# Dating Ultimatum
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dating-ultimatum/1020459
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [July 3, 2025, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dating-ultimatum/1020459 "2025-07-03T21:39:53Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2025, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dating-ultimatum/1020459/61 "2025-07-04T21:02:26Z")
> [@DemonTree](#):
>
> For those who are or have been married, how long did it take to know you wanted to marry your partner?
About a year.
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2025, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dating-ultimatum/1020459/62 "2025-07-04T22:08:17Z")
I can easily believe the story and recognize that the pictures are story telling devices, not meant as literally the moments.
True or fictional, this is a story told as two points (the middle not the point): I was clear from word go and I refused to be strung along beyond that; on with my life.
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### Author:  [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2025, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dating-ultimatum/1020459/63 "2025-07-04T22:21:14Z")
> [@Kropotkin](#):
>
> My partner and I have been together for 41 years this past month, without benefit of clergy, as they say, so I’m mystified by the whole marriage thing as a goal. It also strikes me as weird to say, “I’m going to give this relationship 2 years and then make a decision.” Are matters of the heart so easily settled with a flowchart and deadline? I guess, for some. It seems a carry-over from neo-liberalism and marginal utility theory.
This was our position until a few years ago. Me and my partner were together for 15 years before getting married, but I thought we ought to have the legal benefits after we had a child together (he had already said he would be happy to marry me if I wanted, but he wasn’t set on it).
Dating with the sole purpose of getting married is quite an alien idea to me, but I can see how it makes sense for some.
* * *
> [@JohnT](#):
>
> When it happens, it’s [fantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/love-in-the-age-of-trump-or-i-fell-in-love-with-a-republican/980600).
Congratulations!
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### Author:  [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2025, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dating-ultimatum/1020459/64 "2025-07-04T22:25:09Z")
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> not meant as literally the moments
I meant in keeping with the particular boat pic-cognitive dissonance that I omitted from the quote. We know she knows we know the pics weren’t taken in the moment.
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### Author:  [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2025, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dating-ultimatum/1020459/65 "2025-07-04T22:40:25Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> ISTM the nature of adult life is that things change slowly and there is rarely a definitive cut point. You slowly become more or less satisfied with your job, your home, your relationship and its formal status, etc. But the pull of not upsetting the apple cart and instead simply shuffling forward one more day is very strong.
In retrospect, I see some benefit in mutually deciding whether you want to make a relationship permanent or not, rather than drifting along indefinitely when you may not ultimately be compatible.
It also might be useful to invent an infrequent but regular milestone that prompts us to re-examine our employment situation. That could help people get out of dead-end and unsatisfying jobs.
* * *
Just realised the date: happy Independence day to all the Americans!
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2025, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dating-ultimatum/1020459/66 "2025-07-04T22:42:28Z")
> [@DemonTree](#):
>
> Dating with the sole purpose of getting married is quite an alien idea to me, but I can see how it makes sense for some.
If the only thing you want from the opposite sex is economic or logistical support & children, dating only for marriage makes sense.
If the only thing you want from the opposite sex is fun, entertainment, and sex, dating for everything but marriage makes sense.
At least as applied to ~18-40yos.
For older folks additional considerations intrude. But for the age group in the OP’s cite my taxonomy works.
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### Author:  [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2025, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dating-ultimatum/1020459/67 "2025-07-04T22:48:53Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> If the only thing you want from the opposite sex is fun, entertainment, and sex, dating for everything but marriage makes sense.
Hehehe, I dunno about that. I decided to marry my wife because I wanted to monopolize the fun, entertainment, sex and other mental stimulation she provided. That we pretty much made up for each other’s shortcomings as a duo was something I realized after we were married, and it was a stroke of luck. If kids had happened, that would have been OK, but it wasn’t part of some grand plan.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2025, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dating-ultimatum/1020459/68 "2025-07-04T22:51:23Z")
> [@DemonTree](#):
>
> In retrospect, I see some benefit in mutually deciding whether you want to make a relationship permanent or not, rather than drifting along indefinitely when you may not ultimately be compatible
This. The friends I alluded to earlier were in that boat.
One saw the whole process as leading solely to marriage. The other thought marriage was the one thing utterly off the table. 5 years later they were still trying to persuade one another to abandon their principles. Why? Because they genuinely enjoyed one another on a day to day basis but their respective rivers were carrying them to very different places.
Ouch!
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2025, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dating-ultimatum/1020459/69 "2025-07-04T23:21:15Z")
It’s fake, but it’s interesting as a thought exercise to see how people think.
As presented, I think it’s way too harsh. Breaking up on the two-year anniversary? Come on. You knew what was going to happen before that. No reason to do it then other than to be cruel. You already didn’t care about them as a person, so you should have broken it off before then.
That is the part that stands out most to me, not the part about having standards and timetables and such. It’s the apparent cruelty, and how she chose to present it leaving that in. Heck, like she thinks she should be applauded for it.
That’s why I very much hope it is entirely fake, and not just a story made to look better. Or, at least, intentionally written to be controversial to get views, even if based loosely on a true story where they came off a lot better.
I don’t disagree in principle with the defenses here. But I still find myself emotionally on the side against her due to the specifics as she chose to give them.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2025, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dating-ultimatum/1020459/70 "2025-07-05T00:02:14Z")
> [@DemonTree](#):
>
> In retrospect, I see some benefit in mutually deciding whether you want to make a relationship permanent or not, rather than drifting along indefinitely when you may not ultimately be compatible.
Yeah, but why set an artificial time on the first date? You might want to wait until you’re done with school, or have a stable job, or want to have kids. But even if you have a deadline, maybe remind the other person before it?
I shouldn’t talk. I wasn’t even officially dating my wife when we got engaged. We never lived closer than 600 miles apart, but we somehow kept talking. I sensed she was ready, we both failed to find anyone more interesting, so I did it. Been married 47 years.
Probably confused the hell out of our parents.
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### Author:  [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2025, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dating-ultimatum/1020459/71 "2025-07-05T00:05:31Z")
> [@Voyager](#):
>
> Yeah, but why set an artificial time on the first date? You might want to wait until you’re done with school, or have a stable job, or want to have kids. But even if you have a deadline, maybe remind the other person before it?
We don’t know that the deadline was artificial. Maybe it was when she was done with school. We also don’t know that it was never discussed in the two year period.
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### Author:  [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2025, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dating-ultimatum/1020459/72 "2025-07-05T00:12:44Z")
Much like the “Guy who had to choose between daughter’s preschool graduation and gf’s grad school graduation” thread, it’s the sort of “story” that has so little detail that everyone projects their own views onto it to fill the blanks then begins debating from completely different ideas on what happened.
Maybe the guy heard her ultimatum on the first date and thought “Haha! Now I can string her along for two years!” Maybe his mom just died and he just got laid off and he wasn’t in a great mental/financial place that month to be proposing marriage but she cruelly left him at his lowest point for not hitting a date and went on a boat ride. Who knows! All we have are two sentences and two photos that may or may not reflect the events.
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### Author:  [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2025, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dating-ultimatum/1020459/73 "2025-07-05T00:24:13Z")
> [@Jophiel](#):
>
> Much like the “Guy who had to choose between daughter’s preschool graduation and gf’s grad school graduation” thread, it’s the sort of “story” that has so little detail that everyone projects their own views onto it to fill the blanks then begins debating from completely different ideas on what happened.
I was thinking the same thing. We’re all bringing our own baggage into like it’s like a Rorschach test.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2025, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dating-ultimatum/1020459/74 "2025-07-05T00:45:56Z")
Agree w your whole post and this snip particularly…
> [@BigT](#):
>
> I don’t disagree in principle with the defenses here. But I still find myself emotionally on the side against her due to the specifics as she chose to give them
ISTM there’s a popular stain of female behavior that celebrates callous self interest and cruelty as strength. It’s a perhaps understandable counter-reaction to “alpha male” patriarchy behavior.
But IMO two wrongs don’t make a right. Not individually and not collectively/ societally.
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2025, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dating-ultimatum/1020459/75 "2025-07-05T01:02:53Z")
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> 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.
Lots wrong with that, in my view. One can’t argue that her position isn’t “logical” or that she’s not being forthright, because all of those things are true. But marriage is supposed to be about love and emotion. For that reason, instead of positive terms like “logical” and “forthright”, I’d use a term like “coldly calculating” to describe her attitude. She seems to be saying “I love you, but not really, because if this relationship doesn’t follow my timeline I’m gonna drop you like a bag of dirt”. And if and when this woman does marry someone, I see a divorce in their future because now for whatever reason the marriage isn’t following her prescribed blueprint.
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### Author:  [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2025, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dating-ultimatum/1020459/76 "2025-07-05T01:12:24Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> But marriage is supposed to be about love and emotion.
To you.
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2025, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dating-ultimatum/1020459/77 "2025-07-05T01:26:44Z")
> [@JohnT](#):
>
> > [@wolfpup](#):
> >
> > But marriage is supposed to be about love and emotion.
>
> To you.
If marriage isn’t about love and isn’t driven by emotion, then it shouldn’t be called marriage. It should be called “a legal merger of sole proprietorships”. Subject, of course, to approval by the respective boards of directors, within the specified timeline of a maximum of two years, after which the conditions of merger are null and void.
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### Author:  [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2025, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dating-ultimatum/1020459/78 "2025-07-05T01:28:40Z")
Again, in your opinion.
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### Author:  [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2025, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dating-ultimatum/1020459/79 "2025-07-05T01:29:26Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> If marriage isn’t about love and isn’t driven by emotion, then it shouldn’t be called marriage.
Hey, maybe she wanted to join their fiefdoms or something!
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### Author:  [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2025, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dating-ultimatum/1020459/80 "2025-07-05T01:33:05Z")
Imagine telling a 60yo Indian couple that they aren’t married because their [marriage was arranged](https://www.culturalindia.net/weddings/arranged-marriage.html) instead of the by-product of ‘love and emotion’. 🙄
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