Hypothetical:
You are divorced after a very short (less than a year) marriage. You divorced your spouse because he was emotionally and verbally abusive, and physically a couple of times. (You left after the last physical incident.)
Less than a year after your divorce, you start dating a man that you eventually fall in love with. He divorced his spouse about three years ago because she was physically and emotionally unfaithful to him.
In other words, you both have baggage.
Neither of you has children. You are in your early 30's and want to have children before you get "too old". He wants children--you think. You haven't *really* discussed it.
You have, in your mind, set a time limit on advancing the relationship with your new boyfriend. You have determined that if he has not proposed marriage and set a date by the time you've been dating for one year, you will walk away from the relationship. You consider this a personal boundary, put in place to protect yourself and your emotions. Hence, you have not shared this time limit with your boyfriend.
Is this fair?
I don't know. I'm the kind of girl that told my guy on the 2nd date what i wanted in the relationship. He'd been married twice before and had two children; i'd never been married. The conversation went: "If all you're interested in is a piece of tail, there's the door. If you never want to get married again, there's the door. If you're not interested in having any more children, there's the door." I was also very clear about how long i'd wait before we'd get married or we were done.
ReplyDeleteWow, that makes me sound really controlling, huh?
If what you want is an honest relationship of two partners building their life together, then no, I wouldn't start with that kind of attitude. If they both have baggage then they need to work *through* it, not stow it in the closet until they're married. However I would also say that, if she is willing to put these sorts of limits on a relationship and not tell the other person involved, then she's not really emotionally invested and shouldn't keep seeing him even if he DOES propose marriage. Know what I mean? It's clear that at this point she's way more worried about healing than she is about a relationship, which is not a good basis to start with. Plus she's not allowing him any time to get used to the idea of this limit, so I'm assuming she's just going to pop in at one year and say "hey, you failed the test I didn't tell you you were taking, so... bye"? Looks like she's turning herself into Bag Lady #2 for him. :-(
ReplyDeleteLet's say they each know about each others' baggage. (In case that wasn't clear.)
ReplyDeleteI honestly don't know that I have an opinion on this one yet.
Just throwing it out there.
I actually have a good friend who did this very thing. She had not been married before but he had about 10 years prior and it was a short marriage that ended due to his young age. She moved from the South to the Midwest to be with him but set a time limit on how long she would wait before he proposed. I think it was a year.
ReplyDeleteThe reason she gave for doing this was that she was in her late 20's, had already been engaged several times and was looking for the "one". That being said, she is a very rationsl person and making that move was extremely uncharacteristic for her. They had discussed future plans and marriage was in the cards for them.
Now they are about to celebrate their 5 year wedding anniversary next year and have a 2 year old son. I think things worked out well!
I do lean more towards Karen's analysis of this.
ReplyDeleteIt all goes back to setting personal boundaries, which I know is a word that is taboo and disrespectful to a lot of people.
In this case it seems the (possible, maybe) bride to be just needs to *know* if he's, well, "in it to win it" with her or not. She understands his POV as far as marriage is concerned, because they've had multiple in depth talks about their exes and the reason(s) for their divorces. He knows her reasons for wanting to marry again, and her criteria (except for the time limit) and she understands his reasons for maybe NOT wanting to marry again.
So maybe let's take this in another direction: How long is too long to date w/o any sort of extensive commitment?
I don't think there is a "too" long to date without marriage. That's just what it is for some people. I don't think it would be fair to set that kind of a boundary without talking with him about it. It sounds like she's not being completely honest with him.
ReplyDeleteDarren and I had these conversations while we were dating and both knew we wanted it to lead to something permanent. He was very honest about not want anymore kids (I had 2 1/2 and he had 1). But after getting married and talking about making not having kids permanent, he changed his mind and we now have a 4 yr old. And, will be having no more. Everything was out there before any moves to make it a permanent relationship.
Really? If you dated someone for 13 years (just a random number) and there was no marriage commitment, you'd stick around? Really?
ReplyDeleteWell, some people aren't worried about getting married. My brother and sister-in-law ONLY got married b/c they were moving for her job, he was not yet employed in their new city, and they wanted him to be eligible for her insurance, etc. They already KNEW they were going to be together forever, they just didn't, as my brother said, "need a little piece of paper to tell us that". But of course they lived together and were married in the Biblical sense, so they really did have everything except that little piece of paper. I don't think I could DATE someone for that long and not have SOME kind of commitment, even if it was "only" a verbal commitment and changing of our living arrangements.
ReplyDeleteAnd I understood that they each knew about the other's baggage, my point was that she's not being forthcoming about how her baggage is affecting THEIR relationship, and she should do that before they are permanently tied to each other. Love ain't just about liking each other, it's about making decisions with the other person in mind, too.
see, i think that every relationship has a natural course. And if you're living with the person, that course SHOULD end up in marriage (not that i necessarily condone living together before marriage but it happens and this IS hypothetical). Why would you want to live together, buy stuff together, sleep together, have children (or decide not to) together, pool your finances, spend holidays and go to office parties together if you weren't planning on it being forever. Yes i know a piece of paper doesn't mean forever, but imho if he's not going to walk down the aisle, it's easier emotionally (not to mention legally) to walk away.
ReplyDeleteIt's also been statistically proven that those who cohabitate have a much higher chance of divorce than those who don't.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet so far it's worked so well for the people I know, who did it as part of their commitment to each other, not as a way to have instant access to free sex. :-) I mean that sincerely, for those people I know who used it as I did, as a method to make sure our relationship would work close-up (we'd been dating long-distance for 3 yrs at that point) have ended up getting married and it's stuck. Maybe it's about the intent behind the cohabitation? I dunno, I just know I always get confused by the couples (usually it's celebrities that I notice this with) who live together just fine for a dozen years, then they get married and all of the sudden they can't stand each other and get divorced within a year. That I don't get.
ReplyDeleteWell, sure. My brother (not a celebrity) falls into the latter half of your point. and I think we've discussed this before and I've stated that you're actually the ONLY person I know who cohabitated and is still married.
ReplyDeleteBut, really...that's kind of far off of the point of the OP.