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Mrs. Bee sent me the first season of How I Met Your Mother and I'm almost through watching it! One thing that strikes me as a bit odd is Ted's obsession with "settling down and getting married". I've never in my life encountered a man like this. Plenty of men I know are looking for a solid relationship, but I've never heard a man utter "I want to get married." Maybe it is because I only know men in the 25-30 age range... perhaps older men out there yearn to get married. I'm not quite sure what it is.
While this is a GROSS generalization, I do think that there are tons of women out there who are/were dying to get married (me being one of them). I knew I wanted it, and went looking for it. Men on the other hand, I don't know any that set out looking for a mate because they wanted to get MARRIED.
I think Mr. Peng only asked me to marry him because it was the logical next step, and it got really annoying fielding questions of "when are you guys getting married?" I don't think he was like DYING to ask me to marry him. We both knew we'd get married, and it just happened when the timing was right for him to ask.
Was your husband/FI dying to get married? Do you know ANY men like HIMYM's Ted who are looking to just settle down and get married? Have they always been that kind of person or did it happen with age or perhaps seeing his friends all get married?
My guy made it quite clear on his post (we met online) that he was looking to settle down & get married...something to the effect of "if that is not what you are looking for, please do not respond.." 
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My current FH has always wanted to settle down and be married. Before "us" he was in a serious relationship. They lived together and he had even bought a ring for her, and their relationship fizzeled and he never had a chance to propose when they were happier.
Like you I had never met a man who WANTED to get married. So when I met my FH and we started to talk about our future marriage came up right away and at first I was sceptical, but in the end he proposed and proved that not all men are afraid of marriage. We dated less than a year before getting engaged and have been engaged now for almost 1 year. Each day gets better, and we are happier.
BTW, he loves the show 'How I Met Your Mother'.
I knew a guy who was dieing to get married...he proposed to me after 2 months...that never happened LOL
His problem is he's a mommas boy. His mom knows everything he does, and has a say in everything he does in his life. It is SO AWKWARD to be with him because his mom can swear she knows everything. CREEPY! He's still single, 10 years later. I doubt he'll ever find a girl who can handle his mom...scary...
My guy and I got this part right out of the way at the get go. He said he was looking for a lifetime committment from a partner and not living together. I said I was wanting to someday meet my future husband. We were immediately on the same page.
He's a traditional, settled, established kind of guy yet with sophisticated tastes and at same time extremely down to earth. He loves his kids so much that it made him even more handsome to me!
I think guys will let you know what their intent is if you really listen to them.
My guy is such a mushy- cuddly-uber sensitive guy. But the thought of marriage freaked him out. Not because he's afriad of commitment, but he says that he fears losing his 'me' time. I quickly squashed this by stating that that way exactly my fear too. Which it is...or was....who am I kidding still is. I love spending time with him but I just need my own time to blog-stalk, read or just poop-out. WHOA sorry about that tangent. But my guy isn't one of those just looking to settle down nor was he searching for someone to marry when we met (to be fair we were 14). But now after talking about our marriage qualms he more ready and excited than ever.
Yes, I think Mr. Powder Puff was definitely looking to settle down when we met.
But I DEFINITELY know a guy who was actively looking to get married. We've been friends since high school, and he was always dying for a girlfriend, but no girl ever really wanted to date him. Like me, they just wanted to be friends.
Then my mom introduced him to one of her co-workers, and BAM! They dated for 6 months, got engaged, and got married 5 months after that. So in less than one year he went from desperately wanting to get married but not finding anyone, to married.
There are for sure guys like that out there.
I agree that there are some guys out there like that. I think my guy is one of them. He brought up the subject way before I was ready to consider it and let me know that he intended to marry me. Part of why that scared me was because he'd recently had a broken engagement, so I feared that he was that guy who was just ready to be married!
My FI def wasn't thinking "I want to get married" on our first date, like you its now the right time in our lives to get married and NOW he wants to be married. But when he was single, heck no; marriage was not what he had on his mind when he dated girls.
I only know one guy who is like that character, he seriously goes out on one date and will say things like "theres potential for marriage." But he is almost 40 and never been married so I think this is the reason he is the only guy I know that has this mindset.
Maybe it's because I lived in a town where the ratio of men to women used to be 7:1, but I've always found that the men were ready to settle down, and I was still gun-shy.
Part of the issue may have been age as well. When you are dating in your early 30's it feels like everyone is sizing you up as marriage potential. I have to say, it was disconcerting to say the least. I wasn't looking to get married, I was looking for the right guy!
I know of 3 guys who want to get married and are single. So they are definitely waiting to meet the right girl. One guy was so ready to get married, he already has a wedding fund set up! They all really want to have kids as well. Nice guys, but all are still single. I wonder if it's b/c they are too anxious to get married? Could be off-putting.
My husband was looking for marriage too. He says he thought of it as the next logical step in his life; at 28 when we started dating he had a good job and had finished law school, and so now he wanted to find someone to marry and start a family with. He proposed at 11 months of dating and we were married at 1.5 years. Most of his friends are not married yet. He also says that in his earlier 20s he was definitely not looking to get married. I think marriage fit into a greater life plan for him/us. When we got engaged/married the timing was right for both of us---I am 5 years younger and I was already looking for that life-stability thing.
At the same time though I have been wary of situations where people get married just because it is the logical next step. I mean that in the sense of that reasons like, "we want to spend our lives together" and "we have the same goals in life and want to achieve them together" seem like a better foundation for marriage than "it was either that or break up." (Not trying to imply that is anyone's situation here, just that it can happen.)
My FI was the type that was DYING to get married. He always tells me it's because of his military background and he's seen how quickly life can be taken from you, so he really wanted to get married and start a family. I've slowed him down a bit though, as I was the one who never thought I would get married (until I met him, of course).
My FI was dying to get married. In fact I was the one who wasn't ready for the longest time. At the ripe old age of 21 he flat out told me, 'Let's get married when you graduate'. He waited and waited until he finally felt like I was at the same place he was, and when that happened, he proposed. But yup, he was one of the rare men who was ready and willing to get married.
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I think my fiancee is more eager for our wedding than I am. He's very into the idea of being married, settled, and secure.
My FI wasn't looking to get married when we started dating (early college) but now he's definitely eager for it!
This is a great question! One of the reasons why I fell in love with my hubby is because of how much he wanted to settle down and start a family. We are a young couple (I am 21 and he is 22), so I thought that it was SO rare to find a man that is so young, yet in the exact same place in life as me. We had both done enough of the partying thing, we had done enough of the hanging out with friends 24/7 thing, we were just ready to be married to each other. So, yes, there are men out there that want the marriage. For us, it definitely wasn't "the next logical step." It was what we have dreamt about.
I knew there was something special about my FI when first getting to know him when I asked him what his idea of a perfect day was. His response? "Sitting on the front porch with my wife, watching our kids play in the yard, and turning to her to tell her I love her." He was ready for a wife and a family at age 24. We'll be getting married at 25 and we both have to force ourselves to wait a good year before getting pregnant. :)
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In our situation, I think getting engaged just came as the next step in our relationship. Before we started dating, I don't know if either of us was really into getting married. For me, I definitely didn't start out wanting to get married in general, it had to do with our relationship specifically. I didn't know for sure that I wanted to get married at all, until I realized that I wanted to marry *him*. Although, having said that, I made this decision a while into our relationship and waited almost a year before he proposed!
I do have a guy friend from college who is almost exactly like Ted from HIMYM. All our friends joke that his biological clock has been ticking for a while now. Luckily, he has a great GF now and I bet they'll be engaged soon!
I wouldn't say my fiance was dying to get married when we met, but marriage and kids were definitely in his life plan and he wasn't interested in dating anyone for too long if they weren't planning on a similar path. We met online, and by the fifth date we had discussed our future plans and had determined that we both wanted marriage and kids eventually. I think he brought it up, but I can't remember. We were 28 when we met though, and I think that quite a few men want some sort of settling when they're in their 30s. I work with almost all men (ratio is approx. 13:1) and it isn't uncommon for one of the single guys to admit that he's looking for Miss Right.
My husband wanted to marry me, but was in no rush to get it done. Finally I told him, "I would really like to be engaged by Christmas because I am not keen on living with my boyfriend." (Don't worry- it wasn't an ultimatum- we were sure we would marry before we moved in together, but I just wanted to make my feelings blatantly obvious).
I don't know of any (heterosexual) guys who were in a hurry to settle down.
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Both my fiance and my ex-fiance were eager to get married. I thought it was refreshing for guys in their early 20's to be ready to take on the responsibility and stability of getting married. From my opinion, they were both in the right mind-frame of compromise and building a future together when they proposed. (This is worded so weird!)
While there was no rush to BE married, they were both very much looking forward to it.
My fiance is the type who wants to settle down and get married. He always envisioned himself getting married fairly young (in his early to mid twenties) and starting a family right away. I will admit that I don't know many or any guys like him.
My FI made it very clear when we met that he was looking for a life long relationship. Totally blew me away. Most guys I dated before him were more the "I like you but lets just wait and see where this goes." FI knew what he wanted and what he was looking for in a partner. When he found it, or rather when we found it, the rest was easy.
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My fiance has never been a commitment phobe -- he wasn't necessarily "dying to get married" but we were serious very quick, and he asked me to move in together less than a year later, and when I said "well I dont plan to live with someone who I don't intend to marry" ... and he responded "well of course, me too" .... so I think it's just one of those things where we "knew" and we both were ready for it.
I knew a lot of guys in college who were looking for their future wives. I think it had a lot to do with it being a small, Christian school. A lot of couples ended up getting married mostly so it would be "OK" for them to have sex.
My guy is three years older than me and was at the point in his life where he was ready to settle down -- even though he didn't know it at the time! He had a big partier in college and realized when I started hanging around that our relationship would be very different from the life he was used to. I think he was probably a little surprised that he enjoyed it as much as he did!
My FI is the one that wanted to get married. I wanted to wait a little. He couldn't. But he's more mushy than me. More sensitive. More romantic - "you're the only one for me" kind of guy. It was weird to me. I was waiting for him to become a jerk...but he never did.
LOL. My FH has been wanting to get married sand have a family since he was 18! One of the ladies that helped with the youth group told me he came up to her and asked when God was going to bring him the woman he was suppose to marry. She told him to be patient and his future wife would come when he wasn't looking. Well, he wasn't look for me and I wasn't look either! :)
I think its just cute. She isn't the first person I've talked to that said he wanted a family.
It seems like for a lot of us we didn't know guys in general who wanted to get married like Ted from HIMYM did, but once they were in the proper situation (relationship with us) our respective husbands/fiances were on the whole ready and excited for marriage. So maybe it's a question of not marriage in general but marriage particularly to you.
Ted is a little over the top. But my fiancee was definitely ready to get married - you hear of so many commitment phobic guys and he was nothing like that. It didn't scare him at all - I was more scared than he was. But, we're pretty young, younger than the Ted character at least. So maybe in 5 years he would have been like that if he hadn't met me.
I think the reason women are more like that than men is probably mostly based on nature. I know that if I want kids I should probably start no later than 30 (my own personal health issues and medical statistics show). If I were approaching 30 and not yet married, I would really want to find someone and get married. Men are not worried about that; they can have kids almost whenever they want. So, they don't feel the need to get married the way women do. Just my opinion.
Peng, I was completely shocked by his proposal. In fact, I'm not sure of the exact words, but it was something like "are you serious!? really?!" then of course, "yes!". Then we sat and reflected quietly for a while to soak it in, because while I think he planned on doing it, he hadn't planned for ever and ever - probably within a month. He definitely wasn't out to get married when we met, and neither was I!
My fiance said pretty early on in the relationship that he wanted to get married and have kids. I think it has a lot to do with age-he was 38 then. And we both knew pretty early on that we found the right partner in each other.
I do have a ex boyfriend that I'm still friends with and he is dying to get married. He's 40 and never been married. He keeps dating younger women (mid twenties) and won't consider seriously dating women closer to his age because he wants kids. He figures women his age either already have kids and don't want more or just don't want them/can't have them. I've tried and tried to tell him not to judge a book by a cover, but he's guy. He can be dense.
How I Met Your Mother is one of our favorite shows here at Casa Bella!
For a lot of guys, when it's time, IT'S TIME. It's like a bell goes off and they go from, "Eh, I don't think I'm ready for marriage," to, "Okay, so where's the wife?" I'm not saying it happens this way for ALL guys, but I do think that, as I read in an article recently, women are more likely to operate with a, "Well, I've found the right guy, so that makes it time to get married," whereas men are more likely to think, "Well, it's time to get married, so I need to find a wife."
Also, as a friend of mine has pointed out, while guys (unlike women) often don't want to be the first ones in their social group to get married, they typically do mind being the *last* ones in their social group to get married. Unless you're talking about a hard-core commitmentphobe with *very* negative feelings about marriage, guys don't like being the last one standing alone.
My fiance was ready to settle down when he met me...with the right woman. We're both pretty quirky, and for various reasons an "okay" or "pretty good" match wasn't going to do. We fit with each other amazingly well (not perfectly, just amazingly), so I think I qualify as the right woman. :) But he's also not 23 and/or deciding which exciting city he wants to live in for grad school.
Tessabella, you might want to tell your friend that he's probably going to have a harder and harder time finding stable and self-confident women in their 20s who want to date a 40-year-old, especially one who's dying to get married. You might also ask him what would happen if he married a 25-year-old who turned out to be infertile -- would he want a divorce? And, for that matter, has he had his sperm count tested? If he's going to make fertility a priority, he could be in for a much tougher time than he realizes.
@ivorygirl I have tried & tried to tell him. He's got such high expectations (which is why we are not together-I didn't fit the mold of his perfect ministers wife). He hardly dates anymore, and I think it's because girls he's looking to date aren't looking to date him. And instead of dating to enjoy the process and socialize, he dates to look for a wife. He's approaching it all wrong.
Minister? MINISTER?!? This guy is a MINISTER and he's hitting on twentysomethings at 40 years of age?!? What does he think his congregation is going to think if he marries a 23-year-old? Yes, yes, true love should know no age nor boundaries, but I have to think that your typical congregant would find a 40-year-old MINISTER who kept hitting on twentysomething girls to be creeeeepy.
Humpf. Wonder if he's ever thought that, if God meant for him to marry someone in her 20s, he would have met her when he was in *his* 20s. And, maybe this is awful of me, but I find it offputting that a *minister* would apparently not even consider adoption as a potential family-building method. I know that adoption is not for everyone, but I guess I expect ministers not to fall into that category.
(I apologize; I sound horribly ageist here. My favorite TV couple is/was Grissom and Sara on CSI, and I have several friends who have fallen for and married younger women, and I think that's all wonderful. But I find the "fortysomething guy who won't consider women his own age because he Wants! Working! Ovaries!" to be icky. And I'm serious when I point out that he has no idea how fertile *he* is. Not everyone is able to have biological kids, even if they get married at 25.)
But, you have made your point -- he is definitely dying to get married! :)
I know my fiance wanted to get married, or rather, he always saw himself getting married and wanted that bond with someone he loved. But I don't think he sees marriage in the same way I do. He's 43, had never been married, never engaged, never even proposed (despite having several long-term relationships). He seems to see marriage as something that is special, whereas I see marriage as something that is... a little less optional, in the long run.
We had been dating for less than a year when he proposed. I told him I wouldn't move for him unless we were engaged, and... there you go. I knew he wanted to, though - he had been hinting at it ever since we started dating.
I LOVE HIMYM and when I saw this subject line the first thing that popped into my head was "haaaave you met ted?"
FI and I totally have more of a Lily/Marshall relationship but I do have a friend who is totally like Ted. He really is over the top and crazy about getting married like Ted. They are out there.
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This is such an interesting topic!! I'm a little surprised by some of the comments ;)
My FI definitely was *dying* to get married, but I think he had a few various factors that probably contributed to this. For one thing, we're devout Christians-for us, living together or sleeping together before marriage is not in the question. More importantly, his faith has influenced his view of relationships and what he wants and expects.
As if that weren't enough, he's also attending a service Academy and really wanted to get married soon after graduating.
He and a few of his friends are the only guys I've met who are this excited about getting married, but they certainly are! :)
I know my guy (see earlier response) regards marriage as important and the proper step, but truthfully? I think guys see marriage and the whole weddding thing as STRESS.
I remember with my xh, we broke up the summer before he asked me to marry him. I was kinda happy. Began dating around, having fun with friends, and then somehow we got back together and then the ring came within 3 mos.
My ex was a complete commitment-a-holic. If I hadn't been in college, I'm positive we would have gotten married pretty early on, because he could not wait to get married. He always intended on proposing to me at my college graduation, but we talked about marriage all the freaking time.
I guess it worked out in my favor, as he is my EX boyfriend, but he did marry the next serious relationship he had after we broke up.
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