If your not married yet....?

This is a very hypothetical question for me at least, since I don't have a SO. But if I felt that we were both in love and wanted the same future then yes I would marry them. I am 27 and about to graduate. I am ready. Now need to find this man. haha.
 
Keshieshimmer said:
This is a very hypothetical question for me at least, since I don't have a SO. But if I felt that we were both in love and wanted the same future then yes I would marry them. I am 27 and about to graduate. I am ready. Now need to find this man. haha.

Lol, ok, it's No intention to this question, well I'm not throwing hints about me just wanted to know how many where in a relationship that without a thought would just say yes to marriage
 
the longer i date my bf, the more i can see a long, long term relationship with him. but im pretty sure he would not ask to marry me at this point. which is good because if he did i would have to turn him down. im not ready for marriage right now.
 
If he asked me today, I would say no. He is someone that I can see myself marrying one day, but we are not there yet and we both have stuff to take care of in our lives before marriage comes into play.
 
I do not date people i could not potentially marry. I never have. I dont mean go on a date, I mean enter a relationship.

I'm single single right now (not just legal single) so in the hypothetical, my answer would really depend on where and how established he was, as well if I was at that point in time that I were sure I had learned enough about him to make an educated guess that there is a shot at long term success ( because you can never know 100% anyway) and I have already asked enough questions to know that there were no dealbreakers lurking to be unturned.

I think the experiences you have together can determine whether or not you are compatible life mates and it may take years for you to have all those experiences or it could be just a few months. Theres no ideal timeline really. Experiences include, seeing how that person deals with stress, seeing how they react to you when you are under stress, problem solving abilities, how well do you work together for larger goals, how well do you work together under stress, etc. The kinds of things that will make a marriage last.

Some people are all unicorns and rainbows and butterflies when times are good, but a good spouse is someone who can be helpful when times are not good.

So it depends.
 
I do not date people i could not potentially marry. I never have. I dont mean go on a date, I mean enter a relationship.

how do you determine this? ive been thinking about this. i can eliminate dudes on the basis of "i know i'd never marry him" based on things like personality, education, career, religion, politics, views about women, stage in life vs age, etc etc. but how do you know you could potentially marry someone? i can view someone as compatible with me along the lines of "if we had to spend together forever, our personalities are likely to make that time pleasant and happy." but i still worry about how do i know YOU ARE THE ONE? idk at what point being compatible with someone translates into "i know that i want to be with you forever."
 
I do not date people i could not potentially marry. I never have. I dont mean go on a date, I mean enter a relationship.


I visited a friend's book club meeting a few weeks back and we got on this subject. I mentioned just now starting to date again after being divorced and non dating for almost 6 years, focusing on work and raising my daughter. They started asking if it was serious, potentially leading towards marriage..I'm like "nope..and don't even really want it to be at this point..I just want to date and have fun for a while since I have been out of the game for so long".

One of the women said "the only purpose of dating is for marriage". I tend to disagree and a lively debate ensued. I thought it was interesting that the married women in the room had that stance while us divorcees did not..but anyway. I am dating a guy right now that I am pretty sure is not "the one" but we have a nice time together and we go on good dates, so why not?

I thought about making this a discussion topic "is the reason for dating only to lead towards marriage" but didn't care enough to create it.
 
how do you determine this? ive been thinking about this. i can eliminate dudes on the basis of "i know i'd never marry him" based on things like personality, education, career, religion, politics, views about women, stage in life vs age, etc etc. but how do you know you could potentially marry someone? i can view someone as compatible with me along the lines of "if we had to spend together forever, our personalities are likely to make that time pleasant and happy." but i still worry about how do i know YOU ARE THE ONE? idk at what point being compatible with someone translates into "i know that i want to be with you forever."


I know people who date people with dealbreakers to pass the time.
"I know I could never marry him, but I am dating him because I dont want to be single/ I am bored/ I am horny/ I am lonely" :nono:

I mean I eliminate people on those very same reasons you do. Anyone else is "potentially" marriagable. Thats why I said "I only date people I could potentially marry" and not "I only date people I know I want to marry".

The rest of my post was explaining how from there, there are other things to factor when deciding if you are ready to making such a permanent decision about someone.
 
I visited a friend's book club meeting a few weeks back and we got on this subject. I mentioned just now starting to date again after being divorced and non dating for almost 6 years, focusing on work and raising my daughter. They started asking if it was serious, potentially leading towards marriage..I'm like "nope..and don't even really want it to be at this point..I just want to date and have fun for a while since I have been out of the game for so long".

One of the women said "the only purpose of dating is for marriage". I tend to disagree and a lively debate ensued. I thought it was interesting that the married women in the room had that stance while us divorcees did not..but anyway. I am dating a guy right now that I am pretty sure is not "the one" but we have a nice time together and we go on good dates, so why not?

I thought about making this a discussion topic "is the reason for dating only to lead towards marriage" but didn't care enough to create it.

Yes, I agree I do not think it is the only reason to date. Depending on your life goals and your stage in life, marriage does not have to be the purpose of dating.

For me it is though.
 
I know people who date people with dealbreakers to pass the time.
"I know I could never marry him, but I am dating him because I dont want to be single/ I am bored/ I am horny/ I am lonely" :nono:

I mean I eliminate people on those very same reasons you do. Anyone else is "potentially" marriagable. Thats why I said "I only date people I could potentially marry" and not "I only date people I know I want to marry".

The rest of my post was explaining how from there, there are other things to factor when deciding if you are ready to making such a permanent decision about someone.

hmmmm. i guess i only date men i could potentially marry too, but i never think of it that way... prob bc i know marriage is a ways away from me. im not sure if im making a distinction between potential long term relationship and potential husband.

im also not sure if my idea of "dating for marriage" is more along the lines of "if you are not ready to get married then i cannot date you" and looking more at the partner. thatd be something fun to operationally define, what does it mean to date for marriage (and when do you not date someone if that's what you're doing).
 
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hmmmm. i guess i only date men i could potentially marry too, but i never think of it that way... prob bc i know marriage is a ways away from me. im not sure if im making a distinction between potential long term relationship and potential husband.

im also not sure if my idea of "dating for marriage" is more along the lines of "if you are not ready to get married then i cannot date you" and looking more at the partner. thatd be something fun to operationally define, what does it mean to date for marriage (and when do you not date someone if that's what you're doing).

I think this permutation of the dating for marriage is more about the time frame.

There are plenty of people who are in long term relationships, know they would like to marry each other eventually, just not right this minute, and I dont think there's anything wrong with that.

I think things get a little hairy when its a long term relationship, and one person is saying I dont know if I want to a) get married or b) get married to you, while the other person wants to get married as if they are on fire and only marriage will put it out.
 
yeah that's what happened in my last relationship. my SO knew he wanted to get married to me, but i didn't know if i wanted to get married to him. and we had a lot of friends who were popping the question, saving up for rings and ish, and even though he swore it was not the case i felt like he was getting ideas. :lol:

so i ended it.
 
meesch said:
how do you determine this? ive been thinking about this. i can eliminate dudes on the basis of "i know i'd never marry him" based on things like personality, education, career, religion, politics, views about women, stage in life vs age, etc etc. but how do you know you could potentially marry someone? i can view someone as compatible with me along the lines of "if we had to spend together forever, our personalities are likely to make that time pleasant and happy." but i still worry about how do i know YOU ARE THE ONE? idk at what point being compatible with someone translates into "i know that i want to be with you forever."

That's what I was saying, I can be in a relationship and justify whether he is good enough to date but I can't see marriage that early and some people don't show their *** until you marry them
 
if the guy i'm dating proposed, i'd say no.

:look:

i'm peacing the *** out of here asap & he's working on his phd. :lachen: we've also only been dating for 5 months & i'm 21. Too Soon.
 
Yes and no. We've talked about it so it wouldn't be surprising. I would say yes but I don't want to be married until after I graduate. It does make me happy though that he has been thinking about it seriously.

ETA: Like I would say yes to being engaged, but I wouldn't even think about planning a wedding until after graduation
 
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He's asked and I said no. But we've talked about what would get me to yes. And my answer was time and consistency. I don't know what that time would be for me, but if things keep going the way they are going...it won't be long.
 
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