Thursday, March 01, 2012

How Long Did You Know Your Spouse Before Marrying?


I am often taken aback at how quickly people got married several generations ago compared to the time they seem to spend together before marriage today. I know of engagements that last years after relationships that lasted years.

We met the summer of '65, weeks after I graduated from high school and married in January of '67. No one told us this was a short engagement although they did remark we were awfully young.

How long did it take you to tie the knot if there is a knot? From the first date to the wedding--how long was it?

34 comments:

Joe Barone said...

Over four years. She wouldn't marry until she had graduated from college.

Anonymous said...

Three months! We met in October, I'd just turned 21, he was 24. We got married in late January, 1971.
Michel

pattinase (abbott) said...

Wow, Michel. That was a whirldwind romance.

Dana King said...

First time: five years
Second time: two years
Third time: five years

Don't ask.

J. Kingston Pierce said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
J. Kingston Pierce said...

My wife and I knew each other for several years as work colleagues, but then started dating about a year and a half before we finally married. We were both in our early 30s at the time.

Cheers,
Jeff

pattinase (abbott) said...

Well at least I expect a story out of it, Dana. Maybe one set at a zoo.
I was a high school student. I wonder if I had met him years later, it would have gone the way it did.
Joe's wife was wise. It took me thirty years to finish college with jobs and kids.

Jerry House said...

About four years for us. It took that long to convince Kitty she should have House for a last name.

le0pard13 said...

Met my wife in the mid-80s at work while I was involved with someone else at the time. Took her to lunch one day (after my previous relationship ended in '86), but nothing became of that. However, things changed in January of '88 when we began really dating. We were engaged by Thanksgiving of the same year, and married February of '89.

Heath Lowrance said...

Kim is my second marriage (the first one being practice). We dated for a year, lived together another year before getting hitched up. I resisted it, to tell you the truth-- I didn't think I'd ever want to get married again. But I'm happy I did.

Anonymous said...

Patti,
Our story is one of the times, both of us not far from the turnip truck - him from a small Texas town and me, a small California railroading town. Conservative? Ha, if you wanted to be together, you got married. My mother talked us into waiting until semester break. Was a long time ago.
Michel

pattinase (abbott) said...

You should be, Heath. She is a keeper.
I am sure the average courtship forty years ago was much shorter.
I scarcely no anyone today (other than devout Christians) that marry early of without living together.
We never even thought if it then.
And it was probably marry in haste, repent in leisure for a lot of those quick marriages.

YA Sleuth said...

We dated a year; I was 19 when I got married... Weird to think of it 18 years later, and now that we have kids that are inching their way into their teens.

We were such babies still, but it made total sense to get married. Weird, still.

Anonymous said...

Four years. We met in the fall of 1966, were in a group of friends, got together romantically the first time that New Year's Eve, had our first "date" January 14, 1967 (we went to see the movie version of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, believe it or not) and got married October of 1970, though both of us knew we would from the spring of 1967.

Jeff M.

Anonymous said...

Oh, she just turned 22 and I was just about to when we got married.

Jeff M.

Todd Mason said...

First date with Donna was probably March 1986. We went to Hawaii together in September 1987, by which time we had long been exclusive. We moved in together in August 1989, and lived together till the end of 1994.

She's married now, so it probably might've meant something to her then, but I didn't know that.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Well, that's a sad ending to the day. Do you regret it?

Deb said...

(Blogger just ate my comment-apologies if this is a repeat)

I see that Le0pard13 and I share a similar time-line: I first met my husband in October of 1985 when he joined the company where I worked. We remained nodding acquaintances until he came into my cubicle to ask me a question about a project and saw my lunchtime reading, Kate Chopin's THE AWAKENING (a book he'd read for a college course but had not known many people to read). We started discussing the book and began looking at each other in a new way.

We started dating in mid-1986 and made it exclusive in February 1987. Moved in together in August 1987, got engaged in November 1987, and got married in February 1989. We now have three teenage children and just celebrated our 23rd anniversary.

pattinase (abbott) said...

A connection spurred by a book has got to be a great one.

Cap'n Bob said...

Eight years. We wanted to wait until she finished high school.
Hah, just joking. First wife was about a year, including 10 months of cohabitation. Second wife around six months.

pattinase (abbott) said...

I've heard stories like that--elementary school romances that go on and on.

Todd Mason said...

I gather the Captain was suggesting he had already been graduated for some time.

I gather that Donna is happier with her husband, or at very least was (and I hope still is), than she was with me, and she was (mostly) happier with me than with the men between us (again, I gather)...so I'm happy for her.

Todd Mason said...

I certainly don't regret the time we spent together. I regret those instances in which I was stupid. She has let me know, from time to time, that she doesn't think I was by any means solely to blame for our breakup.

Charlieopera said...

1st time: since high school; marriage lasted 7 yrs./+3 kids
2nd time: a year; 2 yrs
3rd time: 5 years; 5 years
final time: 1 year; 10+ and still going very strong.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Once you have found her, never let her go.

Bryon Quertermous said...

We dated for about four months in which I was a very confused ass who broke up with her several times. I finally got my head straight and we dated for another seven months before we got married...the first time. We got married in private at the county courthouse then had a full wedding ceremony and party five months later. We've been married for almost five years now.

pattinase (abbott) said...

I remember it well. Five years-it seems impossible.

Thomas Pluck said...

4 years. She lived in Brooklyn and I had two rivers to cross. She moved to Manhattan and then Jersey City. I guess I have animal magnetism...

pattinase (abbott) said...

I can detect it from here.

Scott Cupp said...

Sandi and I met in June 1979 and married in December. I think she's a keeper.

Rob Kitchin said...

Bought our first house after 6 weeks of dating. I was 22. It seemed like a good idea at the time. We'll be 20 years as home-owners next year. Blimey. 20 years.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Try 45!

Anonymous said...

I met Sue in 1968. We got married in 2000. It must have been lust.

pattinase (abbott) said...

I'd say caution.