What's the longest you'd wait to get married?

I never got into a relationship expecting marriage,so I suppose I could’ve waited until the end of time ;)

Been there done it! the first time was a waste of time, never again! :-/ Honest….

I never waited at all. With all three husbands, we got married as soon as we possibly could, within weeks after we met. (I lost the first two).

I knew one couple who ‘kept company’ for 15 years, while her invalid husband was dying and when he finally passed on, she decided to start living her own life, with no partner, leaving her long term boyfriend with nothing.

Well, I waited for 8 years on a guy. Boy, was that stupid of me (in my opinion). I’m sure glad it didn’t work out. If it had, I wouldn’t have met my sweet husband. As an adult over 30, I’d say if I were seeing someone for more than a year or so and marriage was not in the near future, I’d break it off. We old geezers don’t have time to waste!!!

Marriage is important to me. I know it’s not a goal at all for some people.

My wife and I married after we’d lived together for a year or so and life went on just as before. She and I were the only people at our wedding that we knew!

@crankywithakeyboard marraige is important for me too. in my experience not a lot of young people are at all interested in marraige, but I am. when I think of the future, I can see my self married, just gotta fing the right guy

think I may have already

No more than five years

Till the day I died. I’m not interested in getting married. However, I wouldn’t wait forever if I wanted some sort of further commitment than what we had already.

best time to get married is after 30 when you have gotten all the freaky kinks out of your life and decide to be just freaky with that one special freak who just happens to be your best friend who you can be freaky with the rest of your life.

@ I’ll stick with the freaky kinks! ;-)

We married after knowing each other for five years. I had proposed marriage after about 2½ years, but she didn’t want to marry until her medical condition improved. My lady accepted after 4 years; we married a year after the engagement.

I’ve been married and did not like it much, not so much because of the institution but because my ex wife treated me less like a partner, and more like property. No thanks. I have been in a nice relationship for the last five years, and everybody seems to be happy. I figure if it isn’t broken, no need to fix it. FYI, if I ever had a girlfriend who told me to step up, I would step out.

When I used to care about such things, I started thinking about this whole phenomenon about 3 or 4 years into the relationship with my ex-husband. Clearly, it was the absolute wrong thing to do just to do it and because it’s a ‘normal’ next step.

I believe that when it’s right, you just know, and there should be no time determination because both people will be on the same page. I was lucky to have this happen with the man I married and I knew with others before him that even though marriage was brought up, something was just missing for me to actually go through with it and I knew it wasn’t right. When you know, you will both know and if you don’t both know and are able to discuss that it is in your future, you’re not right for each other.

If you don’t KNOW that you want to spend a good chunk of your life with a person you have dated for a year then IMO it is more than time to cut, run and move on.

I would probably wait until my next incarnation. Unless, Mr Clooney asks me in this one. In which case, I might play hard to get.

right :)

Well from the day I met my husband to the day we got married was 3months and 3 weeks. :)
But it depends. But I couldn’t see waiting longer than 3 years. Six months to know me and then maybe wait to be a little more financially stable. Not that that stopped us. LOL
But knowing what I know now. I might’ve waited. Mayyyyyyybbbbbbbbbeeeeeee!

Having a deadline for marriage would be a deal breaker for me. Go find someone else to play house with.

I’ve had several longterm relationships, each one was a live-in situation and in all but one there was a proposal after the first year if not in the first year. If I wanted a partner for marriage the I’d be okay waiting about 2yrs, that’s plenty of time to know where the relationship is headed.

I’d be content with never getting married.

Marriage is highly overrated. If someone requires a certificate or a diamond to prove that they are fully committed to the one they love, they’re probably not in it for the right reasons.

@Rufus_T_Firefly But, on the other hand if they want the certificate to have the advantages and priveleges that married people have over domestic partners, they are probably making the correct choice

@Rufus_T_Firefly
Love is of the heart but legal marriage affords so many things like:
Medical benefits for unemployed spouse
Insurance rates reductions
Car insurance rates reductions
Tax rates reductions or exemptions
Protection of shared property
Access to non related loved one during a medical emergency and legal say in care provided.
Benefits and protections extended to dependent children.

Aside from that are social benefits and buck it all you want but they exist. Also, not all people who marry choose diamonds or any ring at all.

Isn’t it wonderful that we live in a society that forces everyone to jump through moral hoops to get the same basic considerations and benefits? I never said that there weren’t benefits to having the certificate, just that those benefits should be available to everyone without requiring them to jump through that hoop, without the certificate and/or the ring. A person who wants to get married is no different from someone who doesn’t. I merely suggest that marriage is unnecessary, except maybe from a religious aspect, of course. Being married doesn’t make anyone any more or less special, it just makes them legally entangled. That doesn’t mean that we can’t love, cherish, or commit to another human the way married people do. So… if not for the religious aspect, why require that jump through the hoop to get the same benefits?

@Rufus_T_Firefly
If I remember correctly, when I got married the first time down at the Sherrif’s dept then there was no religious stuff.

@Neizvestnaya – True, and it was the same for me the first time, but where do MOST people tend to get married? That’s right, it’s usually a church! And I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to sit through, “Dearly beloved, we’re gathered here today under the watchful eyes of god to join these two in HOLY matrimony.” You can’t deny the connection.

@Rufus_T_Firefly So what is the alternative? Should we allow every “one night stand” to go to work and claim they are married and entitled to the same benefits as a truly, (jumped through the hoops)committed relationship?

Oh, wait – why should any “couple” have any benefits/privileges that any single doesn’t have?

Yes. Exactly, why should someone who is married get benefits that single people do not? They’re no less a citizen because they’re unmarried. Hell, no one can say for sure that any married couple is actually more-committed than a single couple simply because they own a piece of paper that says so. I’d say let such benefits apply to all or to none at all. A one-night stand will always be just a one-night stand and true love requires no paperwork.

@vampmoore
Are you asking how long I’d wait on a proposal or wait on the marrying bit?

Proposal- I figure a year is a good time to know where I stand in a serious relationship. I’m a pro marriage female so unless someone tells me in the early stages of courtship they’re against marriage then I assume they capable.

Marriage- I’d wait up to two years after engagement for a ceremony.

You asked about the ring. The Ring gives people crazy stress! My ex husband I are used to make plenty of them for couples :) When he proposed to me then he had no ring to offer and I didn’t think it was necessary but I knew for sure I wanted a wedding ring so he ended up putting some goodly stones in one for that time. In my old age now I would like any future proposals to either come with a ring or an offer to pick one out together.

the proposal i suppose. and i meant the ring bit figuratively.

@vampmoore
Ah okay. I’ve come to believe the proposal is super important because it’s a declaration of serious comittment, so much more than, “let’s see where we go with this thing”. Many people still want legal marriage so I think it’s only fair that couples who feel serious about their relationship at least talk over how they feel about marriage versus partnership and go from there, no feelings hurt. For women that want to have children in a marriage, they don’t exactly have all the years in the world to hang out with a wishy washy guy.