The Longevity of Your Relationship?

[elizabethjp2010]

I think I will marry Michael... We are both young and neither of us are ready to marry right now, but in a few more years why not? I think in 5 years we will get married, I will be about 25 and he will be about 26, That seems like a good age to me.

[Alemap]

When I met my beau, I didn't want to date anyone seriously; having just barely emotionally survived a truly world-rockingingly nasty breakup some months earlier, I didn't feel remotely ready. We started seeing each other casually, he spotted what was going on between us well in advance of me doing so, and took it upon himself to change my mind.
It was as if I'd lived my entire life, and multiple long-term loving relationships, happy in my independence, believing I was a whole person by myself, and I never realised there was anything missing until we met, and suddenly the hole that I was never even aware existed in me was filled as he slid smoothly into it, the perfect final piece to my jigsaw.
When he had to leave, we both had to revise a long-standing personal policy that we would never become involved in an LDR, for each other. We would not have done that if we didn't each feel the other person might be 'it" for us, our ideal lifemate.
So, yes, I'm only doing this because he and I realised startlingly quickly that that we would like to get married, someday. Of course, we also have the next four years to test the waters and to see if that's a viable option or not, before it even becomes a near-horizon issue.

P.S. As someone who really enjoys the formalised "dating" process, I can say that dating casually can be an awful lot of fun, and there's nothing inferior to serious dating about it - just different; I know that for me, in the months after my breakup, when I knew I didn't want to be anyone's girlfriend but still remained opened to meeting people and "seeing what was out there", it was a tremendously effective tool in helping me reassert my independence, reconfirm my romantic self-image, and get a real feel for myself as a single person. Dating casually helped me realise my identity as separate from my relationship, and more importantly, from my ex, again (I never lost myself, and maintained my own interests, but it was still a big part of my world). It allowed me to return and commit fully to a relationship with myself, separate from any man, without there being any element of just waiting for the next relationship to come along; I think there's a lot to be said for avoiding serial monogamy, as most people do benefit from a recovery period in between serious relationships to get their heads straightened out and process baggage so that it doesn't get carried over.
Furthermore, when all I wanted was companionship and, sometimes, physical intimacy, but wasn't ready for emotional intimacy yet, it was a very positive thing that there was a mechanism available to me to allow me to pursue and enjoy those comforts. As long as one is ethical about it (offering full disclosure of one's casual intentions to any new paramour), I see nothing inherently wrong with casual dating - indeed, for some people, such as myself, it can be enormously therapeutic.

P.P.S. And Eclaire is right; it's entirely possible to have a relationship of the "serious for now" nature, that does not lead to marriage and was never meant to. People engage with a partner for all sorts of reasons, and every relationship we have fulfills different needs at the time we have it - furthermore, it's worth mentioning that not everyone even wants to get married; should that make their romances inherently less valid? There are different types of commitment, and it's certainly a worthy point that "long-term" and "lifelong" are not synonymous and that, furthermore, there are an additional two unmentioned tenses available, besides.

[garnet]

Yes? :P But I went into this relationship saying hey, I am 28 years old (oh the twenties... I miss you), I need to see this going somewhere, and if it isn't right we need to not drag it out.

[SDPersona]

I'll soon be 25 years old and my current relationship is my first LDR. Previously I've had four relationships that were all CD. Two were committed with some degree of dreams of marriage that never were meant to be serious due to severeal reasons. The other two were, for lack of a better word, "casual" where I knew perfectly well that there wasn't going to be a future because of the kind of men I was with. I also dated around a lot inbetween relationships.

You see, I have some history and I find that to be a good thing because without those I wouldn't be the woman I am now and I definitely wouldn't be where I am now. I'd like to think that I have good idea now of what I want my (*adult) relationship to be like and what kind of man I want in a boyfriend. So, I'm loving where I'm at with my current boyfriend. There also is a big possibility that we might end up married, but who knows. All I know that he wants to get married in two or three years when he'd be 24/25 and I'd be 27/28. I'm letting time and God decide if we're meant to last....

[floridaellen]

Do you see yourself marrying your SO?
I could definitely see myself marrying my SO. Even when we were broken up for a month and a half, I could still picture myself walking down the aisle to him. We do bicker and fight; our relationship is not perfect. We're still young and maturing. But we're doing it together. I can't see myself with anyone else. I believe he's my other half. I'm not going to marry him tomorrow or next year, but I believe it will happen in the future.

Is it too early to tell?
I don't think so. He's been my best friend for almost two years and my boyfriend for most of that time.

Are you too young to make that decision?
I'm too young to get married but not too early to work on a relationship that leads to marriage.

If you don't believe in marriage, do you see yourself as being with your partner for a serious long term relationship?
I believe fully in marriage as both a legal committment and a religious committment. I do respect those who don't; it's a personal decision.

[yayagrl]

I don't feel my SO and I are at the stage where we should be thinking about marrying each other yet. I've never really been interested in dating a bunch of guys and getting married, but I have no clue if my current SO and I will get married. It's so funny you brought up this topic as I was just mentioning something similar to one of my friends on here. I kind of feel like your friend. Do I feel we'll get married? Not really. It's possible, but at this point anything could happen. Also I can't really say I'd want to marry a man I haven't met in person yet. I'm only 20 and though I do WANT to get married someday, I can't say it will definitely be to my SO. I'm a bit cynical when it comes to love sometimes at least for myself. I get excited for other people heh I'm weird like that . I could see myself in a long term relationship though. Maybe once we've been together longer I could see myself marrying him. We shall see what the future holds.

[ChibiFelicia]

Before my SO and I met we had already made it clear that this was going to be hard and we wanted to and was ready to be serious. I went into it thinking hey i'm 24 I'm not thinking about marriage but i know i want to get to know this man a whole lot better. He came in to this relationship knowing he has had enough messing around, being 30 at the time and had been in a fair few relationships that didn't go anywhere because he didn't try hard enough, he wanted to try with me. Over 2 years in and we are going to get married, we want to spend the rest of our lives together.

We both made it clear that if it wasn't going to work out there is no point in wasting each others time. It's why he made such a huge effort to come and meet me so quickly, and the subsequent visit was so soon after his first.

[Babypuppy21]

I’m 21 and my SO is 28..when we first started dating I was 18 turning 19 and he did have a real problem with my age in the beginning. So I had to show him I wear big girl panties..now our ages aren’t an issue. Initially I thought our relationship would stick to that of a friendship but that so didn’t happen and here I am 2 years later planning to marry him this year. Did I know marriage would have been the end result no but I can’t and don’t plan to picture the rest of my life with someone else.

[Rugger]

I know that I want to marry my SO ( even though he doesn't know it yet). I knew 6 months into our relationship that I was serious about being with him. If I can't see myself with someone after 6 months to a year together, I'm gone. I don't half- ass anything, dating is no different. I'm either devoted, or gone.

[Sierra]

I'm the same way Rugger. I once broke up with someone because I didn't want to buy him a Christmas present. I know how shallow that may sound but hear me out. If I care less about your feelings than I do about going to the mall -- I don't see a future with you, so I'm not going to waste either of our times.

Thank you so much everyone for the responses, I have to say they are pretty interesting. I assumed that almost everyone here most likely felt that their partner was their life partner, why else would we be in long distance relationships, but it's nice to hear everyone's perspective on marriage and their relationship.

[13000km]

Do you see yourself marrying your SO?
Yes, I do. Honestly, at the beginning of this relationship, I wouldn't have said the same. I had never been interested in marriage before, the two relationships I had before meeting my current boyfriend was when I was 15 and 17 anyway so I didn't even come close to thinking about it. Now, after being together for 2 years, serious talk of marriage has recently come up. Our families would love to see us get married before we travel the world together. Neither of us believe in sex or living together before marriage, so this step has become an important detail for us.

Are you too young to make that decision?
Possibly, so we're not going to jump into it right now. We're 21 and 22 now, and the plan is to get married in mid to late 2013. We'll take it step by step, neither of us thinks the relationship is going to take a different turn, but the time between now in 2013 gives us some time to grow individually and as a couple.

[Sierra]

Oh, I forgot to ask and meant to. Have any of you guys who see yourself marrying your SO had important conversations about things like having children, holidays, work schedules, blah blah blah yet? My boyfriend and I talk about marriage, but we also discuss these things because they can make or break a marriage so we'd like to get everything out in the open before hand.

[garnet]

Oh, I forgot to ask and meant to. Have any of you guys who see yourself marrying your SO had important conversations about things like having children, holidays, work schedules, blah blah blah yet? My boyfriend and I talk about marriage, but we also discuss these things because they can make or break a marriage so we'd like to get everything out in the open before hand.

Since I'm 11 years older than my SO, I told him that if he wanted to marry me, and I wanted to marry him, a baby would be happening sooner than later. I don't have forever like he does. He was fine with that. Obviously. We are so similar that holidays, kids, all the big stuff, we lined up nicely.

[floridaellen]

Oh, I forgot to ask and meant to. Have any of you guys who see yourself marrying your SO had important conversations about things like having children, holidays, work schedules, blah blah blah yet? My boyfriend and I talk about marriage, but we also discuss these things because they can make or break a marriage so we'd like to get everything out in the open before hand.

My SO and I have had all these conversations. We've talked over basically every issue of marriage: money, living together, children, holidays, place to live (that's a big one), faith, ect. Now we just have to wait until we're old enough to marry.

[greensweatergirl]

I'm the same way Rugger. I once broke up with someone because I didn't want to buy him a Christmas present. I know how shallow that may sound but hear me out. If I care less about your feelings than I do about going to the mall -- I don't see a future with you, so I'm not going to waste either of our times.

I don't think that's shallow at all. I decided to break up with someone I was in a 5 year relationship with because they didn't bother to buy me a birthday present. I thought along the same lines as you - if he cared so little about my feelings that he couldn't ride down the street and pick up a card, there wasn't a hope in hell it would work out.