AIBU to think marrying after eight months is not always rash?

People get divorced 10, 15 years after being married.

People divorced the year after getting married and 10 years living together.

People divorced after spending too long dating and being engaged and faffing.

People change, get bored of each other, take the other for granted and realise there's more to life after years together.

Couples are madly in love years and years after getting married, 3 or 6 months after they first met (I have some in mind when I say that)

There are no rule, just individual circumstances and people. No, it's not rash.
You can know someone better and be closer after 6 months than others will be despite knowing each other for years.

My mum and dad married only a few months after meeting. Their marriage lasted until Dad died, 52 years.

I think it's short in general but generalising never accounts for the specific cases where the opposite is true.

I don't think that's long enough to really, properly know someone in general - but obviously the reason people caution against marrying someone you haven't known for a longer period is not that knowing someone a specific period of time is a requirement but because there's a risk they're not who you thought/you struggle during difficult periods later on/you learn something about how they operate that isn't ideal, etc. That obviously isn't going to be the case for everyone and clearly isn't for you, which is lovely!

DH and I were engaged within 8 weeks of meeting, got married 6 months later and will be celebrating our 42nd wedding anniversary in Sept.

Rash? or not?

We discussed marriage in our first ever conversation! Married 20 years

My parents got married after 8 months. They hardly ever argued and were still happily married when my dad died.

I know a couple who have been married nearly 60 years who got engaged after a week. Historically many people got married when they hardly knew each other. Obviously some marriages were disasters but there were still happy marriages. We have longer courtships these days but I know several people who said they knew very early on this was it even if they took longer to get engaged.

Assuming nobody is an arse I think what determines if a marriage works is 1) shared values and 2) a commitment to work at the marriage. How long you've been together before the wedding isn't as important as those.

Yes, rash.

Now I understand my lecturer ay university talking about humans and risk assessment. You all have survivor bias. "None of us wore seatbealts and we're all still alive."

Even if you met and married in 2 days and lasted 50 years, the initial decision was rash and you are lucky.

I write as someone whose first marriage was sensible and terrible, and second was rash and great. Rash is great when it worked. It did for me. But it doesn't mean it's not rash. There are even statistics https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/meet-catch-and-keep/201710/how-long-should-you-date-getting-married

Got engaged after 2 weeks. Married 9 months later. Will be celebrating our 39th wedding anniversary next month.
Love the bones of him. He’s my soulmate.

but rash or not rash are no guarantee whatsoever to a long or successful marriage anyway.

So why does it matter?

That article doesn't really back you up!

"In sum: A one-size-fits-all time frame for when couples are ready to transition to a greater commitment like marriage isn't appropriate."

You were reckless and got lucky - congratulations! I know a few fast moving relationships, 2 worked in the long term, one more iffy.

When you know you know! I met DH online during one for the Covid lockdowns. We’d been chatting for 6 weeks before we could meet up and about 2 weeks after our first date he said I’m made him want to get married again! (He’d had a tricky previous marriage and difficult divorce) He actually popped the question 18months later and we married 2 years after that.

But what of the many marriages (on this very website) where they were together for a decade plus before marrying and having children. And then he was revealed to be lazy/misogynistic/controlling. Is time any guarantee of better results?

No guarantee but it raises your chances significantly. The

Why does it matter? Because OP asked LOL. I don't care if someone wants to be rash. I was. I make rash decisions all the time and they work out. But they are rash.

Hilariously, one online dictionary even uses this exact situation to DEFINE the word.

rash
adjective
us
/ræʃ/
rash adjective (WITHOUT THOUGHT)
Add to word list
without thought for what might happen or result; unwise in your actions:
a rash statement
It was rash of them to get married so quickly.

I think any cracks would’ve shown by now.
I agree with you, OP, that sometimes you can just tell when you meet your person.

Some people spend years together before getting married and it still ends in divorce.

I wish you and your family all the very best

Definitely rash but sometimes a gamble will pay off.

Moved in together after about 6 weeks and got married a few months later. That was 18 years ago. I wouldn’t change a thing.

My PILs were engaged after six weeks and married six months after they met. They were devoted to each other for 50 years until MIL's death.

I thought that scientifically, the 'honeymoon hormones' (dopamine and oxytocin) wear off after 6-24 months, and then you see whether there is a deeper connection to sustain the relationship. When you're older and more sensible you can make more objective decisions so it's less of a gamble whether you're likely to be compatible long term. But there is no way of knowing for sure whether those habits that seemed cute at first will grate after the honeymoon period wears off.

I do think marrying so quickly is a bit rash given there is no longer any stigma against people dating, living together, having kids etc before marriage, so there isn't really any downside to waiting to marry whereas there is a downside to getting married too quickly.

I know people who have got married very quickly and some it worked out for and some it didn't.

I think statistically gwtrinf married very quickly is less likely to work out, but of course that's at a population level not individual

eight months is not quick anyway

so "was it rash" doesn't even apply here.

More than one person has used the phrase 'guarantee' about longer relationships. Risk (and therefore rashness) surely isn't defined by one decision being correct 100% of the time.

I bet you all use car seats for your DC. There is a tiny chance of them being hurt in a crash either way and using one is no guarantee your DC won't be hurt. But a parent not using one would be rash, no?

Rash isn't a dire judgement on your good sense. Being rash is fun. In fact risk is correlated with success in many cases. If you risk more you have a higher chance of failure but also a chance of great success. And if you're lucky, like I was, great.

Would I recommend doing what I did? No. It's like when Taylor Swift tells people to follow their dreams. 99.999999999999999999% of them won't be successful like her. She's lucky. Good for her. But she's lucky.

42% of marriages in England and Wales are expected to end in divorce, 40 to 45% in the USA, so marriage IS a gamble anyway.

DH proposed after we had been going out 8 months. TBH I was already hoping he would as I had long made up my mind about him. The wedding took another 9 months to arrange because families expected a proper "do".

Edited to add we will be celebrating our 40th anniversary next year.