How much time did you spare to think of saying I do to your significant other?

I have been very happily married to my wonderful husband for almost 50 years.

We spent two years getting to know each other, becoming best friends. There was no intimacy or petting, but we both knew we were in love. When he proposed, it was a foregone conclusion and an immediate response. Our marriage was the culmination of our love as we pledged ourselves to each other for a lifetime.

Hi! Your situation sounds a lot like mine. I married my husband at 20, after four years of dating. We met when I was 16 and he was 21 (my age now), so there were obvious reasons not to get serious when it came to marriage right away. I knew within the first week I wanted to marry him. It had been love at first sight and after about a week I knew it was real, not just infatuation, and now I had something serious in my life. After three months he asked my parents if he could propose...obviously planning a long engagement...but they said no. He finally proposed on our one year anniversary, when I was 17 and he was 22.

I'm a Christian, so not only do I believe that marriage means something and is forever, I believe it's something you have got to get into ONLY after many prayers, thoughts, after seeing your partner's best and worst times. Even though I could have (and wanted to) get married at eighteen, nineteen...I waited until after all major problems were out in the open and solved, we both knew what our financial incomes would be, we both agreed that we didn't want children, etc. I prayed nightly about it for a few years. Then we were married on March 31 of this year, our fourth anniversary, and it was the best decision of my life.

So...I had said I would marry him at 17, and I had known that since I talked to him the first time. I wanted to make sure, though, that problems were solved, beliefs and interests compared, the family was met, we agreed on major issues, we were compatible, etc., before I jumped in and connected myself for life with this man. Hardly anyone puts that much thought and time into it...and it's sad to see the divorce rates these days and how many married people are unhappy.

Good luck to you and your husband.