The Longevity of Your Relationship?

[Sierra]

Hey guys,

I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine who's in an LDR. She made a comment to me that got me thinking: "Do I think we'll get married? Naw, but it'll do for now."

Now I realize many of us here are different age groups which is really why I wanted to see people's responses here. Do you see yourself marrying your SO? Is it too early to tell? Are you too young to make that decision? If you don't believe in marriage, do you see yourself as being with your partner for a serious long term relationship?



I'll start out by answering my own questions. lol.
First, I'm 27, I've been engaged before, and even though I was, I did not see myself marrying that man (very long complicated story). I know you aren't going to marry every man you date, but I do see myself marrying my boyfriend. I can't even look at engagement rings without getting this crazy feeling in my stomach. I, personally, would never engage in a long distance relationship if I didn't see serious long term potential. Like I said, I know not all relationships work out, but I'd like to think I'll marry my boyfriend.

[anlgp]

I don't date people I don't see myself as having the possibility to marry them

[Sierra]

I have dated people that I knew I wasn't going to marry, but it was at a very different time in my life, which is why I'm interested in the responses here, although I suspect they will largely be the same. I know I wouldn't be in a long distance relationship if I didn't see us getting married.

[Mara]

Right before my SO and I started dating, I decided "just dating" wasn't for me. I can't justify putting in the time and energy if it isn't for someone I love and when I love someone being together long term is sort of part of it you know? But I do think wanting to be together long term and actually being together long term are two different things. I was engaged before and I very much wanted to spend my life with him, but I knew I wouldn't and I knew I wouldn't marry him. I don't know when I realized I wouldn't, but at some point I did; we were too different. With my SO, I'm pretty sure we will get married. I think what makes this relationship different from all my others is how similar we are. We get on very well and have very few things we disagree on or argue about. We want the same things out of life, have the same values, goals, etc. Barring some unforeseen event, I think we will make it through the long term.

[Lyric]

Clearly getting married is not an option here... but we both consider this a lifelong commitment. I couldn't do LDR otherwise.

[snow_girl]

I see us getting married, he is the first one I've thought that about but we've not talked about it and I don't see it happening in the next year.

[Engel]

I have dated people that I knew I wasn't going to marry, but it was at a very different time in my life, which is why I'm interested in the responses here, although I suspect they will largely be the same. I know I wouldn't be in a long distance relationship if I didn't see us getting married.

I never wanted to get married, so yeah, I dated many guys I saw/wanted no future with.


My SO and I, as most of you know, will get married the end of this month, but even before that was decided, since the begin I had this gut feeling we would be together, for good, that this relationship would be different, would make me different.

[Zapookie]

I see myself marrying him. I don't think I would date someone in the long term if I didn't see myself with them for the rest of my life, however, this is my first serious relationship so maybe my view isn't entirely valid or helpful.

I think maybe we're too young to get married (20 and 22), but I know it will happen. It has to. We're too perfect for each other and I don't see myself ever creating such a strong bond as ours with anyone else. We're very similar in our views on life and also with our likes and dislikes. We run on the same wavelength - we have a strong mental connection, as well as emotional and physical. I'll often think of something the exact same time that he does, or I'll go to talk to him at the same time he tries to talk to me. We're just really synced up. We rarely fight and if we do, it's resolved relatively quickly and just brings us closer together than before.

I reckon we have what it takes to make it to our golden years, and so does he.

[Haley53]

I'm 20 and have been in two LDRs.

In my first long-distance relationship, marriage never even crossed my mind, not even when we made it official and started looking into the future to plan summers and visits. I think this is a part of where I went wrong, not so much in worrying about marriage but in thinking more deeply about where we were both headed in life and what our future plans/goals were and where we anticipated we were headed in our lives. He ended up wanting me to drop everything and broke-up with me when I said that I wouldn't. I had only started university and I was not about to go anywhere without undergraduate education, and that was not where I was/am planning on stopping either. We ended up getting back together with one another but suffice to say, we probably shouldn't have. The thing is that I was happy with the relationship. It was my first almost-healthy (LOL) relationship and it helped me break away from an abusive friendship with an "ex" (we hadn't technically dated, but our relationship had been that of partners). The thing that ended up happening though is that it empowered me to the point I started realising I deserved even better than his treatment, which I'd previously been blinded to due to seeing only the good in comparison to the bad in my friendship with the other. I ended up breaking things off completely due to reoccurring behaviour, issues, and problems unrelated to the distance or our future.

With my current partner, well, I had always felt such strong and fond affections for him that being with him felt so suddenly right. Although our plans have been thrown for a loop and though things still aren't easy and though we can only take it one day at a time, I am not opposed to fighting for the future I see for us. The thing is that I also realise that we're young and through our break and what happened, I've been so shocked into realising that our relationship is as young and as fragile and human as we are, so while I don't want to, I can also accept that things may change. Things may happen. Life may have different plans and I'd need to accept them whatever they were, despite the fact I still would not go down without a fight. :P But with my partner, it was more a matter of falling into place, doing something that felt so natural and like I should have been doing it ages ago, etc. My partner is the first one I can say that I have ever had any intention of marrying, or even the mere want to marry. I had always figured I would be the sort to date more for happiness and see what happens and where life takes me, but I think there's a certain seriousness/maturity to this relationship that took me by surprise.

In answer to the other two, I'd say yes, both my partner and I are too young to get married tomorrow. :P We both want it someday but neither of us want to rush the decision, not to mention neither he nor I are in a position to get married and start our lives together. We both feel we want to be in more settled, stable places before marriage and also in a position where we can live together soon after. I also want to be with him a while (as I would with anyone) and also ideally live together before we think about committing to each other for the rest of our lives in such a way marriage comes seriously into call. For the latter question, I think I could be happy not being married, not legally, happy with a ceremony and union, but with our situation, marriage is probably the only way we're ever going to get permanent residence in either of our countries. However, I do love the idea of being his Missus.

EDIT: To tie things back to what I was saying about "where I went wrong" with my ex, I want to note that I did discuss the future with my boyfriend pretty early on. I made a point to tell him that I wasn't trying to rush or push the seriousness of our relationship but I wanted to tell him where I was at with school and as for where I would want to live, that even if I spent some time elsewhere, I would always want to come back home to my family and bizarre little beach town. I wanted to let him know that it was unlikely I could ever make a permanent move, that I could ever be the one to permanently uproot myself and leave. I wanted to put it all out there so that if we ever reached the point of being serious enough to move in together or get engaged, we weren't stuck at a crossroads.

[kiara_silver]

I'll be 20 this year, and I been with my SO nearly 3 years. We may have been young when we started dating, but I felt early on that I could see myself marrying him. Lol I would secretly say it to myself sometimes. But I've always had that mindset, that the one i fall for has to want a future. I never casually dated or dated someone i couldn't see myself with. My SO is actually my first lol. And we both want the same thing, the long term commitment and future together. We talk open about marriage and our views on what we want out of each other and out of a relationship in general. And we both take it seriously, it's not just dating for us.

[Sora1101]

I know I'm only 17, turning 18 in a month, I know I'm young but honestly I see myself marrying my SO. It might not be for a long time but somewhere down the line I know I want to marry him, he's the one. Honestly I don't think I could do a LDR if the outcome wasn't eventually marriage or at the very least a long term CD relationship, I mean whats the point of going through all the struggles of a LDR, barely seeing them, blowing tons of money on visits, and aching from lonliness if your partner wasn't the one you wanted to be with for the rest of your life? But for me I guess I only date people I could see myself in a long term relationship with, I never saw the point in casual dating, I always saw dating as testing the waters for the eventual outcome with someone, marriage.

[squirrelz15]

I don't date people I don't see a potential future with. Sometimes I stay around longer than I should once I know they aren't who I would want to marry, but I never start a relationship knowing it's doomed from the beginning. As far as this current relationship. We're great together, and have known each other for years, everyone says we're perfect for each other, I'd like to believe that but I also think it's way to early to be making those kind of decisions. We still have a while, so at this point I'm just going to enjoy this part of my relationship and worry about the rest later.

[Kristin91]

I think maybe we're too young to get married, but I know it will happen. It has to. We're too perfect for each other and I don't see myself ever creating such a strong bond as ours with anyone else. We're very similar in our views on life and also with our likes and dislikes. We run on the same wavelength - we have a strong mental connection, as well as emotional and physical. I'll often think of something the exact same time that he does, or I'll go to talk to him at the same time he tries to talk to me. We're just really synced up. We rarely fight and if we do, it's resolved relatively quickly and just brings us closer together than before.

Yes! This!

[Haley53]

I don't want to detract from the original topic, but from the responses here, I sort of wanted to add that I don't feel it's as B&W as "casual dating" and "dating for marriage." The relationship I had with my first long-distance partner might not have been for the long-haul, but it was a serious relationship that the both of us took seriously. We had the same "rules" as any other serious relationship, valued our relationship as such, and enjoyed our company with one another enough to put up with the hardships of being long-distance. Although I think he grew to see marriage as more of an option than I ever did, I wanted to put out there that it's not like you either date for marriage or you date casually. I think you have a serious, long-term relationship without thinking about marriage or without necessarily seeing marriage in the future. To me, casual dating is short-term, dating around, and dating for the sake of "fun" as opposed to something serious. While I might have a different definition than others, I simply wanted to defend my standpoint and say I didn't date my ex casually any more than I dated him for marriage. Relationships are more complicated, in my opinion, then merely those two options.

[Kristin91]

Eclaire, I agree with you. I think relationships are far more complex than any simplification we can put on them. Also, I don't think anyone on here would think less of you or whatever for not wanting to marry who you were in a LDR with... we all know how hard it is, and we all know what it takes to make it work! Although I am happy for you and your new boyfriend!