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Original poster

How quickly did you get engaged?

107 replies

Embelline · 12/05/2023 15:12

Just being nosy. A friend has recently got engaged after five weeks - which sounds insane but they knew each other throughout childhood and growing up, and stayed in touch then got together casually, broke up and reconnected again recently. And they're absolutely perfect for each other, we all said they would always end up together so it doesn't feel crazy...

Whereas I was with my other half for ten years before we got engaged! It just got me thinking about how it's so different for everyone and I wondered what the average kind of time is - I'm guessing we are both very opposite ends of the spectrum!

OP posts:
stuckinthelastcentury · 12/05/2023 15:14

Been with DP for four years now, haven't "officially" been proposed to yet but he says it will happen this summer and keeps sending me links to rings! Keep me in your prayers 😂

jenn88 · 12/05/2023 15:27

7 going on 8 years and still waiting!!

Davestwattymissus · 12/05/2023 15:29

First time (with ex), about 15 years. We split up about 9 months later! Second time (with DH), 8 weeks (we didnt know each other before).

Paperbagsaremine · 12/05/2023 15:31

I do know a couple who had known each other very well for years, who got privately engaged a couple of weeks after they got together as BF & GF. Married within a year or two, still happy 30+ years on.

It sounds like this lot are similar, hopefully, but in any case there's nothing you can do except say something polite!

Lilacly · 12/05/2023 15:32

A few weeks. Marriage only lasted twenty years, sadly.

Londontomadrid · 12/05/2023 15:34

3 months

Mrsherdwick · 12/05/2023 15:37

2 weeks. Been married 36 year’s this year.

HeidiUpTheMountain · 12/05/2023 15:41

Four years. We knew we would marry a long time before that, but at four years we decided the time was right, so we were ‘engaged’ for as long as it took to arrange the wedding - a bit under six months. We’ve been married 20 years.

LizzieSiddal · 12/05/2023 15:47

9 weeks 😂 We got married after 7 months.

We’re still together and next year will be 35 years married. Still love him to bits.

KimberleyClark · 12/05/2023 15:47

I got engaged to my DH of 33 years after 3 months of dating and married a year after that. He wasn’t some random off the internet though - I’d known him socially for about a year before we started dating.

Denise82 · 12/05/2023 15:48

6 month's, that was back in 2007.

TheBirdintheCave · 12/05/2023 15:48

One year two months was when he actually proposed. I later found out he'd been aiming for our anniversary but there were some people standing on the bridge he wanted to propose on at the time 🙄We'd been planning the wedding since about our fourth date though 😂 I was never a believer in love at first sight until I met my husband.

RufustheSpecuIatingreindeer · 12/05/2023 15:48

6 weeks…did not tell my parents as they would have been upset

so got engaged again nearly two years later 😀

BooksAndHooks · 12/05/2023 15:49

Six months.

DucksNewburyport · 12/05/2023 15:49

5 years. We've been married for 19 years now.

ParentsTrapped · 12/05/2023 15:50

I think depends a bit on age and life stage. We had been together for 5 years when we got engaged at 28, but all of our friends seemed to get married between 28 and 33 regardless of how long they’d been with their partners beforehand!

TheWomanTheyCallJayne · 12/05/2023 15:54

Just under two years. Engagement was about 8 months. It’s our 21st anniversary next week.
I was 18 when we met and 21 when we married.
I think shorter and I would have been too young anyway.

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 12/05/2023 15:54

We didn’t. Dh thought ‘getting engaged’ was desperately uncool, and this was decades ago. We just got hitched - having been an item on and off - mostly on - for 6 years
He did buy me a lovely ring right after the birth of dd2 though - and I hadn’t so much as hinted - it was entirely his own doing.

33goingon64 · 12/05/2023 15:55

Had been together just over a year when we gad 'the chat' about buying a house together and this being part of a longer term plan to marry. But it was another 1.5 years til we actually got engaged.

HowToLearnToLoveMyself · 12/05/2023 15:57

Over a year.
But he moved in after 5 days :/ we knew each other before and great friends before. 2 kids and married now

33goingon64 · 12/05/2023 15:57

As PP said, it depends on lifestage. We'd both had previous very long term partners and I think we both thought there was no need to hang around and waste more time once we were sure. We were late 20s when we met, early 30s when we married.

ConradKnightSocks · 12/05/2023 15:58

5 years for us and it took us another 5 years to actually get married 🤦‍♀️

We had a couple of children throughout those years though (and another since we got married!), we always knew we wanted to be married. It just took a while to get around to it!

WhatWeDoInTheShadow · 12/05/2023 15:58

Four years! Got together when I was 21. Engaged when I was 25. Married when I was 27

mydogisthebest · 12/05/2023 15:59

DH proposed 2 weeks after we met and we married 5 months after meeting.

I was 25 and he was 23. From the first time we met until we married we saw each other every day, sometimes for breakfast, sometimes for lunch and other times in the evening as he did shift work. We didn't live together before marriage.

Been married 43 years and very happy

DramaAlpaca · 12/05/2023 15:59

We got engaged after almost a year, but having been part of the same friendship group we both knew it was for keeps as soon as we started dating. Got married a year later, married 33 years this summer.