How long did you date your spouse before marriage?

[spurly]

How long were you courting before marriage?

[kalen]

6 years -- we woulda' married sooner, but I was only 14 when we met and that was a little too young.
:D

[Bon Voyage]

You should have moved farther south then.

[kalen]

LOL :D

[spurly]

You should have moved farther south then.

::

[david johnson]

knew her 6 weeks.  dated about 3 weeks.

dj

[Jimbob]

You should have moved farther south then.

Or NE.  New Hampshire has the lowest consent age.  With parental consent a girl of 13 and a boy of 14 may marry.

Mississippi, however, has the highest age.  You have to be 21 before you can marry without parental consent.

I only remember this because the NH thing shocked me when someone mentioned it.

[OldDad]

We started dating during her freshman and my sophomore year of college, and married about a year after she graduated.

Main reason, both sets of parents threatened to cut off support, read \"cash flow\", if we married before we graduated.  Looking back, I don't think they would have followed through, but it was a bleak prospect at the time.

OD

[ConnieLard]

Dated my first husband for 4 years.  He left me after 21 years of marriage.  Dated my second husband for about 6 months.  He passed away after 3 years of marriage. Dated my present (and hopefully last!) husband for about 4 months. We've been married a little over 4 years now - very happily, I might add. :givingkiss:

[memmy]

We met in October, engaged Christmas, married February, 4 months after meeting, but we've made it 30 years come February 28th. :D

Memmy

[pdwblw]

Our first date ( a blind one) was December 3, we were engaged in March and married in September.

Patrick

[spurly]

Thanks for participating in this poll.  I think we can safely say that the length of one's dating relationship is not the main contributing factor to a happy marriage.

[mike]

Dated for four years before getting married. Married now for 29 years.

[janine]

I'm not sure how to count that -- I'm not sure when it our high school time of interest in each other we could be called \"dating\", since we didn't date.



[!--EDIT|janine|1140281916--]

[s1n4m1n]

I think the length of courtship ends up being irrelevant as to the success of the marriage.

[WileyClarkson]

Met Linda at a college registration Sept 1971.  She refused to talk to me!  [et her again when photographing a bomb threat against the school library in Nov.  In Dec we went on group dates until the last of dec.  had one date by ourselves and asked her to marry me.  Engaged for 2 years 1.5 months.
Feb 15, 1974 we married and it now 32 years.

[memmy]

Poor Wiley!

At least it all was good in the end. :D

Memmy

[Nevertheless]

Hubby and I started dating when I was a freshman and he a senior in high school.  We married 5 months after I graduated in 1979.  I hadn't thought of it until now, but it was 30 years ago this month that we first started dating.

[OldDad]

For years it was conventional wisodm that longer engagements led to longer marriages.  While length of courtship is a factor, research is indicating more and more that it is not the most important or defining factor...

Ted Huston, Ph.D., a professor of psychology and human ecology at the University of Texas at Austin, has collected data on 168 marriages since 1979.

In Huston's study, happily married couples dated for an average of 25 months. In unions that did not last, there were interesting correlations between the length of the courtship and the length of the marriage. Couples who divorced after two to seven years of marriage, whom Huston terms \"early exiters,\" tended to hold off on exclusively dating one another, and married around the three-year mark. They also brought a low maintenance approach to the relationship: in fact for many, the biggest attempt to rekindle an unpredictable romance was the marriage itself.

Highly romantic courtships don't guarantee living happily ever after, but they are associated with a longer road to divorce. Many marriages in which the partners committed quickly and felt strongly enamored of one another survived to the seven-year mark. These couples dated an average of 18 months, and were engaged in half that time. The men, especially, reported feeling strongly enamored of their partners. Huston speculates that such early bliss makes people stick it out longer when the marriage takes a turn for the worse.

And while falling in love relatively slowly made for less ecstatic newlyweds, Huston found that after two years of marriage, the less ardent lovers were just as happy as those who reported love at first sight.

Huston's research contradicts the prevailing theory of \"emergent distress\" in marriages: the idea that problems suddenly explode within the confines of an otherwise sunny union, and that a couples' history is no basis for judgment. In fact, says Huston, premarital problems can be likened to a virus that \"will surface in the marriage and erode the partners' bond, making the relationship vulnerable.\"

--adapted from an article in \"Psychology Today\", bold added for emphasis

and here's a link to The National Marriage Project research conducting at Rutgers University.  It is a list of 10 interesting findings on marriage that were discovered during the Project.

OD[/color]

[ConnieLard]

Thanks for participating in this poll.  I think we can safely say that the length of one's dating relationship is not the main contributing factor to a happy marriage.

:amen:   It seems to me that, if you start dating very young, you need to take a lot of time.  If you're older, you're more skilled at interpersonal relationships and making judgments, so it doesn't take as long to make a good decision.  I realize that can't be generalized to the entire population, but that's what I've found for myself.  And, when it's all said and done, marriage is a HUGE risk, even at best.  But, a risk worth taking.

[James Rondon]

Annie and I were engaged on the 6 month anniversary of the day we started actually dating. We were married about 4 months later.

[Bon Voyage]

Connie,

I would probably disagree with you.

Its not about the length of time you were dating, but the time you spent with each other.

One couple might date for 3 years, and another for 3 months, and the couple that dated for only 3 months may know more about each other than the other.

[ConnieLard]

Well, that's certainly true.

[James Rondon]

It seems to me that, if you start dating very young, you need to take a lot of time.  If you're older, you're more skilled at interpersonal relationships and making judgments, so it doesn't take as long to make a good decision.

Annie was 17 when we started actually dating, and I was 20, about to turn 21. We were married a few months after she turned 18, and I was still 21. Our \"courtship\", as I mentioned before, lasted about 8 months. By the grace of God, we have been married for 10 years, and have three beautiful children with us, with another expected to be born toward the end of the year.

[CSloan]

Me and my wife saw each other for about a year before tying the knot.

[seekr]

We started dating in August and got married 2 months later in October. We have been married for over 21 years now. We actually lived together after the first 2 weeks of dating. He put a song in my cell phone as a ringer for him. It is \"I'd Love you all over again\".

seekr

[Barry H. Manners]

BH is still a free man.

[James Rondon]

\"If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.\" (John 8:36, KJV).

[crocless aussie]

Lynn and I were engaged 5 days and 1 date after we met.

We were married 9 months later as we lived 3000 miles apart during our engagement.

We've been married 28 years this year.

Allan

[Mere Nick]

Crocless,

Your post is a sight for sore eyes.  It is so good to hear from you again.  Is the stuff of life going well?

Nick

[Arkstfan]

Can't really answer that question.

Met my wife while hittin' on one of her friends. We all became friends and hung out together (the romance didn't fly with her friend). Then one day we kissed in the Burger King parking lot in Jonesboro (think there's a monument). We never really \"dated\" we were too good of friends for that but from first meeting (she was sitting next to my target) until marriage was about 10 months.

Anniversary number 21 this June.

[crocless aussie]

Crocless,

Your post is a sight for sore eyes.  It is so good to hear from you again.  Is the stuff of life going well?

Nick

Thanks, Nick.

I've been pretty busy writing anti-Bush material and organising rallies. :;):

Allan[/color]

[Mere Nick]

Crocless,

Your post is a sight for sore eyes.  It is so good to hear from you again.  Is the stuff of life going well?

Nick

Thanks, Nick.

I've been pretty busy writing anti-Bush material and organising rallies. :;):

Allan[/color]

Well, you've missed alot here.

You do know that Beelzebush has a Hurricane Control Device, don't you?

[slu-magoo]

My wife and I knew each other from the time we were kids in junior high school.  We were best friends throughout high school.  When her mom had a nervous breakdown during the time we were in college, my dad let her come live with us.  That was in 1996.

We were married in August 1997.  Our son was born in October 2002.

Regards.

[Bon Voyage]

Crocless, you weren't laying low due to a threat from Beezlebush were ya?

By the way, he also has a time machine.