Would I Marry Someone I've Been Dating for a Month?

My future husband and I finally met April 11, 1980 after corresponding, talking almost everyday on the phone and sending gifts to each other for nearly two and one half months. After we met, we talked through the night. He asked me to marry him at day break. We were married two weeks later and we're still married.

Many times through the years I've advised kids to take more time to get to know each other. To work on some of the things that can tear a relationship apart, not because they don't belong together, but because they need to take the time to be friends and companions so that they can endure the difficult times that come to every relationship.

Our son followed that advice and married his best friend over a year after their engagement. They're still married and doing well.

I've thought many times, in the past, that maybe some of the things we went through could have been avoided or at least been minimized if we'd taken longer to just spend more time together before we'd gotten married.

But recently I've realized that, at least for us, it wouldn't have made any difference because many of the things we needed to go through required our being under the same roof, consistently, day in and day out. We're just not the kind of people who will live together before we're married. If we're going to live together we're going to be married.

If I had it to do over again, I'd still do it the same way we did it, except maybe I'd have gone to a different hairdresser and escaped having my hair fried within an inch of its roots, just in time for the wedding. Yup, I'd definitely have that part changed and have the wedding on the other side of the house. But those are minor details. They don't have anything to do with the present time. They're just interesting bits in the time-line of our lives.

I would suggest that each situation is different. I've seen people who married and it was definitely a wonderful match. But the marriage fell apart because they married too quickly after they met and hadn't firmed up that friendship that can overcome anything. They didn't have enough trust in each other or enough invested in a friendship to help them stick it out with someone who wasn't, yet, their best friend.

I've also seen people who took a long time before they married and it just wasn't looking like it would work, with some it did fall apart and for others, they're still together. For some it didn't work because they waited so long. For some it didn't work because they needed to take longer to become more mature. Please note, I'm not saying become older. Age has nothing to do with maturity. It's the willingness to grow up that decides the maturity level of the relationship.

Each situation is different, just as each person is different. Each person has to make their own decision about whether the relationship has what it takes to hold together over the long-haul.

Only you and that person you're considering committing your life to can make that decision to marry now or to wait.

As for me, I'd do it again. I'd still marry my two week engagement even if we had waited another two weeks, especially since I'd originally wanted to marry in October.