A
female
age
26-29,
anonymous
writes:I'm not asking this question because I'm in a situation to get married. I'm waaaay too young for that, so don't mention anything like that. I'm just wondering, does anyone else think that knowing each other for too short of a time means you should wait a while to get married? Like, is three months too short of a time period? Shouldn't you get to know each other so that you know for sure it's true love first?
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male
reader, daletom +, writes (12 November 2012):
Did you really mean to ask, ". . . before DECIDING to marry?", or ". . . before GETTING married?"?
Three months isn't a lot of time in either case. The traditional folk advice was to wait at least a year; "Summer and winter with a man before you agree to marry.". Probably more significant than seasons of the calendar are the emotional seasons you spend with each other.
Your age and life experience are definite factors in deciding when you know enough about each other to make the decision. At 16 you may indeed be in love - I know couples who met about that age and have enjoyed stable, fulfilling marriages now spanning several decades - but it will probably take 4 or 5 years to develop into the kind of mature love you can build a marriage on. In your teen years you are still in the process of becoming the person who is uniquely YOU, and it's not wise to marry until you yourself know who you are - not to mention that your partner needs time to get acquainted with the mature, adult, version of "you".
I proposed to my wife about 3 months after I first laid eyes on her, she accepted, and we married one year plus two weeks after our first meeting. We are still married (yes, to EACH OTHER!) over 38 years later. Some of the factors to consider in our relationship are:
- We were both 22, and graduated from college, when we met.
- We both had previous boyfriend/girlfriend experiences, although those relationships were rather limited.
- We had been writing to each other - real letters, on real paper - for 3 months BEFORE we actually met. In retrospect, that was probably a great way for two quiet-and-shy people to get acquainted. The letters got increasingly serious, and we were almost in love before we actually saw each other in person. (So although I say we were engaged 3 months after meeting, and married a year after we met, there is a legitimate basis for adding 3 months to each of those figures.)
- Much of our dating (especially the first few months) was done while houseguests of each other's families. We learned about each other by observing our interactions with parents and siblings - and benefited from the observations of parents and siblings as they observed us.
- We didn't add full sexual intercourse to our relationship until after marriage. Yes, over the course of our engagement we worked up to pretty much everything but penetration, but we weren't trying to hold the relationship together with sex, or (even worse, and too common among teens) expect sex to create the relationship.
A
female
reader, CindyCares  +, writes (11 November 2012):
 Sure one should, theree months is nothing , you don't even start to scratch the surface of a person- and of a relationship in 3 months.
I admit that I know someone who met a guy in September and they got married in December, and twenty years later they were still going strong and very happy together, so , occasionally there are exceptions. But to win this sort of gamble one needs a lot of luck, so, for me, I would not risk it, I'd rather wait some more.
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A
male
reader, no nonsense Aidan  +, writes (11 November 2012):
Sometimes couples marry very quickly like this and it does work out. But those are the exception rather than the rule and there’s a lot of good luck involved there. Generally, whilst the time needed for each couple will differ, 3 months is far too soon to be thinking about getting married because you’re quite right, it’s not long to get to know each other and be sure that you’re right for each other.
I wish you all the very best.
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