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i think that when you know, you know.
well im a younger bride (21) and i have been w my FH for almost 6 yrs. i love him with my entire heart, he is everything im not, he completes me perfectly, and he is my very best friend. and i have heard every single thing you can think of regarding my young marriage- (your too young, you will get a divorce, you dont truly KNOW yourself, you dont understand what it takes to make a marriage work, are you doing this cuz your pregnant?) everything you can think of.
the way i see it is that, life is too short to worry about if you will end in divorce. my aunt got married at 34 and divorced at 36, you just never know.
you can make your marriage as complicated as you want. a marriage is a forever partnership-well supposed to be. now when someone violates that, obviously, things become very complicated. but you just never know if it will happen or if it wont.
I have seen divorces up close and they SUCK. reallly reallllly REALLLLLLY bad, but i dont let it scare me. sure, i have my insecure times, but at the end of the day, i am going to marry this man and know that those vows, "for better or worse, richer or poorer, sickness and in health" are a promise to him, to myself and to God.
i dont think anyone ever really knows anything if you think about it. life is extremely complicated, but we just go with it cuz if we never try, then we will never know.
sorry for rambling, hope i helped =)
<3
I feel like this is one of those things that is different for everyone. I was unsure if I would know until I did which was after we lived together, moved apartments together and were engaged for over a year. We got engaged quickly but will be engaged for just about 3 years by the time we actually marry. I appriciated this time to really get myself completely ready. I also strongly recommend living together for some time because this is when we really could see how we work together on a day to day basis, dealing with finances and other tough decisions. When we got engaged, I had decide I would marry him and thought I was ready for it, but now I am glad we took the time. I think he was ready before I but I know now we are on the same page. Hope this helps you get an idea of what I'm talking about becasue I totally feel like I'Ve been there.
For me, I've had enough crappy experiences in life to know we have something special that's worth keeping. I can never know for certain that I'll be ready; I just have to act on my beliefs and do my best. As long as I hold to my decision to have a wonderful marriage with him, and he does the same, I think we'll succeed through the bad stuff.
So yeah. It's a big ole leap of faith, haha.
I feel as ready as I'll ever be (I'm 29, and we will have been together 5.5 years by the wedding). We live together, and have already gone through some highs and lows together and come out ok, still in love etc. so I have every reason to think we can make it. Of course it's still a leap of faith, but I feel as sure as I ever will.
@cbgg - do you feel unsure if you're ready personally (personal growth wise), or is it more about whether the relationship is ready? If you haven't had a long history together already, and been through some tough stuff together, I can see how it might be a little more of a leap.
It's actually not that I feel unready or that the relationship is unready. It's more of a general question about how any of us "know." The "you just know when you know" doesn't do it for me. I know. But that's 26 year old me right now. That's not 55 year old me who's had so many more life experiences.
These thoughts are really spurred by a conversation I had with my SO's dad the other day. He's currently going through a divorce after 30 years of marriage and he's devastated. He says that his marriage was the most important thing in his life and he was just blindsided when it came apart.
Then I see the juxtaposition of the ladies on these boards who are all blissfully happy and getting married. My SO's parents and most of the other divorcees in the world used to be like us.
Marriage is about communication and compromise. If you can communicate well then you are already on a good start. If you can make sacrifices for one another that is also a good thing. If you make each other happy, make each other laugh, love one another with all your heart and know that you want to be with that person even during the hard times, then I think you have what it takes to make a marriage work! Of course, every couple/marriage is different and what it takes for some people isnt what it takes for others, but IMO these are qualities in a relationship that are a strong foundation.
You're right, most divorced people were probably once as happy and optimistic as us. In that way, it's always going to be a leap of faith that you will be one of the copules that makes it.
I think that you always have to maintain communication in a marriage and both sides really need to listen to one another. In a typical marriage without extreme circumstances, it's hard to understand how a spouse could be truly blindsided by a divorce, unless they were in denial or weren't listening to what was being said or ignoring the growing emotional distance. I think it's fairly common in divorces that the man is "surprised" but the woman is like "how the hell could he not have known this was coming when I've been unhappy and complaining for years" - men sometimes get "comfortable" and bury their head in the sand.
I don't think that you're ever completely ready. You have to know yourself, no your SO, have common goals for life, etc. BUT, people grow and change and so do relationships. The point is that you communicate and have the willingness to grow together. And some people grow apart, not necessarily because they "weren't ready" although sometimes that's the case. You definitely have to be able to trust yourself and SO in the commitment that you'll work towards growing together, you already seem to know that marriage is a lot of work, so I think you are far ahead of a lot of people.
Wouldn't it be nice if we could have the guarantees up front that all would work out well?
I knew when I realized that I didn't want to spend another moment more without this guy, and that feeling lasted for 2 and a half years, through disagreements, good times and bad time.
I had always previously been on the lookout for the next best thing, and when for a solid amount of time you consistently feel like you are with the best person ever... Then you can probably be pretty sure!
@ pretty flowers - I think you've put your finger on exactly what happened in this situation. It's still sad though, for both parties. I'm sure that the wife spent YEARS being unhappy and trying to get him to change, only to never have him "get it." And then she leaves him and he feels like it's out of the blue. It's so sad.
But yes, I guess the reality is that no matter what it's always a leap of faith and a commitment to choose your future. We all have free will and control over our own destinies (well, I guess people have different opinions on that but that's what I believe) so it's a commitment to make it happen.
It's just kind of mind boggling to see the divorce rate when all these women getting married are so darn happy and optimistic!
i'm with Mrs. DG - my FH and I have been through a bunch (I swear, like Biblical plagues kinda stuff!), and no matter how upset I was with him or about something he did, I never wanted to really move on. I never even thought about about dating other people since we started dating. even though i felt in my gut that he was the one i wanted to marry almost from the beginning of our relationship, i definitely didn't feel ready to marry him after or one year, and even after two years. however, I definitely "feel" ready now - my finances, while still comparably speaking are still a little messy, are relatively in order (and marriage and a joint future is providing excellent motivation for me to *really* start getting my sh** together!), I have a good, stable job that I like and will hopefully be at for some time, and the same goes for my FH. I think we both feel pretty "settled" with things and it just seems like the right time. i think it's a matter of evaluating where you are in your life and where you want to go, and also just going with your gut.
@cbgg - I'm at the age where everybody and their sister is getting married (mid-twenties) and all these married girls keep saying, "Oh, don't worry, you'll find it, you'll just KNOW when it's right..."
...so I asked my happily married mom, "All these girls keep telling me that you just KNOW when it's right...how do you know for sure when you feel that way?"
My mom: "That's BS. You never just know for sure. MNgf, you're looking for absolute certainty and you're never going to find it. You just love someone, and they love you, and you know each other, and you understand each other, and you CHOOSE to spend the rest of your lives together. And you keep choosing it. No moments of total clarity. No epiphanies. It is a lifelong process."
Thanks, mom.
I didnt feel ready until about a year ago. I have lived with my BF for 3 yrs, and we are coming up on our 5 yr anniversary. I just feel like I have so much love for him that I just cant contain it and I want to marry him and have his children because I know it will make us both happy...lol does that make sense? We're def best friends and I cant imagine being with any other man in the entire universe!
@mnfg - YES! That's what I always think! And come to think of it, that's pretty much what my mom has said as well.
You know what, honestly, I was ready when I was 24. I full out, completely, unquestioningly ready - and I can't explain it. It was just a feeling that became a fact to me. I had been with Mr.K for 3 years at that point. Mr.K was loving and caring, but explained to me that he was not ready. I was crushed. But we were so good together. We had/have so much fun and we care deeply about the other. We take care of eachother. We put eachother first (most of the time) ;) When Mr. K was finally ready (to propose) 5.5 years had gone by. By the time we were married, I was 28 and we had been together for 7.5 years! I think everyone feels "ready" at a different pace and in a different way.
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I feel that I want to mary my guy, I have lots of reasons why I want to mary my guy, everyone I know wants me to mary him. I intend to mary him.
But:
Do you ever wonder or doubt how any of us really "know" we're ready for marriage? While I'm normal-ish marrying age (mid twenties) I feel like I'm really naive to what it takes to make a marriage work. I hear that marriage is hard and I get that on an intellectual level, but I really don't know what it means. I've been lucky to not have been through many truly hard situations in life and I've never seen a divorce up close and personal.
Anyone else ever wonder? I guess the answer is that to a certain degree it's a big ol' leap of faith.