Nov 6, 2008
Do we give time too much credence as a method for getting to know each other?
It seems many people know who they’re going to marry a long time before they actually do it.
Why this marital postponement?
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© 2012 Abuyo. All rights reserved.
Hello! I recently found your blog and put it in my blogsurfer.
On the question. I think that it is essential that people receive a vision for their common life as wife and husband. Moreover, it seems to me that time is needed simply to test the feelings- to see whether they are simply emotions or something way deeper.
Our society – and even some of our churches – are giving the message that people must finish their education and be established in their careers before they marry.
Not only does this require enormous self-control on the couple’s part, and, in my opinion, invite sin, it also gives the impression that education and career are more important than the marriage.
And our divorce statistics are still high, which indicates that this attitude is not leading to stronger marriages.
The fact that my courtship lasted four years was purely logistical–my bride to be lived in Brazil and I in the US. When we finally did “tie the knot” we had only four months of face-to-face “getting to know you” time.
Brazilians chuckle when we Americans talk about “getting financially set” before you get married. For many of them, this would mean never ever getting married.
I think the country song has it right (philosophically if not grammatically) : “Livin’ on love, buyin’ on time. Without somebody nothin’ ain’t worth a dime.”
I don’t think there’s one answer to this. I do think sometimes we can rely too much on time, and I definitely recognize the danger of a long engagement.
But I’m also thinking of a couple I know who, very wisely, I think, broke off their engagement many months in. I’m very glad for them that they didn’t marry right away.
Depending on the situation, time may be needed for maturity growth. We all know things today that we didn’t know yesterday. Having said that, sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be at the place where I can say, “NOW, I’m ready for marriage.”
My wife and I would have gotten married quicker than we were did (it was a year and a half from the time we started “dating”), but we couldn’t due to our situation. We both worked for a traveling ministry team and he only GOOD time to porpose to her AND get married were when we had breaks and we weren’t traveling to dfferent churches and places. We began dating in February of ’07 and I asked her to put up with me for the rest of our lives (aka marry me!) on December 29, during our Christmas break. Then we were going to get married in May (5 months later) but my parents are missionaries and hey couldn’t be here at that time, so August 8 it was! We do not encourage long engagements. 8 Months was way too long! But God is good, and we love being married.
Rob and I knew we were going to marry each other about a month after our relationship turned romantic (we’d been good friends for about a year and a half before). We waited almost 2 years before we got married though, for logistical and relational purposes (long distance). Love and knowledge DO take time to grow… if you put too much weight on a new relationship, it may warp under the pressure. It was *very* good for us to grow strong and slow; we built a strong foundation through the difficulty of being apart and the passage of time.
However, in answer to your title question, time is not the ONLY means of growth. IOW, you can’t rely on time to bring about growth, you have to intentionally choose activities and conversations, etc. to really go deep. Like plants– the seeds don’t sprout and turn into full-grown bushes overnight; they need time. But time alone won’t do it, they can’t grow without good soil and water as well.
The length of dating and engaged relationships imposed on modern society is largely a result of the increase in promiscuous behavior. Historically and Biblically relationships were much shorter (Biblical in example not in principle). In our modern society the privileges of marriage are available without the responsibilities. Why bother getting married at all? Because of this attitude long relationships are encouraged. That said, every situation is different and I don’t believe that there is any standard principle.
I ALWAYS encourage my friends to have short engagements. I also find it extremely important to not get physically involved AT ALL before marriage. My husband and I were the first of our crew to become engaged and thought we were doing well not kissing before we got engaged. Boy we were surprised where that led us! It led to our getting married 4 months earlier than we planned in order to legitimize our actions :) still, by the grace of God, we didn’t have sex before marriage. Physical intimacy is a natural outpouring of love and thereby we cannot “awaken love before it’s time”. On the other side, marriage counseling is essential and so there should be time for that.
My wife and I started dating in March 07. I asked her to marry me in May 07. We were married in August 07 and pregnant in Dec. 07. We don’t waste time…
Some say they need time to go through all kinds of things together–every holiday of the year, for example, so they know if they will handle things well together or not.
But my philosophy is this: You can’t possibly go through every possible scenario together before marriage. No matter how long you date, court, or live together, there are going to be things that come up that you are totally unprepared for.
There are things that come up during engagement, that you will never face during dating/courting/living together. There are things that come up during marriage that will never come up during engagement. There are things that come up during the middle and later years of marriage that will never come up during the early years of marriage. And so on and so on.
However, there is wisdom in not rushing into things.
Once we make that commitment, though, we must remember Song of Solomon 8:7…
“Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away…”
Well, funny you asked. I just started my blog, where I’m writing about the number one thing keeping us from getting married: student loans.
We knew we wanted to get married within a month of dating. That was 2.5 years ago. Once we get engaged, though, we’d like to get married within three months. As short as possible.
Yes. I think our culture places TOO much value on time together and not enough value emphasis on: counseling with a minister and/or older couple, spending times with and around both families in both gathering and more personal situations, etc.
Also, our culture places too much emphasis on marrying the “right” person and NOT on marrying for the “right” reasons and/or looking for the “right” characteristics in a life-mate.
It depends on ages too. My hubby and I knew each other from childhood, but didn’t get together until years later… So I was still in high school and I thought I should at least finish that. ;) I think we received (and still receive) terrible advice about finishing school first. My hubby is getting an M. Div. so if we waited until he was done with school it would be approximately an 8-9 year wait!
Almost everything I learned about either marriage or my wife that was of any use at all in fostering our unity I learned after being married.
The cultural emphasis upon “time to get to know the person” has two negative side effects: 1) it ingrains the knowledge of the person not as spouse but as courtship partner (two very different relationships), 2) it solidifies a false confidence that you are adequately prepared for marriage (based upon books you read, conversations you had, etc.)
There are many things that make a good marriage, of course, but I think that the three most important things to have in place are
1) the man’s readiness to affectionately and sacrificially care for his wife,
2) the woman’s respect of and trust in her husband’s affectionate care for her,
and 3) a deep, mutual committment to a vision of unity in marriage.
My wife and I:
-Met in June
-Began Dating in October
-Got engaged in November
-Married in April
The only reason we waited so long to get married is that we couldn’t book a church/reception hall on such short notice.
If you know you want to marry her (or him), why wait?
We started dating, started planning our wedding five days later, were married 3 1/2 months later…I guess we’re not the norm ;-)
Five most amazing years and counting!
I proposed to my wife 5 days after we met. We were married 2 months later.
“They” said it would never last.
We celebrated our 30th Anniversary this past June, and we are looking forward to at least 30 more.
I have a friend who convinced his now wife to agree to marry him before they started dating. Whatever he said was very convincing. I don’t think their engagement was super-short, but it wasn’t that way so they could mutually say, “yeah, let’s get married.”
I know that doesn’t really give an answer to your question…but a success story of non-marital postponement.
Abraham,
My wife and I dated 3 and a half years before we married. We both waited until we graduated from college, mainly for financial reasons! Now, I don’t recommend couples waiting 3 years (though I know couples who have waited longer…), but the “time” factor is surely different for every couple.
It seems that the elapse of “time” itself may not mean much for the relationship, but how a couple maximizes that time could mean everything. There seems to be good sense behind the idea of “seeing someone in every season of life.” Nonetheless, I suppose people can hide who they truly are until the wedding.
What is your take on “time” for a couple? Do you see a hard-and-fast rule? Should we attribute any relational intimacy to “time”?
@Kaylene – “sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be at the place where I can say, ‘NOW, I’m ready for marriage.’”
Wow, you nailed that one on the head.
@Myrddin – Thank you for sharing those wise words.
@People who got married really fast – God bless you!
I met my husband in September of ’99. We started dating in October, and we dated until June of 2000. We didn’t talk to each other and probably avoided one another until April of 2001. He wanted to go to dinner one last time before I graduated college and he moved 12 hours away to transfer to another school. We ended up getting engaged a week later and were married in July of that year.
I think a lot depends on shared vision and goals as well as a realistic view of marriage being the union of two sinners. It’s important to recognize the need for a commitment to work at marriage.
My wife and I chose a 12-month engagement as a testimony to chastity. We wanted to show anyone who was watching that we trusted God’s provision for marriage by the evidence of, well, when we conceived out first child.
BTW, I think “quality time” is a complete hoax. If you spend 4 hours all at one time time once a month, every month, practicing the guitar — no matter how intense the practicing is — you will never achieve professional-quality guitar-playing skills.
Why would we think that “quality time” works in any relationship when relationship-biuilding is more complicated than guitar-playing? Quantity of time is a quality necessary for relationship-building.
If 2 people can’t get married soon after their intentions of courting/dating one another are made known, they need not be in those relationships in the first place. I believe that dating relationships are for the sole purpose of pursuing a relationship for marriage — therefore, if 2 people are a good match for a relationship, they need to get married without being constrained by all the unbiblical excuses that we American Christians like to make (i.e. too much debt, need to finish school, want to buy a house first, etc.).
I think that is a lot of what the Apostle Paul is articulating in 1 Corinthians 7:36: “If anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly toward his betrothed, if his passions are strong, and it has to be, let him do as he wishes: let them marry—it is no sin.” Years upon years of a relationship with someone you’re not married to while behaving properly the entire time (let’s remember, this includes our eyes and our hearts — not just our hands and our lips)? I can’t imagine 2 people loving each other to the point of a courting/dating relationship and being able to keep their hearts, minds, hands, and eyes pure for years and years… identify your passions (as Paul is saying), and get married — it’s a good and beautiful thing.
I think a host of factors play in to how soon a couple should marry. There are good reasons to speed things up and good reasons to slow it down.
My wife and I dated for 8 months before getting engaged and married 5 months later. Our whole process of dating, engagement, wedding planning, etc. was so enjoyable and comfortable that I had a strong peace that we were going about things the right way in the right time.
It took us a year and a half to agree on what food to have at the reception :-)
We started dating in high school, and wanted to wait until we were sure we were a bit more mature. I think we waited a bit longer than we should have (we got engaged 2.5 years after dating, then 5 months after that we married) but we still enjoyed it. But it eventually got to the point where it was like, “WHY are we waiting? Nothing is happening!” We also had to wait until we had an assurance of steady jobs…and here we are. I’m glad we didn’t wait till I’m done with college!
I think people mostly wait so that people aren’t placing bets at the ceremony on how long it will last. Personally, once a person knows that is going to be the outcome, I don’t see tons of reasons to wait. Obviously there are other circumstances involved sometimes. I’ve been waiting for this one, by the way;-)
To me, these two scenarios seem pretty different: two people who meet, know no people in common, and get married within two or three months, versus two people who meet, have very significant and trustworthy friends or family members in common, and get married within two or three months. I think the first COULD get you in a lot of trouble. Quick marriages make me much less nervous in the second case.
My husband and I got engaged four months after meeting and then married four months later. We never questioned our emotions or God’s plan. It was clearly evident. I am all about a short engagement! All I needed was time to plan a simple wedding. Then again, I was 24 and he was 28 so we didn’t have a whole lot of other issues to think through. If we had chosen to wait until paying off our school loans we would have never gotten married. We are still making payments on those loans today – both undergrad and graduate school.
I’m a big fan of keeping it quick. Figuring out whether or not you’re meant to marry one another doesn’t (or shouldn’t) take that long. For my wife and I it took 7 months from the day we met (3 of which were dating) to the day I proposed and another three and a half months till we got married. My brother and his wife dated 4 years and were engaged for 1 before getting married. I still don’t understand that.
i . . . hm. yeah. ask me later. like after i finally get married someday.
In some cases too much time-not enough time in others. If you know who, say “I do,”
within reason of course.
My mom made us have an 18 month engagement so she could throw the wedding of the year.
PURE. TORTURE. Good thing we were separated for the last 12 months.
I will NEVER do that to my children. But it was a very pretty wedding.
I find that long engagements are often done to please the family…so that they can plan a big wedding.
My wife and I got engaged in August. Our wedding was the next June. (That intervening winter I nearly broke down and drove her to the nearest justice of the peace.)
Personally, I found it to be quite a challenging 10 months from a purity point of view.
I think you can know who you want to marry early on, but you can’t possibly know whether that person is right to marry. After all, the divorce courts are flooded with couples who were sure they were right for each other.
That’s why my wife and I dated five years before we got married. We lived together for the last three years and were engaged for the last year.
To me that was a necessary step. Partly it’s because my mother has been divorced three times (once from my dad then twice again) and my father is in a very unhappy second marriage and I know how painful a divorce / bad marriage can be and wanted to take every precaution to avoid that.
But it’s also a philosophical thing: To me, marriage is a public affirmation of a commitment that already exists. Marriage can’t make you love someone or make you compatible with them. You can only find out if those things are true by putting them to the test. So my wife and I lived as a married couple in every way before our wedding: We lived together, shared our money, split responsibilities, fought and made up, spent time with in-laws, etc. The result is that our wedding was, essentially, an awesome party with our family and friends to celebrate a commitment that already existed in our hearts.
Since we got married last year, our relationship hasn’t changed in any significant way. Which to me is wonderful and exactly the way it should be.
That’s why I always recommend taking time and trying to live together as a married couple before actually getting married. If you truly love someone, whether or not you have a marriage certificate shouldn’t matter as much as the fact that you’re together.
I know some people have religious objections for various reasons, but to me that’s evidence that religions are often out of touch with human relationships. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the states with the most churchgoing Christians have the highest divorce rates and vice-versa.
I met my wife while preaching a revival in a small town where she was teaching. We dated long distance and I asked her to marry me about 6 weeks later. We were married 9 mos after meeting.
16 years later, we are passionately in love and our marriage is better than ever. We’ve been best friends since the beginning.
Having said that, we’ve both told our kids, son 14 and daughter 12, that if they do anything remotely similar, we’ll kill them.
:)
My husband and I were married ten years to the day after the first time he told me that he loved me. We wanted to do some growing up and yes, I am thankful there were some break-ups in there and tears and “You are dead to me” conversations where my heart was broken. Becuase I realized I couldn’t live without him.
HOWEVER, after our engagement we actually ended up haveing a “secret marriage” where we actually got married at a friends house with just our families present. We couldn’t wait any longer! So we were actually married before our wedding! It is a special thing.
We didn’t want to live in sin and we wanted to make it right.
No experience for me because I am not married or dating anyone yet. This is very interesting to read how people feel about long term or short term dating / courting / engagement for each other.
I do believe short term would be better with pre-marriage counseling. Also with church family accountablies too.
I do long for this special day and still am waiting for my godly soul mate. I am 43 years young and going on 44 a day before the end of this year.
Thank you for sharing this with me!
‘Guerite ~ BoldLion
I have been dating my boyfriend for 5 months and we both feel confident that God has confirmed this relationship. Right now I am waiting patiently on my boyfriend (as the leader in the relationship) to decide when we move to the next step, engagement. I think that courtships and engagements should not be drawn out as long as both people feel that this is the person God has chosen for them.
What if you’re pretty sure that you’ve found the person that God wants you to marry, but you doubt your ability to hear His will clearly? When my husband and I got engaged, “godly counsel” told us we were making a mistake. It took a whole year of engagement to develop enough confidence in hearing God’s voice.
Waiting a whole year of dating, then a whole year of engagement wasn’t all that bad in hindsight. After all, getting married should be a one-way road. We love being married, but at the same time, we can’t exactly go back to our “single days.” Waiting allowed us to enjoy a little more of the still-single-for-a-teeny-bit-longer season of life.
Now 7 years later, we’re sure we made the right decision.
To the title question: no, I think time is still very very important in knowing a person.
To the question in the post: because many people feel we must know a person before marriage.
I realized almost immediately upon meeting my Hubs that I would marry him, and less than six months later, I did (and we’re about to mark two years of marriage). I had a complete certainty that I’d never known before (and still cannot adequately describe) that he was God’s match for me. Now, I will quickly state that having a longer dating/engagement period would have made some things we’ve faced in these past two years easier, but who says easier is always *better*? We’ve grown through our struggles… as it should be.
So, I obviously think that complete knowledge of a person is unnecessary before marriage. Get cleared on the big stuff beforehand, then let the little stuff fall into place along the way. (And I think Isaac and Rebekah would agree!)
I don’t know! That’s why I didn’t do it! I’ve been happily married for 2 months to a man I met in February!
The only reason I would wish for waiting longer than the 10 months between the day we met and the day we married is that we didn’t have enough money to pay for professional photographers. We don’t have the typical fun-loving, keepsake album, just a few stiff church portraits. I had to buy a car (which we paid for in cash – whoo hoo!) and really, it was either the amazing Seattle honeymoon or professional photography. Or wait another 5 or so months to save up more money. (The timing was too perfect as it was, and I wouldn’t have had anywhere to live without paying two separate 1 year leases!) I don’t regret going for the special honeymoon over the photographers (we didn’t even have the traditional reception – 5 months to plan is so short, but still doable if you keep priorities meaningful and reasonable), but I still wish I got that photo shoot. The nostalgic bride in me, I guess. Maybe a little covetousness, too.
[...] Abraham Piper asks if we give time too much credence in selecting a spouse. (Eric, who normally shares theological articles or political stuff in his google reader, decided this was share-worthy. I agree.) [...]
I have been living with the same girl for more than sixty years and she everytime I ask her to marry me, she says that she barely knows me.
I think she just wants to date a little longer. Recently I enrolled in the community college and I found a young lady of 20 years who is about one forth my age and she wants to marry tonight. I am just not certain if this is a little to soon on the other hand. Larry
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKlMl4II3_0