We were together just short of five years when we got married. I met DH when I was 18 and got married two weeks before I turned 23. We have been married 26 years now.
I am fascinated reading about some of you who were childhood sweethearts and who are still together. DD turns 15 in a couple of weeks and she is thoroughly smitten with a particular boy. They have broken up twice now to give each other space but it is amicable and they don't seem to be able to keep away from each other and are like best friends. I always take very seriously that sometimes people fall in love at a young age and who knows where this will go.....
DH and I dated for 6 months, got engaged, married 6 months later. We've been married 11 1/2 years.
My sister and her husband have been married 15 years (I think), but they dated off and on (and got unofficially engaged a couple of times) for 10 years prior to that.
We became friends - September 1996
We started dating seriously - July 1997
Got engaged - November 1998
Moved in together - April 1999
Got married - October 2002
Bought our first house - October 2003
First child - October 2004
My DH and I met/started dating at age 24, got engaged about 2 years later at 26, and married 5 months after we were engaged. We've been married 1.5 years this week.
If my friends are any example the older you are the shorter amount of time you tend to be with someone before you get married.
DW and I were together for 4 1/2 years before we got married. Of those 4 1/2 years we were engaged a year and a half. We probably would have been married earlier, but we went to WDW during our engagement. Plus I had some prior debt that I got into which I wanted to get out of before we got married. She was patient enough to wait as we saved money to pay for our wedding. We celebrated 2 yrs in August and will have been together 7 years this coming January.
We were engaged after 5 WEEKS....yes, thats weeks. Both of us were 23, we just knew it was right. The engagement lasted 1 1/2 years. I was in another state. So took time to relocate 1 year into the engagement, find a new job. All that fun stuff.
We just celebrated our 16th anniversary this past June. 2 daughters later, 12 and 14...still going strong! Lisa
My DH and I crossed paths many times before we dated. He made fun of an ex-BF when I turned him down for the prom and stood up to another ex-BF when he threatened me at the lunch table in high school. We officially met several years later. Started dating officially in Sept. and got engaged at Christmas. My dad refused to allow me to get married until we had been together at least 2 years. I respected my dad so we were together 3 years when we got married. I was 25 and DH was 23. We are going to WDW in less than 2 weeks to celebrate 28 years of marraige.
DH & I lived together ten years before we got married. He was ready to get married within a couple months but I was gun shy after a prior bad marriage. I had to make sure it would last before I'd marry him. We've been married almost three years. He is a KEEPER.