before getting married? What do you think is a minimum? Do you ever think it makes sense to get engaged after a month or so? Discuss.

8 comments:

ScientistMother said...

the mister and I knew in the first 3 weeks. 6 months in he gave me a promise ring, 1.5 years in we were married. We just had our 7 year wedding anniversary and are thinking about adding to the family. Have we had ups and downs. Sure we have, but I am happy as a clam to be married to him

PhizzleDizzle said...

that's a sweet story :). i have friends who "knew" very quickly...but didn't jump into engagement/marriage as quickly as this person i know did. i don't think i contest so much the "knowing" as the "engaged then married all in less than 4 months", especially when no one in this person's family have ever met this soon-to-be addition to the family.

and congrats on your lucky 7 anniversary! :) i am also happy as a clam to be married to my mister. lucky us!

Julie @ Bunsen Burner Bakery said...

Jeez, 3.5 weeks? Seriously? I can barely move someone from the acquaintance to the friend category in 3.5 weeks, let alone commit the rest of my life to someone.

I dated my husband for 4 years before getting engaged, and then we were engaged for 1.5 years before getting married. I was also 19 when I started dating him, so I was not going to get married at 20, but I also would never have considered marrying someone without dating him for several years first, either.

PhizzleDizzle said...

@EB: Same story here - met young, dated for years, long engagement. And very happy now :).

BTW, I just checked out your blog - and I LOOOOOOOVE the design!!! It is hott hott hott. Love it. Did you make it yourself?

And I can't believe I've "met" someone (slightly) taller with smaller feet than I have. I suppose there are people at either end of every bell curve! I always have trouble with knee high boots, do you? It's like they expect *me* to be small because I have small feet, and so I can never zip them all the way up because I have the calves of a person my height, but the feet of a smaller person. It's so annoying! The number of times I'v caught my skin in knee-high zippers....Sigh. Anyway :).

Julie @ Bunsen Burner Bakery said...

Why thank you. :) I just recently made the switch to the new updated Blogger, from the old HTML version, so I had to try to teach myself CSS, so it's been a giant pain in the ass adventure. Rumor has it if you use IE to view it, my torso disappears, but I only view it in Firefox, so I can't be bothered to spend too much time worrying about why IE screws it up.

And I absolutely cannot fit into normal sized knee-high boots. No way, no how. They get about 3/4 of the way up, and get stuck. I have to get the extended calf size. Hello, people, small foot size does not mean that I am petite all over! Despite making Isis feel bad about her "larger" feet, it was refreshing to hear about others with small feet -- all my friends are several inches shorter than me, with way bigger feet. They always ask if my parents bound my feet as a child!

microbiologist xx said...

When Lancelot and I get married in February, we will have been dating for 11 years and living together for 10.5.
Initially we weren't going to marry as neither of us are religious and don't feel that we need a legal document to make a life together. That said, it has become increasingly clear, that at least legally, things would be better for us if we did get that piece of paper.
So...3.5 weeks. That is completely in-fucking-sane to me. :)

ScientistMother said...

I know 3.5 weeks is insane but we did not get married until 1.5 years later! We just knew quickly, cheesy as it sounds it was love at first sight.

Mind you when I met mr.sm, I had gone through a string of bad relationships and had decided not to date any one for awhile. Perhaps the fact that he treated me like a princess from day 1 swept me off my feet, don't know but I am glad I didn't stick to my promise of not dating anyone

PhizzleDizzle said...

@microbiologist - that's cool that you were able to have commitment w/o marriage. i don't think we were quite hippie enough to buck that trend. the piece of paper does make it just easier to navigate life. we did, however, not get married by a religious officiant, since neither of us have any religious beliefs. FSM excepted ;).

@scientistmother - when you meet the right one, you meet him! i've always thought "rules" in the game of love never made sense (e.g. checklists - my future man will have X, Y, and Z qualities). anyway, i told this person that it's obvious they have a serious connection, but they have to give themselves time to grow into the connection, maybe not rush into things so quickly. we'll see how well they take the advice!