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Nope! In fact, I had just come to the realization that if I never got married and never had kids (I had just turned 31) that my life would still be great and fullfilling. Funny how those things work. I met my FI a month later!
When I was younger, I wanted to be married when I was 23, but it was more of a guideline. I will be 23 in July and will be married next March so I guess it worked out!
I didn't set a deadline, but I did make a conscious decision to start dating guys I could see myself going out with, long-term. It was actually a New Year's Resolution, "stop dating losers." I knew that I wanted to look for real love and someone who valued me.
That said, I voted you can't put a timeline on love. You can change your actions and perpective, be open to new guys who might not have fit your "type" in hopes that they're husband material if you're ready to marry or find lifelong partnership.
When I was in my early 20's I thought I had to be married by 25...now I'm 30 and I'm so so so happy I didn't stand by that. N
I think this a really interesting post. Setting deadlines and goals for ourselves is common practice in finding the right career, school, city, etc... so why not love? I'm not sure if it's any more or less possible to keep with this deadline than to achieve any other goals you might set for yourself. If you decide you want to be promoted in your career, don't you start looking for tangible steps you can take to move yourself toward a promotion? Even if that means looking for opportunities outside your current employer? And you may or may not get a promotion in the time period you set for yourself, but by being proactive, you'll probably be a lot closer to that goal at your deadline than you were when you first started.
I have a friend who thought she was ruined if she wasn't married right out of college. She really felt she needed to meet the guy in college, fall in love, then get married once she got out. I know it made her green with envy that i was getting married before her (even though my FI and I have been together OVER 4 YEARS) and I am 1 year younger than her.
But it all worked out good I guess because she found the guy about a year ago and they are getting married in Sept! She fondly tells us she was "husband hunting" for him, so I think this falls under this category. We joke that she was a man hunter, haha
For myself, I actually didn't see myself meeting anyone until after I graduated. I went to a nerdy engineering school and was super turned off by all the nerdy boys! Well, I guess you could say I found a diamond in the rough.
I NEVER thought I'd be 23 and getting married, not to mention planning to have a baby at 24. I figured that'd all come in my 30s!
I didn't have a deadline or a plan to be married as young as I was {25}. I honestly thought a lot about weddings as a young girl, but never about being married. :) Better then than when I met my husband, I guess. Anyway, I have no issue with having an idea of what you want to do in life in regards to love, but since you're dealing with another person, it's not always smooth sailing, so I always thought it was best to let happen what was going to happen.
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Mrs. Spring- I agree with you that being proactive about it can be healthy.
However, I do have a former roommate who set a deadline for herself and then was ready to walk down the aisle with the first guy who would marry her. I do think in her desperation to be married before 30 (her deadline age) she settled. I'm very against settling.
However, as long as the focus is on finding the right guy and not just getting in under the deadline, I think proactive is good.
I kind of set a deadline, but not in a strict sense. My fiance is from Luxembourg, so we knew we had to get married before he finished Grad school so he could stay in the states as simply as possible.
Then we knew we wanted to get married in the summer, so that became our deadline!
I didn't but my mother did. Here was my life's timeline:
Go to college, meet FH.
Get married immediately after college (Spring/summer)
Go to medical school (this is where things get hairy)
Have my first kid DURING ROTATION. (My mother is very obviously insane!)
I'm very happy to say that none of this actually happened. (except the college and medical school parts - and even that didn't go the way she planned... lol)
I definitely agree, rosychicklet. It should be a deadline on marriage, not just a wedding. Otherwise, I'm sure you could find someone to marry you tomorrow. Just not necessarily the guy you'd want to have a marriage with.
I never thought I'd be 27 when I got married. I thought I'd be 37. Actually, there are days that I wonder if we should wait...
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I've been with my FI for 11 years & I always thought around age 25, I'd like to be engaged (I'm 27 now) And to be honest, I was in a good place at 25 - done w/ college, established in my career. Even though it was a solid 2 years of proposal suspense, I'm glad that it's happening now instead of earlier. It just seems even more 'right' for us right now.
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I had an ideal age at when I wanted to get married. It was 27/28. However, I'm getting married 2 years ahead of "schedule" so to speak. Not planned, and definitely didn't put pressure on FI...he's the one who wanted to get married earlier! So nope, no real deadline, but more of an general idea of when things should happen.
I didn't have a deadline, but, to be fair, I have been with my fiance since I was 16. I wasn't really thinking about marriage a whole lot at that point! I mean, I knew I wanted to get married, but I definitely didn't have any life plan. I eventually knew he was the one, but for whatever reason, it was when I graduated high school that I felt I was ready and wanted the proposal already! Well, it took two and a half years after that, but I'm glad we waited because I didn't even have a job prior to now :p Now I can have the wedding I want, and not just a cheapo easy court house marriage (not that there is anything wrong with them, just not what I want). Though, I will admit, I was getting so desperate for my FI to pop the question (we moved in together last May, and he asked me last October) that I was ready and willing to consider the quick court marriage! I hope my desperation didn't rub off on him TOO much because I tried not to bug him with it much, but I know I would bring it up, primarily because he'd tell me he didn't want to talk about it and that he just didnt think it was a good time to get married (without giving a reason), or said it would be too much planning. Turns out he was planning the proposal the whole time and that's why he didn't want to talk about it lol
I had a deadline in my head, but that deadline included me getting married at 23. I'm 23 now and not married. I won't be married until I'm 25. Things change and as much as I am a planner, I think it is better of have an "outline" of the plans for your life, but not set everything in stone. Stuff happens and sometimes you cannot control it.
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I had / have a rough timeline that I adjust as things change and life happens.
Well, I never had a "I will be married by X time," although I always hoped I'd be married by 30. However, after my fiance (then boyfriend) had been together a year or so, I did have a deadline, mostly due to the fact that I'm a medical student and there are limited times where a wedding and honeymoon would be feasible, plus I had heard that it's a lot easier to deal with changing your name before graduation than once you're licensed. Fortunately, my timeline lined up with his timeline (which he based on his sister's marriage lol)!
Having come out of an unhealthy, 6-year relationship...I promised myself I would never again settle for anything less than pure happiness. So no timeline here, only a conscious effort to meet new people! (and eventually found true love in the process!)
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On the one hand, when I was young I thought I'd get married at 23, which is how old I'll be on my wedding day. On the other hand, I feel like if I'd treated that like a deadline or a goal, I might have just settled for anyone so I didn't feel like I failed.
I had one but I did not have one. I do not think everyone can plan out their whole lives. I did want to be married by 22 but if it did not happen I would not be upset or anything. Glad i picked 22 since that is what I will be. I am glad though that I did not set out for a specific time. GOd knows I may have dated some interesting guys if I had.
I was expecting to get married around the age of 25 or 26 (same age as my parents when they got married). My guideline was go to college, get settled in a job, date around, and meet the one.
I didn't expect to meet my FI when I was 18!! I'll be 23 when I get married so it's not too bad. You just never know with life sometimes! You can't EVER say never because it'll end up happening! That's what my life seems like anyway! :)
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I never really had a DEADLINE, per se. But when I was a kid I imagined I'd be married somewhere around 25 and have kids shortly after that. Well I'm seven years behind on that whole marriage thing and who knows when (or if) the kids will appear?? ;)
I didn't set a deadline to get married. However, when I went through a really bad situation in grad school that ended with me dropping out and moving back to Indiana, I did want to get back with this guy I had been dating before I left...we hadn't really let the relationship develop because I was leaving for school, and I'd regretted it considerably, so I wanted to give it another try. He was thrilled with the idea.
Long story short, that was two years ago, and we just got engaged. :) So no, not a timeline, and not an expectation, but I did set a goal to give the relationship a full-out try and pursued that goal.
I thought you were asking whether we set a deadline with our specific partner - which we did do, because there was a point where I didn't want to be in the relationship anymore if he was still deciding after 7 years whether he was "ready".
But I didn't have a deadline for finding love and getting married - I always thought 27 would be a good time to get married - date around, live the single life, etc. That didn't work, because I am terrible at dating and being single, and am a relationship type of person. I'll be 25 when we get married. I did have a "waiting period" that was self imposed when I got to college - I didn't want to be one of those people who found a boyfriend right away, so I promised myself I would wait at least a month before getting into anything serious. That worked out pretty well - most of the people I know who met their SO in the first week of college wound up in really weird, codependent relationships or the SO turned out to be crazy. I'm probably generalizing.
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This thread reminds me of the Sex and the City episode where Charlotte is reading the book about finding a husband in a business like way. Does anyone remember that one? And she wants her couple friends to set her up with Phil. "Phil. Phil-Phil-Phil!" It turns out that the husband of the couple leads her on so he can confess his love for her. She runs away and ends up almost getting hit by Trey's taxi cab! So...she got married.
Hey, if it works for Charlotte, it can work for other women too, right? I wonder if the book she was reading was a real book...
Yes, but not the obvious; I essentially left someone else for FI, and had to move a long way to be with him; I told him I wouldn't marry him until I had been back one year. When we are married, I will have been back 1 year, 12 days :)
I never set a deadline to get married, per se, but it sort of worked out that way. My FI and I've been together for 6 years, and known each other for 9. Up until about 2 years ago I'd been dead-set against ever having kids, but it's something my FI really wanted, so I've changed my mind (I know I'll be a good mom, just was always on the career path). When I made that decision, I decided I wanted to have kids, if possible, when I'm 32 and 34, so I'd still have enough time to accomplish some of my goals (travel, career), and that I wanted to be married for about 3 years before getting pregnant. I shared this with my FI, who agreed it seemed reasonable, so here I am now, engaged at 27, will be married at 28, and have my three years until trying to get pregnant when I'm 31. So I think that planning for what you want to accomplish is a good thing, it gets your life on track, and motivates you to meet your goals. But setting hard deadlines could be counterproductive, and you end up just disappointing yourself if things don't happen by your deadline.
I think people that set a date to get married and then reach that goal are just lucky (and I don't mean lucky in that I'm envious). I believe in setting goals and achieving them but there is so much more going on in a relationship. If a woman wants to get married in a year and then does it then great for her. I can only talk for myself, but marriage was the LAST thing on my list, but that's changed since I've been with my BF. Now I have the urge to get married, but not to just anyone. I've set a sort of deadline--I told him that I am happy to wait but I can't wait forever.
I kind of set a deadline. I said that if I hadn't met a guy that I was enjoying dating by my 35th birthday, then I would try online dating. Of course, making that timeline freed me up for thinking about other things and not worrying so much if I'd meet a guy right then... because I knew I'd worry about that in a few months.
Needless to say, fiance and I started going out during that time, and by my 35th birthday, any thoughts of online dating went far out the window!
Well I did set a deadline. When I turn fifteen I started telling everyone I was going to get married at 30. Everyone laughted at me. ( I guess I would of too ) Funny part is that I am getting married three months before I turn 30.
Been with my FH for 7 years.
I set no timeline for finding someone to marry, although growing up in a small town, I always thought I'd get married fairly young (early 20s). Now that I have my guy, I do have more concrete ideas of when I'd like to get married and have kids by.
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I saw this article on CNN today:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/04/22/love.on.a.deadline/index.html?iref=t2test_livingwed
It's about women that set deadlines like, "I will be married in one year," and then set out to make it happen.
For me, I definitely made a conscious decision to be more proactive in meeting people- and that was how I met my husband. But I really didn't have a deadline in my mind.
Did anyone find their FI/spouse by setting this kind of deadline for yourself?
Do you Bees think it's even possible to keep to that kind of deadline?