This post generated a lot of discussion on TwitteX today:
Perhaps surprisingly, a lot of the responses were positive, saying men/people usually know if the other person is ‘the one’ quite quickly, so two years is plenty of time to decide, and saying that it’s sensible to discuss life goals on a first date.
I think it would be crazy to only mention this on the first date and them dump the guy out of the blue after two years, but provided she had talked to him about marriage/where the relationship was going before the deadline, maybe it does make sense. If you are keen to get married - and especially if you want kids - you don’t want to waste time with someone who won’t commit.
I mean, if on the first date she said “married in two years or goodbye!” most people would say “oooo-kay” and look for the exit. Or forget she ever said it.
But did she never say anything in between? Two years exactly and “goodbye auf wiedersehen so long farewell adieu” with no other warning? Or did she punctuate the intervening years with regular taps to her watch saying “tick tock buddy!”?
This was my thought also. IMO the first option is clearly unreasonable, so let’s assume she did bring her deadline up at least a couple of times in between.
This is the kind of things 20-somethings say. Well, 20-somethings with a large sense of entitlement. Not 20-somethings with wisdom and awareness.
When you’re 25 you’re all “I’m going to meet my man and get married and have kids and everything I ever wanted.” And then you’re 40 divorced with two kids and your man ran off with his hygienist.
Absolutes don’t exist.
“I don’t write songs about girls anymore
I have to write songs about women
No more boy meets girl boy loses girl
More like man tries to understand what the hell went wrong”
While this example might be trolling, there are certainly people that think like that.
Two years after my first date with my (now-)wife, we weren’t married or even engaged but well before the two-year mark we had made it clear to each other that we each intended to be married in a reasonable amount of time.
Reminiscent of the Reddit post about the couple who connected on a dating site in the “looking for a LTR - let’s take it slow” section, and at the conclusion of the first date, one party was crestfallen when the other announced they had to cut the evening short for a scheduled booty-call.
The only unusual aspect is this person not keeping their cards close to the vest.
I’m largely in the “untrue or exaggerated for social media” camp but I’m not even sure if she issued an “ultimatum”. She could have said “Well, I’d like to be married in two years” or “I think when you meet the right guy, within two years you should be married”. Something like that would at least answer the whole “Why on earth would you finish the date with her?” aspect. And, if he did fully know the scene, then obviously he wasn’t interested enough to close the deal so go ahead and end it if that’s your deal breaker.
But, whatever. Even if it’s exactly as presented and true, I don’t see much to get worked up about. Two people I never met and never will meet dated for two years then broke up. Wow. There’s gotta be more interesting breakup stories than this one.
I think two years is too short of a time for me to know if I want to marry someone.
I went for four. Engaged at three, married at four.
We were serious from the beginning. I never wanted to waste my time with someone not interested in marriage, but we also both believed you need some time for that choice to be wise. So I can see saying something like that on a first date to make it clear you’re only interested in something serious, but something about it seems so cynical and cookie-cutter, I don’t like it. The way it’s expressed makes it seem like the marriage is more important than the Individual.
Taken it at face value - very reasonable. Mature even.
Straightforwardly communicating what she is looking for and her mental timeline. And it isn’t companionship for its own sake. Maybe she wants several children in a married relationship before she has to worry about declining fertility. In any case he full disclosure and transparency right off.
For her to say right off that she is giving a two year time investment into a relationship reaching that point and going to cut her losses if it isn’t there for any reason from either side? Nothing wrong with that.
I’m in a small minority (even on these boards I think a lot of people disagree with me), but I’m not a fan of the whole “man must get down on bended knee and ask for the woman’s hand in marriage” tradition, period. Why should HE have to propose? (Even worse is asking the woman’s father first - UGH.) There was no proposal involved in my marriage - we just sort of knew after a while that we wanted to get married.
If two people seem to be clicking after a few dates, either one should feel free to discuss their long-term timetable for marriage, if any. The first date seems a little too soon, though (depending on context - if they met through a religious match-making group or something like that, it might be different).
It’s fine for her to have her conditions/standards/needs.
It’s fine for her to express this on the first date.
What kind of dipshit dates a partner with these openly stated expectations for 2 years and not propose?
Given the scenario, and the barebones explanation of it, she’s not the asshole, he is. He wasted two years of her life, which is damn near unconscionable.
Ok, that might be five thoughts. You should thank me for my generosity.
I don’t think either has to be the asshole. Maybe he thought he’d be in that place. Maybe he basically was but something made him want to delay. She stayed with him for two years so obviously she didn’t think it was a waste of time. Unless he told her “I pinkie-swear to propose in two years” and didn’t, he didn’t do anything wrong besides not meet her timetable and that’s up to her to decide which is more important.
An ultimatum? No,in a romantic relationship you’ll convince me to do many things. You’ll never successfully order me to do anything. I’m pretty sure if I dated this sort of person, it’d probably be limited to one date.
I’m not even sure that two years is enough time to know if you want to marry some people. I dated more than one person for about that amount of time before I realized I didn’t want to date them anymore, much less marry them. On the third hand, I think I asked my wife if she wanted to marry me about a year after we first started dating.We still waited about four more years to actually marry, still married more than 25 years later.
