I met someone I wanted to be around forever and who I felt wouldn’t beat me to death in my sleep.
I needed someone to put the trash cans out by the curb when I’m travelling.
She lost the bet. 
She was very, very persistent and wore me down. Seriously. I simply gave in. I liked her, a lot, but I wasn’t ready…or so I thought.
I heave a great sigh of relief whenever I think back to how close I was to completely missing out on the best thing that has ever happened to me.
[parental unit]“Awww… Who the Hell would Ever marry You!?”[/parental unit]
…if you have kids, don’t you Fucking Dare ever say this to Them…
I always felt that people should be married. In my case, because we loved each other, we had a lot in common (most importantly, an interest in science fiction), and because it seemed right. She had also helped me through the worst times of my life.
I used to be Mormon, and I felt a lot of pressure to be married at a young age. Also, not having sex before you’re married can really speed up the whole relationship. Boy, I screwed up!
I guess I’m too dense to get this… 
As for him having a boat - he did, and it was a piece of crap that eventually rotted away. It was never in the water from the time I saw it, so that boat has become a joke between us. He was, in fact, my sailing instructor, and over the years, we’ve owned 8 sailboats, a Hobie cat, a jet ski, and a couple of dinghies. Last year, we got rid of the last of our boat stuff - it’s too expensive a hobby in retirement.
I believed in the concept of a publicly demonstrated commitment to build a life together.
After 20 years, sometimes I still feel like we are just living together.
It’s a reference to the comedy series “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”. They get a boat because they think it will help them meet women, and the sociopathic character Dennis says (to the confusion and disgust of his friend Mac) that once out on the water, women will not refuse his advances “because of the implication” of being alone, out on the water with strange men.
It’s a messed up (and very funny) show.
The resort was having this great weekend special on wedding ceremonies.
In general, it was always part of my life plan. Go to university, get employed, do the family thing.
In specific, because I then met the right person to pursue said plans with!
All my ex-girlfriends were getting married, or perfectly happy without me. Also, to save on taxes.
I have had cause to reconsider this reasoning.
First time: It was the 60s and you had to be married to sleep together. Lasted less than 2 years.
Second time: My partner of 20 years greeted me when I came home from work with the news that if we got married I could be on his insurance and we could retire. My response was let’s go get the license. I never intended to be married again but then I never intended to live without him either so it seemed ok to get married for insurance. (I see I’m not the only one, Procrustus.) I have never been happier, both with the marriage and the retirement.
I used to be Mormon as well. I came back from my mission, started dating a girl I had met there, but who had come over to Utah to study English. We started getting serious right away, just like we were supposed to, desire kicked in and I proposed. She accepted. Then the next day we both decided it was too fast. We dated another year but then broke up.
Yeah, that happened to me, too.
I’m now on my second marriage. We were getting serious and we both wanted children so we didn’t take precautions. I had not had a child in my first marriage, so I wasn’t particularly confident that I wasn’t shooting blanks. However, she got pregnant within a month of our decision to not use birth control.
Here in Asia, if you have babies together, you generally get married. So we did.
Pretty much this. It just made a lot of sense from a pension/tax/insurance perspective.
And having been together for about ten years already it wasn’t like we were worried about making a big mistake.
First time: lots of sensible reasons, none of which were lovetrustrespect.
Second time: we’d only really known each other for 4 months, two of which I spent out of town. We had both ended truly horrible marriages–my divorce was only filed 2 months previously–and went into the relationship with eyes wide open, pointing and laughing at all the red flags and reassuring each other the whole dance was just for fun, neither of us was in a good place to be thinking about marriage. We had no sensible reasons to get married, but for the first time we were both knowing lovetrustrespect. So one day we were driving past a jeweler’s store, stopped in and got some bling, and then did vows by the fish tank in the living room on new years eave. Best foolish decision we’ve ever made.
Decided to formalize a situation that already existed.
Fell in love with her, realized she was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, and she pretty quickly felt the same way about me.
And for both of us, there isn’t any daylight between wanting to spend the rest of your life with someone, and wanting to marry them. That’s just how we roll.
We had been together for 5 years and moving towards marriage. We stopped actively trying not to get pregnant and it happened. That sped up the process. That led to 3 years of wedded bliss. We were married for 10.