Who has a Timeline?!??!

S

Syrah

Well-Known Member
How many of ya'll have timelines?? And be honest. Because there's nothing wrong with them.

What's a Timeline???

A timeline - a plan for how things should progress in your life with respect to marriage, kids and family life. For example: Go to college. Meet the man of my dreams in college. Get engaged by graduation. Be engaged for a 2 years. Get married. Have 1st baby by 30. THAT type thing.

I'll keep it real - I used to think they were terrible, horrible "why on earth would anyone do that" but when you think about it - we put timelines on everything else in our lives. 'I want to be promoted by ____'. Or "I want to be making ______ by _____". Or in my case "I want to visit _________ (half the countries in this world) by 30". We make time lines in other areas of our lives.

Are "love" timelines all that bad??
 
I used to have a mental timeline... all included was to be married by 28 or 29 and to have a baby before 32 or 33.

I'm not so sure of that now. . . we shall see. I don't think it's horrible to have a timeline but what happens when you haven't reached those 'goals?'

Doesn't the feeling of failure or inadequacy creep in just a little bit? Even in the most confident of people?
 
I kinda do, but it's like a mental intuitive one. For instance, lately I"ve been really feeling my biological clock pushing forward, so I'm figuring my timeline's moving right along. I'll find out.
 
I have one for my kids. Hopefully my son will finish his residency by 30, married with one child by 32. My daughter, finish with school by 25 and a married stay at home mom of a billionaire by 27. Makes me a grandmother at 51.:grin:
 
I do. I want to be married in the next 2-3 years. This will put me squarely at 30. Then I would like to have 2 kids before my biological clock stops ticking... so the kids would come along 1-2 years after that. And if the marriage thing doesn't happen (and this is the revised plan... I was supposed to be at least married by now :ohwell:) I still want kids before 35. Sooner rather than later. :look:
 
cupcake said:
Doesn't the feeling of failure or inadequacy creep in just a little bit? Even in the most confident of people?
Click to expand...

Exactly. The one difference with relationship time lines is that the circumstances aren't 100% in your control. Not even 50%. Graduating from college - you can control that. Getting a job, you can control most of that (skillsets, networking, interview skills, research on the market place and industry). Getting married??? There are so many uncontrollable variables that its a bit overwhelming.

And does that mean that the women who ARE married or DO have children based on limits you set in your own time line while you do not - are they more appealing, more attractive to men, more "motherly" or just blessed with good timing?!?

With the time lines, what happens when the deadline passes? Set new ones??

In a way I feel like time lines are the reason why so many people get married for the sake of BEING married rather than to make an everlasting commitment to the person that they are with. I've heard so many men talk about how age 30 hit them, and the next thing they knew, they wanted to be married with kids all of a sudden (yea, men suffer from this also). But I wonder - when 30 hits and you realize that you're 30, educated, financial secure and :::gasp::: single - do you run out and fall in love quickly...

or do you really end up marrying someone who can FIT into your plan?

Do time lines sometimes force us to settle?!

:::and is settling always a bad thing::: :sekret:
 
I had my timeline in middle school. :look:

23 yr old - have to have career & working on 2nd career
24 yr old - have to be married
25 yr old - have to be pregnant with baby # 1

I was willing to throw it out the window if I didn't find "the one" because I don't believe in divorce. So I surely wasn't going to grab a man and marry him for the sake of a timeline.
 
I've been doing it since I was a little girl. But I didn't realize the committment by education would be. So it's been revised. & revised again.. & again. It doesn't hurt me in the least bit. I have fun re-making my timelines. It gives me hope of things to come in the future. Things change. Life happens. & it's exciting to see it all unfold.

Maybe I'll change my mind after I'm completely done with my education & still don't have a man or kids. but for now, I'm just going with the flow.
 
i have some time lines--even though im on the plan/no plan path--lol

i wanted to graduate college in 4 yrs--done

i wanted to earn a certain income by each major age in my life as in 25, 30 etc--so far im doin that

as for marriage and the kids--it will come when it will comes-- but obvioulsy a mental time line will be b4 i turn 35...

house/property and etc got that inherited from my family

ummm i do stick to one solid timeline--if i am with a man for 2 yrs then we either getting real serious or going our seperate ways---5yrs if we're not damn near walking down the aisle something aint right---
 
MsNadi said:
Exactly. The one difference with relationship time lines is that the circumstances aren't 100% in your control. Not even 50%. Graduating from college - you can control that. Getting a job, you can control most of that (skillsets, networking, interview skills, research on the market place and industry). Getting married??? There are so many uncontrollable variables that its a bit overwhelming.

And does that mean that the women who ARE married or DO have children based on limits you set in your own time line while you do not - are they more appealing, more attractive to men, more "motherly" or just blessed with good timing?!?

With the time lines, what happens when the deadline passes? Set new ones??

In a way I feel like time lines are the reason why so many people get married for the sake of BEING married rather than to make an everlasting commitment to the person that they are with. I've heard so many men talk about how age 30 hit them, and the next thing they knew, they wanted to be married with kids all of a sudden (yea, men suffer from this also). But I wonder - when 30 hits and you realize that you're 30, educated, financial secure and :::gasp::: single - do you run out and fall in love quickly...

or do you really end up marrying someone who can FIT into your plan?

Do time lines sometimes force us to settle?!

:::and is settling always a bad thing::: :sekret:
Click to expand...

It is totally uncontrollable, which is scary for someone who is admittedly a perfectionist in my own life. I'm almost done with some big career objectives and the other "pieces" have yet to fall into place. Will they? I don't know. :ohwell:

I think a lot of people who are married or whatever - it just happened to be the right time for them. It hasn't happened for me yet. *shrugs* Now I'm considering some alternatives as a revision to my plan... I don't think there is any such thing as being able to plan and control every aspect of your life. If that was the case or if I had prayed hard enough, everytihng would have worked out according to the plan, and it hasn't. So what do I do now? It's onto Plan B.
 
cupcake said:
I used to have a mental timeline... all included was to be married by 28 or 29 and to have a baby before 32 or 33.

I'm not so sure of that now. . . we shall see. I don't think it's horrible to have a timeline but what happens when you haven't reached those 'goals?'

Doesn't the feeling of failure or inadequacy creep in just a little bit? Even in the most confident of people?
Click to expand...

I believe in this that is why I don't try to...Its good to set up goals in life and have a plan...but I don't think life is meant to have a blueprint of everything.
 
-I have a timeline for relationships. He should be able to know if he loves me or not around this time, or he can see himself with me for another 2 years by that time..I don't want to waste my time on someone who is just using me to waste their time till they find "the one"

-Everything else is whatever. Once in church, our pastor challenged us to write down 4 goals and give up something and see if God can help to reach those goals in one year. Not ONE got met. Never again. Plus, life happens. When i do plan, something always happens and the plan gets shifted. Now its one day at a time literally. Be glad for the moment. Single, married, kids, no kids, I don't stress so much because my life could be altered in the next 10 minutes anyway.
 
I had some...but I have learned that God's plan for my life is not the same as mine. So....I am setting to the side and letting him be the guide.:yep:
 
i dont have one...dont believe in having one when it comes to relationships and i believe like ^^^^ said its all in Gods hands.

but i wanted to if i did meet the right guy to date for at least 2 years(if i did that now)--29 to 31 years old

get married---32 years old

honeymoon it for the first two years of our marriage and enjoy the marriage--34 years old

have my first child at--35 years of age

but this is just something that i created but it doesnt seem like this is working out because i have yet to meet the right man...
 
cupcake said:
I used to have a mental timeline... all included was to be married by 28 or 29 and to have a baby before 32 or 33.

I'm not so sure of that now. . . we shall see. I don't think it's horrible to have a timeline but what happens when you haven't reached those 'goals?'

Doesn't the feeling of failure or inadequacy creep in just a little bit? Even in the most confident of people?
Click to expand...

Not for me. I love setting goals. Goals keep me driven no matter what the aspect is. If I don't meet a goal by my mental timeline....I just reset the goal.:grin:
 
dlewis said:
I have one for my kids. Hopefully my son will finish his residency by 30, married with one child by 32. My daughter, finish with school by 25 and a married stay at home mom of a billionaire by 27. Makes me a grandmother at 51.:grin:
Click to expand...

*gasp* do you kids know about the timeline you have for them. That's a lot of pressure.
 
caligirl said:
*gasp* do you kids know about the timeline you have for them. That's a lot of pressure.
Click to expand...

I have told them since they were babies. School, marraige, kids. School, marriage, Kids. My daughter says she not getting married and doesn't want kids, she says I have to look to my son for that. But she says things like, I wonder if my feet will get fatter when I pregnant.:grin:
 
I want to have a new car by 25
I want my own home by 30
I want to visit at least 5 countries by 30
I want to be a size 8 by 26
Move to a new city by 26

As far as marriage and romance, I don' have a timeline.
 
The thing with setting a timeline for relationships versus a job, school, etc, is that you're dealing with another person with free will and he has his own ideas of what his life should look like. It's not the same as setting a tangible goal like getting a masters by 26. That's 100% up to you. If my goal is to get married, I have to be in sync with another individual who is willing to make that commitment too.
 
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