Did you propose / get married before the "honeymoon period" ended?

27-06-2016 01:52AM #1

Just thought of this as yet another friend has gotten engaged after around two years with his girlfriend.

In my current relationship of five years, the honeymoon period ended after three and a half to four years. It was really tough for a while and thoughts of ending it were cropping up a few times every day. By now, having talked about it a lot worked through stuff, we're great again and better/different to before. We're not in a rush to get married but we talk about it now and then and both know it'll happen some day.

I reckon if we'd been married, it could have actually ended in divorce. And all this "marriage kills it" stuff you hear might just be the natural honeymoon period ending and instead of working at it, people just blame the marriage.

Anyways, I can't see why anyone would get married before getting to the point where it's not all sunshine and lollipops.

timthumbni · 27-06-2016 02:23AM

Ads by Google wrote: »

Just thought of this as yet another friend has gotten engaged after around two years with his girlfriend.

In my current relationship of five years, the honeymoon period ended after three and a half to four years. It was really tough for a while and thoughts of ending it were cropping up a few times every day. By now, having talked about it a lot worked through stuff, we're great again and better/different to before. We're not in a rush to get married but we talk about it now and then and both know it'll happen some day.

I reckon if we'd been married, it could have actually ended in divorce. And all this "marriage kills it" stuff you hear might just be the natural honeymoon period ending and instead of working at it, people just blame the marriage.

Anyways, I can't see why anyone would get married before getting to the point where it's not all sunshine and lollipops.

I think marriage is silly. It's a religious concept and it just results in a fat lawyers bill whenever you split. Love is nothing to do with marriage.

Shenshen · 27-06-2016 07:06AM

Hm. I don't think my current relationship followed that timeline.
We dated for a year (with me living in Dublin and him in Cork it was a weekends-only relationship at first), the lived together for 2 years before we got married. We've been married now for 7 years.
If there was a time you could call honeymoon period, it was the first year where we only saw each other on the weekends. Once we moved in, so did more of reality and we had to arrange ourselves with that. But I can't say we've been to a point where either of us thought of ending it, I certainly haven't.

Elessar · 27-06-2016 07:18AM

I read a while ago that statistically if you marry at or within the two year mark, your marriage is more likely to survive long term. The longer you leave it, the more likely you're marriage will end in a split. That has certainly been the case in my experience. The most recent being a cousin that married his long term GF (20+ years) and they divorced within a year! Marry soon folks

Speedwell · 27-06-2016 07:27AM

That's not the "honeymoon period". That's just how long it took before you grew up and realised you needed to put in actual work on the marriage to keep the love going. Marriages are like trees. You can stop watering them and they will still look like they're standing, but any strong wind will eventually blow them over. Signs of wilting don't mean the tree is dead; it just means you need to water the thing to keep it alive.

27-06-2016 07:37AM

We are together eight years and we are as mad about each other as we even were, we had pressure points he had to go and work in London for a year, I got seriously ill, but they only brought us closer together. A lot of it is to do with meeting the right person and being an adult as in gone way past the its all about me stage of your life.

Shint0 · 27-06-2016 07:39AM

Elessar wrote: »

I read a while ago that statistically if you marry at or within the two year mark, your marriage is more likely to survive long term. The longer you leave it, the more likely you're marriage will end in a split. That has certainly been the case in my experience. The most recent being a cousin that married his long term GF (20+ years) and they divorced within a year! Marry soon folks

What would you say were the factors that contributed to that marriage ending that you might be aware of without getting too specific?

FizzleSticks · 27-06-2016 07:40AM

This post has been deleted.

s4uv3 · 27-06-2016 07:43AM

timthumbni wrote: »

I think marriage is silly. It's a religious concept and it just results in a fat lawyers bill whenever you split. Love is nothing to do with marriage.

Couldn't disagree more.

Elessar · 27-06-2016 07:46AM

Shint0 wrote: »

What would you say were the factors that contributed to that marriage ending that you might be aware of without getting too specific?

Honestly I'm not sure. They had 3 kids together and seemed happy. I guess they wanted to seal the deal, but I'm also guessing the marriage was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back. Maybe it forced them to look at the relationship and realise they had grown apart. That's my theory anyway.

Shint0 · 27-06-2016 07:47AM

s4uv3 wrote: »

Couldn't disagree more.

There's already a very heated thread currently running on boards on this topic over the last few days.

s4uv3 · 27-06-2016 08:14AM

Shint0 wrote: »

There's already a very heated thread currently running on boards on this topic over the last few days.

I know

andekwarhola · 27-06-2016 08:27AM

Any relationship will go into a more steady phase after X amount of years.

I couldn't think of anything more depressing than being late middle aged/old aged and still dumping people, trying to endlessly recapture some fleeting sense of novelty and excitement.

thegreatgonzo · 27-06-2016 10:00AM

andekwarhola wrote: »

A

I couldn't think of anything more depressing than being late middle aged/old aged and still dumping people, .

Being middle aged/ old and getting dumped probably isn't so great either

Dolbert · 27-06-2016 10:18AM

timthumbni wrote: »

I think marriage is silly. It's a religious concept and it just results in a fat lawyers bill whenever you split. Love is nothing to do with marriage.

It's actually got very little to do with religion and everything to do with formalising your relationship in the eyes of the law. If one of you gets hit by a bus, and your partner is not your next of kin then they legally have no right to be in the emergency room, no say in your treatment (just one example). If you want your partner to be the one deciding whether to pull the plug, then get married. If you intend to stay together long-term and would like full rights to your children, then get married. You hear of long-term couples with kids spending thousands on drawing up complicated contracts about guardianship and who-gets-what, but refuse to get married as it's "just a piece of paper". The mind boggles.

wakka12 · 27-06-2016 10:25AM

When this honeymmon phase ends what does it mean? You don't like your partner as much? Ive been in a relationship for a year and Im afraid of what this means, Im pretty sure we're still in the honeymoon phase right now!:pac:

smash · 27-06-2016 10:27AM

wakka12 wrote: »

When this honeymmon phase ends what does it mean? You don't like your partner as much? Ive been in a relationship for a year and Im afraid of what this means, Im pretty sure we're still in the honeymoon phase right now!:pac:

When she starts farting in front of you.

s4uv3 · 27-06-2016 10:31AM

wakka12 wrote: »

When this honeymmon phase ends what does it mean? You don't like your partner as much? Ive been in a relationship for a year and Im afraid of what this means, Im pretty sure we're still in the honeymoon phase right now!:pac:

Ideally, it's that you love them a little bit deeper. So with that comes familiarity, security, less of the excitement that comes with a new relationship, but more contentedness and stronger love.
If ya aint got that, then maybe that's the point when people start getting itchy and wanting out.

Mr. CooL ICE · 27-06-2016 11:20AM

Speedwell wrote: »

That's not the "honeymoon period". That's just how long it took before you grew up and realised you needed to put in actual work on the marriage to keep the love going. Marriages are like trees. You can stop watering them and they will still look like they're standing, but any strong wind will eventually blow them over. Signs of wilting don't mean the tree is dead; it just means you need to water the thing to keep it alive.

I read this post and 45 minutes later, I realised I had done no work in the meantime cos I had been on wikipedia reading about trees.

Bloody hell.

s4uv3 · 27-06-2016 02:06PM

Nicolas Cage wrote: »

I read this post and 45 minutes later, I realised I had done no work in the meantime cos I had been on wikipedia reading about trees.

Bloody hell.

What did you learn?

Did you propose / get married before the "honeymoon period" ended?

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