What were you thinking? (When deciding to marry/spend your life & grow old with)

In My Humble Opinion
1

I was having a chat with a friend today and we discovered that we approached the decision of who to marry very differently. Obviously I shouldn’t have been too surprised by this. (Since when are people the same in the way they approach anything?)

Anyway on the bus on the way home I began to realize I am quite curious to hear a few other “takes” on the matter. I’m not particularly interested in things you discussed with your mate/so as I am in what was going through yourhead.

I suppose I should start with why I said yes when I did. I did not marry the first offer (or second or third).

A & I dated off and on throughout high school and our first year of college. It was more on than off, but the off periods were months of dating other people, rather than a little break up and get back together tiff. He was smart, athletic, adored my family (and they adored him) and he thought I hung the moon. Additionally add independently without my knowledge at first, looked into and converted to my religion when we were both far to young for him to have done it just to marry. But he told these little white lies and it was usually (as far as I know) about little things that didn’t warrant a lie. The truth wouldn’t have been upsetting or a problem, so why lie? There was one lie that was an issue, but it’s rather long to detail so I’ll only go into it, if someone really wants to know. So basically even though he asked more than once, the answer was no, because I felt that if he needed to lie about little inconsequential things that it was likely he’d lie about important things as well.

B & was the best looking of the boys/men I ever dated. I was rather clueless and lacking in self esteem with regards to my appearance. (My self esteem was solid with regards to other aspects of who I was.) Feeling not particularly attractive, I never really selected who to go out with based to much on appearance, and that’s about all this guy had going for him. Also I was a tad put off by someone that was always so concerned with his appearance and the pursuit of wealth.

C & I hadn’t dated long when he said something like, “I could see me spending my life with you. Do you want to move in with me?” Not quite a proposal, but quite a decision anyway. Later that week we were on a pitted dirt road in his truck on our way out to a picnic on a remote piece of land he intended to build a house on when one of his two puppies was tossed out of the back of the little truck when it popped in and out of a pothole. When C stopped to get the puppy he smacked it. :eek: :frowning: That was our last date.

D in contrast to B wasn’t concerned enough about the things that B was too concerned about. I felt he lacked enough ambition to adaquately support a family. He was smart as a whip and conversations where stimulating though.

So why did I say yes when I did? He wasn’t the tallest, or the best looking (but he could have whipped all four of the others at the same time if he needed to), he wasn’t the best kisser, he wasn’t the most well off or best educated.

I said yes because I found him to be a man who respected his family and didn’t speak unkindly of his parents or brothers. He’s born and bred city boy, but he’s a country boy at heart, slow to speak up, but thoughtful and sincere when he does. He didn’t mind getting his hands dirty to help someone figure out how to get something broken running again. At work he worked hard (we met at work), at play he played hard. He was kind, not just to me, but to his family, his pet, his niece, friends and even strangers and waitstaff. He held the door, not just for me but for the elderly regardless of gender or someone with their arms full of packages. I said yes because to me marriage meant making a family for this life and the next and so I was looking for the father of my children. I thought he would be a good father, so I married him.

My friend on the other hand said he decided to marry his wife because of his physical attraction and because he and she shared some similar belief systems and because he loved that he and she were both creative artsy “non linear thinkers”. As I understood him, he married her for himself rather than thinking about what kind of family life it would mean. (I could be getting this not quite right, but that’s ok, because the point of letting you about my reasoning and my understanding of his reasoning is to ask you to share yours. So why did you decide to marry the one you married. (Or other life partner type relationship. Not too interested in just deciding who you date, but rather lifetime commitments. Including same gender.)

I would appreciate it if you would state your gender and whether you have a traditional marrige or other commitment, if you feel your orientation is relevant would you state that please too. There are too many of us here for me to remember everyone’s gender and orientation by screen name.

So do you want to share what you were thinking as you made the decision?

2

Male, hetero. I’d been dating her for three and living with her for around two. I thought she was very smart and that we were alike in many, many ways, even if we frequently don’t like the same things. Key, probably, was our similar sense of humor.

All that said, and considering her flaws, I decided that on the whole, I wasn’t going to do better… or the odds of doing better were small. So, with all of that understood, not marrying her would have been rude; she would have wondered with every passing year where we were going.

That’s why I bought the bigass rock that sits now on her meaty little paw. :wink:

3

I am 43 married almost 20 years (male).

I think you are going to find that contrary to popular belief, women are much more likely to take the pragmatic, critical approach to making a decision like this where the men are more likely to have not bothered overly much with “issues”. When it comes to marriage most men simply follow their emotions and “hang the consequences”.
I simply wanted to be with my wife and if anything was perhaps just being possessive when I asked her to marry me. I wanted her to be with me always.
There were a lot of issues I should have spent more time considering such as her 2 children from a previous marriage, and other issues of equal importance, but I really was unconcerned about the possible future issues that would develop. That is not to say I was clueless as to what I might expect from jumping into a “ready-made” family, I simply had so much love and need for my wife that I simply didn’t care what the costs might be.
I have never regretted my decision and my wife and I are closer than we have ever been. The most important thing as far as I am concerned is the sense of friendship between us. We actually have very dissimilar interests and views but that is not a problem for us and is often the spark for some very interesting conversations/debates.

4

25, female, married for just over six months.

Hmmm…

There were several factors involved in deciding to marry d_redguy. He likes kids. I want kids. He likes animals. I have animals. My parents do not seem to want to burn him at a stake. (This was new.) We fight. This told me that the fun, “pretending to be all lovey-dovey and never disagree” part of the relationship was over and we’d moved on to reality. While we have problems, we can talk about them. He makes me laugh. He can hold down a steady job. He does not watch 16 hours of football every Sunday.

Mostly, it was little things, added up. Plus, he’s my best friend. (Even though I hate him sometimes. I think that’s normal.:smiley: )

5

female, hetero, married 25 years. He wasn’t the smartest, handsomest, wealthiest, best lover, but he was the all around best. I had no doubt that he would totally commit to me and he’d never cheat on me. I knew he’d be a good dad, and I wanted more kids. He had good friends that had been around for years so I knew he valued the right kinds of people and they valued him.

Why we’re still together: He insisted we put off having our own children because my oldest child had lots of emotional problems and he believed our first responsibility was to the one who was here already. Early in our relationship he decided on his own to investigate my faith. He became Orthodox and has even won an award from the Metropolitan for being such a good member of our church. He helped me sand my mother’s floors and paint her house. He thinks my family is bonkers but he’s polite to them all and goes to every family event without a fuss. When our kids were little, he was just as much their parent as I was. He didn’t need my assistance taking care of the babies. His Dad was really ill when the middle one was only 4 weeks old. He hopped on a plane and took the baby with him. When we moved to TX he moved three months before I did and he took our 5 and 2 year old with him. He has fostered every dream or interest our kids have developed. If I find something like my church kitchen disposal is nonfunctional he takes the time to replace it for me. He’s an adequate cook, he cleans as well as I do, he does the laundry better than I do. I don’t have to ask him to “help” around the house. It’s his house and he’s a fully functional man so he does what he sees needs to be done. He has never, ever complained about anything to do with our house. If he thinks it’s getting too messy he takes care of whatever is bothering him. He does all the grocery shopping, he makes menus and clips coupons. He thinks I spend too much money on junk food, and that’s why he started taking care of that. He never criticized me, he just does it better, and care abouts it more than I do, so he has taken on that chore. He’s a good man, I’m glad we’re still together.

6

What exactly led you to believe I WAS thinking?

7

Female, heterosexual, married 1 1/2 years.

I’ve been with my husband for 12 years really. We met in college and started out as friends first. He liked me romantically, but I didn’t really think I liked him in that way until one day I woke up and said, “My God, this guy is my best friend and he’s incredible. What am I stupid??” I have never had a really strong desire to be married. There are very few people that don’t annoy me and even fewer I would want to wake up with every day of my life…My husband is that person! I’m still astonished by this…Anyway, he stayed by me throughout a pretty scary illness. During that time I had something wrong with my kidneys that caused me to blow up to 80 lbs. over my natural weight. (Pretty traumatic as I’ve always been pretty thin.) He told me I was beautiful everyday. And I actually believed him! We always seem to be on the same page. We enjoy a lot of the same things. He’s extremely intelligent. He makes me laugh until I’m on the floor. We laugh a great deal of the time. The man knows what joy is. He has this little light inside of him. It’s amazing. He’s amazing! If a shark were coming towards me I know he would do everything in his power to save me. He would never cheat on me. I trust him in every imaginable way. Oh, and he really floats my boat too.:wink:

Shana goes to give husband a hug

8

Mr. Levins was the only man I’d ever met…hell, the only person I’d ever met…whom I never got tired of.

And that may sound petty until you realize that we met at work. Moved in together. Kept the same hours, worked at the same place. Drove in the same car, for God’s sake…

In short, I was always with him. And still we jived like two people who’ve been missing the hell out of each other for months. Friends of mine ask me relationship advice because I have such a solid relationship myself. He’s my best friend, he’s great in bed, he’s thoughtful and considerate and intelligent and hilarious and adorable, and after awhile I just couldn’t imagine my life without him.

Oh, and he’s got great legs and a delicious ass.

That counts, too, you know.

[sub]blows kisses to Mr. Levins, who is reading on the sofa right now; he looks amused and content to remain ignorant as to why, and blows me kisses right back[/sub]

9

Female divorcee - translation: how NOT to choose a mate.

Proposal A - I was 16 and he wanted to take me away from an abusive family situation. It was tempting but he did not promote my continuing education

Proposal B - Great hardworking sweet guy who would have paid my way through college. He was also 12 years older than me and I thought that was too much of an age difference.

Proposal C - Great guy I met in college. Goodlooking, hardworking, Poli-sci major who went on to become a political leader in our state. Would have made a great husband and adored the ground I walked on. I thought he was too boring and that we were too young.

Proposal D - Great looking, great in bed, total loser. Wouldn’t work, lied stole and broke just about every law written. When I wouldn’t marry him, he sabotoged our birth control (God was I stupid) and knocked me up. I still wouldn’t marry him.

Proposal E - I was working three jobs to support my child and really struggling. I wanted security and he was stable, down to earth, liked my son and wanted a pretty wife. We were married two years before I relaized the huge control issues he had. It took me 11 years to get out of it and I doubt I will ever marry again, but if I do it will be because the guy is my best friend and because we have mutual respect and a deep love for each other…

10

I lucked out folks…

My wife and I met and instantly fell in love. We both werein Grad school, we both swore f dating for at least the past 6 months before we met…needed some time off. When we met we were both equally attracted to one another. Had the same interests, same hobbies, both love kids, both respect families, both are athletic, and she yells back when we fight!!

-Arguing is a very goof indicator of how long a couple will stay with one another, the way you argue determines a lot -

We’ve been married 6 years no kids. She’s writing a text book with a collegue and I am a teacher/business owner. We’re good!!

11

I am a gal (in case you couldn’t have guessed), and am engaged to SkipMagic, whom I met here at the SDMB.

Neither of us was really interested in dating anyone at the time–in fact, each of us had the idea that marriage might not be in the cards (in fact, I figured it probably wasn’t, for me, and was happily planning my life as the eccentric, gregarious, and wildly independent Auntie Mame figure), and each of us was fine with that.

Then we met each other.

I’d like to say that it was a moment of fireworks in our crotches and chirpy birdies in our hearts, but nah.

I always tell him that I loved him from the moment we met–and I truly believe I did, because our connection was instant–but I also thought he was gay :D, so the future I envisioned for us involved shoe shopping rather than romance.

At any rate, thanks to time spent getting to know him and a couple of mold spots in his toilet (not to mention his bad taste in shoes), I began to reconfigure those visions of our future together.

But as to why I said “YES”, well, mainly it’s because for the first time ever, the question (which had been asked by two others before him) did not make me want to crawl under the table, curl up into fetal position and start chewing on my own toes to muffle my whimpering.

Instead it felt more like crawling into a nice soft bed (with, like, 1000 thread count sheets, a new down comforter with a silk duvet and 10 pillows) with a giant mug of steaming hot chocolate after a long, cold, exhausting day. :slight_smile:

12

Female, monogamous bi, married 10 years next Thursday. YAY! Happy anniversary, epeepunk.

We didn’t have the usual engagement process. We weren’t even supposed to be in love, darn it all! Hard to explain, but basically, I’d known him for years (since he was 16 and I was 17), and had always found him attractive (lucky me, he’s a major babe, tall, dark, and soooo fine). As many of the men in our social group as I went through during college (pretty much all the interesting ones), I never managed to be single when he was. Not for rather a while, anyway.

When I was splitting up with my fiancé (somewhat messily), I found he was single, and decided to whack him with the clue-by-four when smaller suggestions of availability didn’t fly. It was supposed to be just for fun. Until I fell madly in love with him. And lucky me, he fell for me, too. (Three months after I fell for him.)

One morning, I woke up knowing I wanted to marry him. No ‘because’, just knew. Like waking up to a different world. One of those perfect mornings, warm sunshine and all, and being with him forever was just the most right thing I’d ever encountered. I didn’t mention it to him, though. I knew he had to take his own time to it, and being a nice guy, he’d want to make me happy, and yet would also want to be happy himself. It didn’t seem fair, so I kissed him and waited for his heart.

Three months after that, we were driving up to a mutual friend’s wedding, and we were talking about weddings we’d been to or been in, and the things we liked and disliked about them. Somewhere around hour 4 of a 7 hour drive, he switched from saying ‘if we get married’ to ‘when we get married’. He didn’t even realize it! I didn’t point it out for a while, because I thought it was some kind of slip, and he’d go back to the ‘if’ thing. But no, it stayed ‘when’. I finally pointed it out, and he was only mildly surprised (he hadn’t been thinking about it consciously), but it seemed we were in agreement.

He formally asked me just before we told his parents. Standing in the buffet line. I mentioned that it might be good to actually have a formal ask/reply before we tell people officially. So he said, You wanna? And I said, Sure.

:smiley:

The things that went into the ‘wake up knowing’ thing were, as far as I can pinpoint from 10 years out:

  1. His up-front concrete approach to relationship. We are very different personalities, so to get even the basic stuff working smoothly, we had to discuss ground rules, be clear, be willing to stop and think, be willing to withhold judgement, be willing to discuss, communicate, apologize, and play no games. I’m good at game playing if someone prefers it, but I’d really rather not. So, we both have a no-nonsense, communicate-first, be clear kind of approach. And we’re both willing to really work at it - relationships take effort, and we’re willing to do what it takes.

  2. When not pressured, he’s incredibly thoughtful and generous. We have traditions we make ourselves, but not socially-imposed rules of gift buying on X occasion. No mind reading, but he’ll go out of his way to figure out something I’ll love. I try to do the same for him (though he’s better at it than I am, most of the time).

  3. He learns, and approaches change with an open mind and a quietly positive attitude (most of the time - hey, he’s not perfect!). Normal life has changed a lot for us over the years, initially as I healed from my childhood wounds, and later with kids. But each change has not been greeted with stubborn demands for a return of what was lost or missing, but embracing what was gained, and accepting the differences. I saw that early, and it was essential.

  4. What he doesn’t understand, he accepts on faith out of respect for me. I’ve got a pretty nasty history (abuse-related). He did not assume he could understand what that meant for me, or us, but worked with what he learned from me, took my experience and ideas at face value, was willing to put in work on his end of it, and even when things did not match his world view, he looked for outcomes as a measure of success, not whether a particular healing path was strange to him. As a result, I learned to trust his judgement, to the point where even my subconscious will listen to him when nothing else works (he stopped my nightly nightmares simply by telling them to stop).

  5. He respected my intellect from the get-go. I have never been in a relationship with a man who didn’t at some point have to learn to respect my intellect, and many had lapses where they forgot how smart I am, oops, sorry, didn’t mean to treat you like all the other dumb chicks! Ugh. His mother and sister were the theoretical math people in his family, his father more of a liberal arts and business type. Women were assumed to have brains, period. Good heavens that was refreshing!

  6. Because I knew I would not die without him. Together with him I was more whole, more myself, more free, more confident than I had been in any other relationship. I knew if he left me or died, I would carry on. It would hurt, horribly, but it would not destroy me, because as much as he is a part of the essence of my life, he is not part of my structure, if that makes sense. If you’ve ever read the Missing Piece Meets the Big O (Shel Silverstein), we are that last page, two whole people traveling together, not one stuffed into the other’s wounds.

But mostly, what I was ‘thinking’ was that I love him. I love him more than I ever thought possible, and I’d been in deep before him. Way deep. This was orders of magnitude beyond the most profound, soul-touching love I’d ever felt. It was like being hit by a train at full speed, and carried along (still alive, thankfully!). There was no ‘should I/shouldn’t I’ about marriage. It was simply the next place our path took us, the right, appropriate, necessary next step. No stopping that train.

When his brother-in-law asked this same question (why did you decide to get married) the night we told his family we were engaged, his response was simply, “we have to.” No, not because I was pregnant (as I wasn’t), but because the path that we were walking together went that way, it was our Tao, the next unfolding of our history together, what would happen, period.

We had to, because not doing so would be a violation of who we were, individually, and together.

He isn’t my everything. He is just himself, with me, and with our kids. Ever changing, ever growing, ever learning, always new to me, and always familiar, and beloved.

And that is pretty damn great.

13

[ul][sup]Couldn’t have put it any better myself and didn’t want to plagiarize.[/sup]
:wink: [sup]As of June 22, it will be 40 years.[/sup][/ul]

14

I’m female and have been married about three and a half months. We’ve been together for over four years now. Our respective college roommates set us up and he’s been my one ever since. We knew within a short time that our relationship was likely to go somewhere. It was a tough day when classes were over that spring and we lived about an hour and a half from each other. We talked a lot that summer and became even closer. I remember a friend of mine at the time asked me that summer that if he asked me to marry him, what would I say? I clearly remember saying yes I would. She was surprised but I knew my heart. As the year went on we gradually began talking more and more about our future. Eight months after we met he did pop the question in the course of our conversation one night and I said yes. On my birthday the next year, he got on one knee and gave me a ring. From that point we were working towards finishing college and finding jobs. We talked about much in the over two years we were engaged such as what we wanted from life, our dreams, our hopes, etc. We went through some tough times dealing with the deaths of family members and my health problems related to polycystic ovarian syndrome. The tough times made us closer. We were always and still are supportive of each other and willing to talk about problems openly. Through the good and the not so good in life, we both saw that where he was strong and I was weak and vice versa that we were stronger together that we are apart. I never had a doubt that I wanted to marry my husband. He’s the best friend I’ve ever had. He’s kind, loving, and supportive of me in every way. I admire him for his passion in his interests. He’s the most amazing person I know and I’m a better person just knowing him.

15

Female, hetero. Married 7 years.

Boyfriend A semi-proposed right after high school and instilled a terror of marriage in me. Now, to be fair, I was abroad for the summer and he was missing me a lot and did the semi-proposal by mail–but I had reached the opposite point of no longer being interested in the relationship at the same time. I certainly had never been interested in marriage, being 17 at the time!

Boyfriend B wanted to get married, but I didn’t at all. We were of completely different religions, which was important to me, and he didn’t respect my beliefs at all. It took me awhile to realize that this was also a lack of respect for me. And he was kind of obnoxious, which also took me awhile to figure out. And the fear was still strong in me.

Boyfriend C, now mr. genie, decided that I was the one for him about 3 weeks after we started dating. Luckily, he was too smart to say so; I was still wondering what I was doing dating this guy (terror again!). Later on, I told him I didn’t want to talk about marriage for at least several months, and we agreed to that.

Then one night, I was giving this whole marriage deal a lot of thought, and finally decided that if he asked, which was safely far in the future, then I would probably say yes. Which was as close as I could get to admitting that I wanted to marry him.

The next night, not 24 hours later, after a baseball game, we were talking in his room (with his roomie and several other people in the living room, and the door open), when a voice in his head yelled “Do it now!” He thought, “What?! No way! We agreed not to discuss it!” And then he did ask. I had hysterics. The roommate’s girlfriend, who was giving me a ride home, yelled for me to come with her. And I managed to get engaged.

So why did I pick him? He was a good guy, and I could see that he would be a good father and always take care of his family. He was honest, and had respect for me and was careful to let me have room to make my own choices. He had his convictions and stucky my them. He still is all those things! We make a good team and have an awful lot of lot of fun together. Also, he is cute, and does a very good Kermit the Frog impression, so how could I pass him up?
(I still spent our engagment in a state of self-inflicted nervousness, I think out of sheer habit, and on the morning of the wedding, was sitting with him outside the sealing room, going “Is this really a good idea?” He just grinned and said yes, it was. Once it was over with, I was just fine and happy. :p)

16

Male, 32 years old, engaged for 6 months getting married in October. I met my future wife at our job. We work for large company in Boston and live in southern Vermont. I knew the second she walked into my office to ask for the latest core sample readings - she’s an geologic analyst - rockhound for short.
I asked if she was new here and she said yes, I asked where she lived and she said Vermont. ??

Quizzically, I looked over and said, “but we’re in Boston you must be a contractor.” “Nope” she shot back, “I’m a Vermonter.”

I was in love.

I went to School in Vermont - Middlebury - and had only been in the private sector two years after I finished my masters in Experimental Archaeology at Exeter… She was a PhD Student at Hardvard. We are the same age, we love the same things, and she and I have the same hobbies, and now two years later she was hired full time, became a Doctor of earth and planetary study. I travel more than she does though ;)…

17

This may not sound terribly romantic or ennobling, but a big part of my mindset was that I was sick and tired of meeting a guy, falling in love, falling out of love, nursing my wounded heart, and starting over. I was just sick to death of it. I didn’t think I could go through it too many more times without going crackers or turning bitter.

I didn’t give myself some kind of mandate to fall in love with my husband when I met him, however. It’s just that when I started to have feelings for him, I began to really think about the future and what it would be like to have him in it. Not in the cute “I want to write ‘Mrs. Cranky Husband’ on my notebook” sort of way, but in a serious way. And he was of the same mindset. He said he’d achieved some the things in life he wanted to do, and the next step was to find the right girl to marry and to start to build a family.

I knew that he wouldn’t bore me, and that our love had room to grow, as opposed to having already peaked like I’d experienced in some whirlwind romances. I admired him. I knew he would try to be a good person and would inspire me to be a good person. I felt like he was making me complete. So at some point, it became inevitable that we would be married.

We’ve been married for 5 1/2 years. He is my best friend, and he makes me laugh every single day.

18

I think it safe to say there is a maturity level that goes along with knowing who is the one. [I say *maturity* level because I realize one can not put an age on how mature one is]

People who meet at 16 and celebrate 40 years of being married are few and far between. I met my soon to be wife rather late…in my late 20’s, yet I believe she is the one, the only, perfect soul to match mine.

19

My husband’s divorce had been final about 4 months when we met. Our first date was a movie, and afterwards, we talked for a loooooong time. The next day, we went to the beach, walked for miles and talked and talked and talked. The day after that, he told me I was going to marry him. I thought about his declaration for a few days, thought about spending the rest of my life with him, and decided he was right - I was going to marry him. Four weeks after our first date, we eloped, and in December, we’ll celebrate 20 years.

I don’t recall any deep and profound considerations on my part. It’s as if I knew that he was as kind and honest and generous and genuine as he seemed. And he is. And I still think about spending the rest of my life with him.

20

female, lesbian. Me and my SO have been together for 10 years, and been through 3 domestic partner ceremonies (local #1, local #2, state). I’m about as married as a queer person can get.

When I met her I wasn’t attracted to her at first. We became pretty good friends, though. She was a fantastic western/swing dancer, bright, funny, involved in the community, close to to her family, friendly, charming, polite to a fault, giving, friendly to everyone she encountered, my buddys absolutely adored her and she had a big crush on me. Even my best friend, a gay man I’ve known since 7th grade who was frank about disliking the flakes I’d dated before, told me point blank I was an ass if I didn’t go for her. But I just didn’t feel the spark.

Finally she plain gave up on me. She said “well, you don’t want a relationship, you don’t even want to just sleep with me, so let’s just be friends.” And for some stupid reason, that pissed me off so much that I got even by developing a full blown crush on her. Yes, I’m that much of a dork.

But it worked out. One night she walked me home and I planted the biggest kiss on her. And it was like 10,000 watts of electricity shot through the both of us.

After that we were inseparable, and I knew she was the one I was going to spend the rest of my life with when I confronted her with a problem I had with her. She got a bit miffed, but then thought it over, discussed it with me rationally, and compromised with me because she loved and respected me enough to take my views and feelings into account.

Damn. I’m going to AIM a big love note over to her now.