Deciding to Get Married

Deciding to get married is something so personal that it should make no difference about what anyone elses experience is, but to set the scene here is our story…

Rich & I had been together for over 9 years. We knew we were going to be together but we just hadn’t got round to doing the whole marriage thing. We’d owned our own house for nearly 6 years and things were just ticking along nicely. On my birthday last year we went out for a meal and talked about the future and stuff and after a few glasses of wine and a lot of talking round the subject Rich asked me to marry him – YAY! – apparently for the third time!?! I just hadn’t noticed his previous proposals (doh!) which made for a good Grooms speech!

Setting the date

Although deciding to get married is a personal choice, choosing the date of a wedding may have implications. In our case we were about 6 months from the 10th anniversary of our meeting when we decided to get married. This date was always very special to us, so it made sense that it should be the date of our wedding – any other date would seem so arbitrary. However, with Rich doing his PhD we were concerned that the organisation required to get married might cause problems for his studies. We were also a little worried about finding venues (and everything else) at such short notice; although as the date fell on a Thursday in February, it turned out to be an advantageous time because everywhere was available). Another concern was that our guests would need to take time off work (the Thursday and the Friday), and if they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) arrange this, then we’d be left with no guests.

Wedding Guests

You want people to be there, but in order to know whether they will be you need to send out invitations with details, so it is a bit of a chicken and egg situation. Fortunately this wasn’t a problem as very few people could not get time off, and one couple even said they wished they had decided to get married on a Thursday as it meant they still had their weekend once the festivities were over – which was welcomed with travel time and hangovers.

Something we decided to do was to not tell anyone about our decision to get married until we had formulated a few opinions of our own. This was simply because neither of us had a clue about what we really wanted from the day and we wanted to get an idea about what eachother wanted first before other people made “of course you have to…” suggestions. This was actually a really cool decision as it meant it was our secret for a couple of months and we got to really get to know what type of things we both wanted from the day.

5 Comments

Dara says:

12/06/2007 at 20:11

LOOK BEFORE YOUR LEAP…

This is a sweet story & I understand how you would feel that “it should make no difference about what anyone elses experience is”, however, I think the old adage “look before you leap” is wise.

Obviously, after 9 years of living together you both knew fully what to expect in being with the other person long-term. But, from statistics we know that at least 50% of the people getting married are NOT certain or change their minds later for whatever reason.

After being married & divorced twice, take it from someone who knows. I believe a deep, self-exploration should take place from both parties on WHY they want to get married. Additionally, the couple should talk about the reasons with each other. See a pre-marriage counselor, talk to your family members about pros & cons, buy a “Before You Get Married” book… do your homework. You wouldn’t purchase a $60,000 automobile without checking into it & how to get the financing of it, right? Why commit half of your belongs & the rest of your life LEGALLY to another person based on warm fuzzy feelings?

Give it TIME… be together (close & intimate) for 2+ years before making the decision. Then re-evaluate your reasons at that time. After the yummy feelings have subsided (and they will) do you honestly STILL want to legally commit to that person for the rest of your life?

And, when looking at a LIFETIME commitment (we are talking possibly upwards of 70 YEARS of one’s life) are your reasons enough to keep you going for that long? And, IF, something (god forbid) should go wrong & it ends in divorce… do you know what the LEGAL ramifications are?

Basically, if you’re in a community property state half of your belongings are owned by the spouse & vise versa. Additionally, when a person goes through divorce the other person is not so nice as they were when you were married. They can magically transform into a Jeckyl & Hyde act. Basically, it is a living hell that can take a LONG time to get out of & recooperate from, financially, legally and emotionally. You lose friends and family that you thought would be there forever. People can turn cold & feel forced to “choose” between the 2 people involved. And if you have kids together… even harder. Divorce is much worse than just breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend.

It is WAY TOO EASY to get married. In Nevada, where I live, you can walk into the courthouse, fill out a form, pay a fee, walk across the street and be married in about 1 hour. It’s that simple. But, to get divorced? Yipes. Say hello to your new best friend, a lawyer, kiss a bunch of money goodbye and hope you can get out with your life.

Perhaps it should be harder to get married. Perhaps we need to look beyond what society expects of us in life and determine logical, emotionally sound, iron-clad GOOD reasons to get married. If your reasons are any of the following, watch out:

“My family will approve of me, my co-workers & others will respect me more, the church/god will approve of us, I’ll be a real grown-up, he’s SOOOO cute and SOOOO sweet & I’m SOOOO in love, I want to be with her forever, I can change him, if we’re married he’ll be less likely to leave me or cheat on me, I want a baby & a family, Oops… I’m pregnant, I need to get away from my parents, I won’t have to work, she’s rich, she loves me so much, if it doesn’t work we can always get divorced, etc.”

My last words… if the couple can be together, live together, purchase property together & thrive together for 9+ years and STILL want to get married… you have my blessing!

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Miriam says:

10/07/2008 at 17:19

I am 23 years old and have been with my partener for 6 months, we have been very close friends and have shared intamate moments over those years several times. We are not considering getting married now but do see us spending the rest of our lives togegther, we have both had previous relationships and do not consider ourselves to be naive.

From reading the responses above i have all but lost hope in love and marriage and feel there is nothing good to come for us. Your experiences may be well founded and logical but the fact you have said that the reasons ‘im so in love’ ‘i want to be with them forever’ are wrong reasons for getting married is sickening. i understand and completely respect your opinions and know that you are sure to have had much more experience than myself. However, i am sick of people concentrating on the percentage of people who get divorced and bringing dispair and hopelessness to those of us who still have some kind of beleif in human nature and the existence of a happy loving marriage.

I may be young and prehaps somewhat naive but i am by no means afraid to say that i am in love and have every intention of spending the rest of my life with my partener as i beleive we are soul mates. i am not ashamed of this, there is only so much logic you can apply to human emotion and i beleive it is wrong to underestimate those who are willing and confident in taking the step into life-long commitment.
I do not mean to cause offence to any of the previous respondents, i simly am extremely disheartened by what i have read here.

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RationalThinker says:

18/07/2008 at 14:31

Getting married is a lot of fun. Being married is a lot of fun and a lot of hard work – which is what makes it all worthwhile.

Call me old fashioned, but before we got married we didn’t move in with each other (and we didn’t do a few other things either) not because of some arbitrary religious notions, but because we believed that was the best way to enjoy everything about being in love.

To my mind, there are ways to enjoy things, and there are ways not to enjoy them. Dedicating your entire life to one partner is the way to enjoy being in love. There are tough times and there are good times – but you both know that there’s no way either one is walking out on the other. You both know that no matter what, you’ll always care for each other, and that is one awesome feeling, no matter which way you look at it.

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JJ says:

16/07/2009 at 18:40

I lived together with my boyfriend 5 years before tying the knot. All I can say is that we decided to do pre-marriage counseling (simply because we like to “do our homework”) – sure we feel we know each other, we love each other, are each other’s best friends, yadda yadda yadda, and the counseling was fantastic! Maybe we had a “good” experience or something but it was set up in a retreat format where you both have to discuss questions with each other – tough questions about where you stand on different issues, and if you differ, can you cooperate to resolve them etc. Lots of food for thought. For the most part we agreed, but some we didn’t and some we had never considered, so we had some long discussions and it ended up making us closer. Yes, closer than even after 5 years, and I consider that we have a very good relationship and we talk a lot! It’s amazing how you can always learn new things from the person you are closest to.
All that to say, don’t feel disheartened if you are starting out, but don’t go in naively either. Marriage isn’t ONLY about “being best friends” and “being in love” – ask any long-married couple! Life throws some pretty sticky situations at us sometimes, you never know what it might be, and you want to know that the two of you are a team and have the emotional tools to face the road ahead. Fluffy feelings won’t solve real life problems, so make sure that you try to at least have open discussions about them – and counselling is a good way to put everything on the table.

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brogan says:

21/07/2010 at 10:33

hello. i found it cute how use had been together a few years. and how use decided to get married after 9 whole years. (WOW)! weyy nice nowing you and your marrage.

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