The Five Deadly Snarks of Weddings: Snark #3--Relationship/Engagement Duration & Timing of Marriage

The Five Deadly Snarks of Weddings: 

#3 Relationship/Engagement Duration
 & Timing of Marriage

3. Snarking a relationship for it's length instead of admiring its strength. Now here's where I'm going to get a little personal. I've felt a bit of snark about the length of my relationship in relation to us getting married and I've find it to be a tired and annoying subject to hear over and over again. 

After a few months of being with, a co-worker snarked me for saying, "I love you" to my beau as I was ending a phone call. She said, "You guys are saying I love you already? Haven't you been together for like a week or two?"  How dismissive and crude. Actually, we had been together for 2 months. And I thought...of course I love him! I wouldn't be in a relationship with someone I didn't love! It seemed absurd to me that she would snark me for saying I love you to a man that I was in a committed relationship with and also having sex with! Not saying you have to be in love every time you have sex, but I would hope that you're in a relationship with someone because you have grown to love them. 

Here's the timeline of my relationship:

• Almost 4 years ago we met through work. 
• We were friends for about 1 1/2 to 2 years before we started dating. 
• We were Facebook friends for that time as well. 
• We realized we liked each other in 2011. 
• We talked on the phone for almost 2 months before going on our first date. 
• We went on our first date on July 8th, 2011. 
• We became a couple 2 or 3 weeks after. 
• We  first talked about marriage within our first month of being together. 
• I gave him a key to my apartment after month one of dating. 
• We moved in with each other after 2 months of dating. 
• We spoke about engagement after 3 months of being together. 
• We told a few people about our plans to get married after month 6. 
• We officially announced our engagement after he met my parents for the first time after 1 year of being together. 
• He officially proposed on March 21st, 2013 (my birthday). 
• We booked our venue and our parents met for the first time in April of 2013. 
• We have been together for 2 years now. 
• We will be wed in the 3rd year of our relationship. 
• We will have been engaged for 2 1/2 years by the time we get married. 

I heard a lot of comments about us moving too fast. But what does "too fast" even mean? What I knew in month 1 that is still true today two years later is: I love this man, he's the best friend I've ever had, and this relationship is the best I've ever been in. It's not like we just met and got engaged. We knew each other for almost 2 years before we even dated! That doesn't seem whirlwind to me at all, as some people I've talked to made it seem. That seems like two people that took a long time to get to know one another before jumping into a relationship. Sure, I know him way better now than month one...but I have loved him from the beginning. I've liked him since the moment we met and he felt the same about me.

So why did we choose to get married within 3 years? Well, that's very simple. I'm 32, he's 38. We are two very grown people who are ready to settle down together. We know what we want. And with me being 32, I have to face the fact that my optimal child-bearing years are coming to an end. After 35, it's harder to get pregnant. We want the option of trying for a child and we want to be married before bringing a child into the world. It's important for us to be married because we want to express to the world our higher commitment. We aren't just boyfriend and girlfriend. We aren't just shacking up. We aren't just here until something better comes along. We are a family. And I want legal documentation that says we are one. Period. We're both old enough to know what we want and the gravity of the commitment we have made. Marriage just makes it legal.

Our relationship has had its own course. There is no one way to fall in love and get married. Some people I know have waited 9 or 10 years and had children and houses before getting married. Some have been together longer than that with no marriage. I know one couple that was married within a year of knowing each other and now have 3 beautiful children together. You can't judge a relationship by the time is has existed. You have to judge it on the accomplishments, mutual respect, and happiness of the people in the relationship. 

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