How long would you wait?

[JojotheBeloved]

Hello CF Friends,

Question for you: how long should a woman wait for a marriage proposal from a long-term courtship? How long would you wait (or how long did you or your wife wait)?

Pertanent background info: This relationship has been serious about marriage from the beginning. It started long distance after meeting each other in college as friends. Long-distance phase was 1 year 2 months. We've now lived close together for 6 months. Marriage is talked about often by both parties.

 

[Elliewaves]

If you are both in agreement that you want to marry; why are you waiting? To be done with school? To get a good job? There are valid reasons for waiting but if you are out of college, both employed, and both in agreement that you want to marry each other, then I don't see the purpose of waiting to marry or wait for a proposal past a year or even a few months. Maybe he's just waiting to surprise you with a great proposal? Hope it works out!

 

[tacdon]

Hello CF Friends,

Question for you: how long should a woman wait for a marriage proposal from a long-term courtship? How long would you wait (or how long did you or your wife wait)?

Pertanent background info: This relationship has been serious about marriage from the beginning. It started long distance after meeting each other in college as friends. Long-distance phase was 1 year 2 months. We've now lived close together for 6 months. Marriage is talked about often by both parties.

Tell him that you want to get married now and you are tired of waiting. Communicating your desires is important, other wise you are expecting someone to read your mind.

 

[iambren]

With the LTR time and the 6 mos together time my call would be 6 more months(nonLTR) to make a decision,with a short engagement!

 

[JojotheBeloved]

Tell him that you want to get married now and you are tired of waiting. Communicating your desires is important, other wise you are expecting someone to read your mind.

No mind reading necessary.

 

[JojotheBeloved]

Never mind. Maybe I posed the question incorrectly or unclearly. Maybe I just don't care anymore what anyone else thinks. Idk. But this thread is not going as I would've hoped. So just never mind. I don't know how to delete the thread, so would someone who does (maybe a site moderator or something) please do so. Thanks.

 

[California Dreamin']

Every relationship is different.

 

[iambren]

Nice of you to thank us who have taken our time.

 

[SiyoNqoba]

At least you admit you don't like the answers.

You're probably not going to like mine.

I would say never less than a year, if not two years. I have heard too many stories of people who have gotten engaged within a few months, and it's ended up horribly because they just didn't know the person they were marrying.

My husband and I had been dating for three years when we got engaged.

 

[iambren]

Yeah, it was 5 years for me but that was TOO long.

 

[Elliewaves]

I really don't know what kind of answers the OP was expecting? wait forever? If you both want to be married to each other and are adults; the next logical step is engagement. If both adults are in agreement that it's what they want then why wait years?

 

[Ladybarker86]

Hey,
You did ask how long other people took to get married. Here is mine.
I am not married actually. I have been in a relation ship for 8 1/2 yrs. Today I am 28, he's 34. We don't live with each other. When we were dating for about 1-2 years he did started talking about marriage, but I wasn't ready for it. To me, knowing someone for a short amount of time then dedicating my life to him didn't seem right to me. So he said he would wait. He went on to going back to school and getting a promotion and I finished school while looking for a job. It didn't took until the day he was offered a job hours away in another state (I'm in the US) and he was debating to move, that I told him. "I will go with you if you decide to go, but not as your girlfriend." He ended up not taking the job. He stayed while perusing a raise and a promotion at his currant job. I found out 6 months ago that he did buy a ring and I found out 1-2 months ago he talked to my Dad about my hand in marriage. But today, as I stand. No ring for me. There is a lot of things that go through my mind about it. I've gotten angry, I've cried over it. I've had actually went to him and asked him what he was waiting for: money, not enough time (he's been having to do overtime a lot here lately.) But one thing is for certain, I actually do like the guy. I will wait for him because he waited for me for so long.

 

[dayhiker]

Thanks for sharing your story, Ladybarker.

 

[JojotheBeloved]

At least you admit you don't like the answers.

You're probably not going to like mine.

I would say never less than a year, if not two years. I have heard too many stories of people who have gotten engaged within a few months, and it's ended up horribly because they just didn't know the person they were marrying.

My husband and I had been dating for three years when we got engaged.

I'm sorry that my last post on this thread was so negative. The reason I wasn't liking the answers was because I felt they didn't really answer my question, but instead were giving advice and judging me for not communicating and the only post up until yours, SiyoNqoba, that was to the point was the one from iambren (btw, thank you iambren and SiyoNqoba). I was getting more frustrated and annoyed from reading the answers people were giving rather than helped. So I stopped reading them for a while. Today I saw there were new posts and it hadn't been taken down, so I got curious. The posts after yours are more to the point and helpful. Thank you all.

 

[JojotheBeloved]

Thank you for sharing Ladybarker86. You have more patience than I though. I come from a background where decisions are made quickly and put into action almost immediately, so I'm not used to being patient with much of anything. My parents were married within a year of meeting one another. My sister is getting married with just under 2 years of being with her fiance (although, granted they were friends for a long time before they started dating). Honestly, I feel pressure from my family and my community to either get married quickly or be single forever, and so I was originally searching for broader perspectives to see what other people thought was reasonable to help inform myself and take the pressure off a little. So thank you to everyone who replied with their honest experience and opinion.

 

[Ladybarker86]

Oh Jojo, you will get pressured. You will get asked a million questions, especially when to have to go to a wedding. All the questions will be the same. "When are y'all getting married?" "Has he proposed yet?" "Why aren't you married?" The trick is, you do not have to please these people. We girls no longer live in a time where we have to be married to make a living. If you or him do noy feel comfortable about getting hitched leave it alone and come back to that subject later. You do not have an experation date.

 

[Ladybarker86]

Also, Jojo.
You may in counter group discussions of your girlfriends or your female co-workers talking about their weddings or who's pregnant or about a wedding/baby shower. I personally get really quite and mad at everyone. It took me a long time to realize I was only being jealous. This might happen differently for you but still watch out for it.

 

[akmom]

We pretty much made the decision to marry after six months of dating. But we were only 18, so we waited almost 4 years before actually getting married. I think it worked out okay because we were in college during that time, so waiting made sense. But had we been older, I would not have waited that long. Honestly, I wouldn't wait much longer than a year, I think.