when you first got together with DH.... did you play it cool or jump in head first

[DONTtouchMUMSspecialJUICE]

so... did you feign indifference.

or when you came to crunch talks about being in a proper relationship and what you wanted did you state from the off that you wanted marriage, family life and whole package?

or was it more you agreed to see what happened and life sort of happened?

awww bless.. even if he's given up these stories have cheered me up.

I agree with expat. If I were dating now, with kids, I'd be a lot more cautious.

But there is that gut instinct thing though. With my DH I just knew and so did he. But we were young and had no baggage/responsibilities.

However, my mother met a guy when I was a teen and my brother was 7. On paper it was a match made in hell, younger guy hooking up with older married woman 'shock horror'.... 25 years later they are still very, very happy. It took my mum a lot of courage to make that leap. It was hard, but I'm so glad that she did it.

And he did want kids, but sadly my mum had a health problem that (a) caused a still birth and (b) meant that she couldn't get pregnant again. He treats me and my 'bro ( and our kids) as his own.

What I'm saying is that if it's meant to be it will be, and generally you know from the get go.

DONTtouch - 3 years. I know it's not a long time really but ... well I don't have a 'but', I just reckon it will work.

The jumping straight in thing is representative of the honesty we've had right from the start I suppose.

ah see now i want to do a bunk again... that way i wont get hurt... and my kids wont have to go through meeting anyone.

20yrs time once they're grown up someone else will do.

i quite enjoy the single life

alot of work. but less complicated.

"Pretend you're not interested"??? But surely a long-lasting relationship will be one that is based on honest communication. Why would anyone think the best way to achieve that is to start off by pretending something that isn't true?

DH and I were set up by mutual friends. We shagged within 24 hours of first meeting, though I still maintain I technically waited until the third date! (1.Dinner when we met, 2.day time outing with friends the next day, 3.drinks that evening... BINGO!). Within 3 months we were living together, which involved me quitting my highly paid job and moving hundreds of miles to move into his tiny student bedsit!! We are still over-the-moon in love with each other 8 years later.

If it's right, don't mess about with it - be honest and go for it.

We met at 12.45.

At 10 I asked him if he wanted to get married.

Ooops

Played it cool,
was only just about to turn 20 and we stated that we didn't want anything serious - but it became love and serious and now we're a family!

i jumped on him when i first met him. then we both 'talked cool' (i.e. no commitment) for first few months, then we cautiously moved in together after three years. now been together 8 years, and getting married next year.

He says it was love at first sight. I fell head over heels later that night.
He had just called off his wedding 5 weeks before and should have been getting married the day we met. I tried to play it cool so as not to appear like another woman desperate to get him down the aisle but didn't quite manage. We've been together for eight years now and married for four with two gorgeous DDs. I had no trouble getting him down the aisle!

Like ScottishMummy, I was in my teens ( and still at school) when I met DH, so whilst we were committed to each other, actually settling down together took a little while. However, within six weeks of meetig, we knew we would gat married at some point, have kids and even what their names would be! So, over 30 years later, we have been married getting on for 20 years, have our 2 DCs and they do have the names we chose all thos years ago!

Funnily enough, certain family members have told us that it was apparent to them that we would stay together, right from the outset, even before we knew it ourselves!

Hope you get what you want!

Knew within a few days that it was special - I love yous (him first) within a couple of months and living together within 5 months.

Jumped straight in here too. Knew him from work but he'd been married with a daughter, I had a long term boyfriend.

I finished with bf and dh heard about it. He was separated by then.

He initiated it, we moved in after 3 months, I was pregnant after 8 months. Four years down the line we are married with 2 daughters.

If you know, you know!

We were young and stupid, I think! I moved in with him and his parents after just a few weeks, then he moved back to my home town with me. Our oldest daughter was born before we'd been together a year, and we married soon after, 17 years ago!

It all worked out for us but it could easily have gone horribly wrong. I would advise our daughters to be a bit more sensible in the same position. My inlaws had only met me once when my now-husband asked if I could move in and they agreed! They had themselves been married in their teens and are still together.

Carelesswhispers. I knew I would marry DH after 5 mins too!

But I still played it cool

... i have no idea now what seems the better way to go.

but you do all seem rather smitten the ones who jumped in.

hi donttouch, tis an interesting question for me as my relationship is still very new.

but I knew the moment I saw him that he was "the one", he had just come out of a very disastrous relationship and was very cautious, so I had to go a bit slower than I would have done normally!!!!

we didn't sleep together for a long time, just took it slow and got to know each other, it was worth taking the time!

Am well and truly smitten, as is he

But would have jumped straight into a relationship with him if that had been an option, cos I knew he was right for me.

bigtillymint - love at first sight does exist eh , i was 18 & on holiday , went to a nightclub with my friends , dh asked me up to dance & the minute we kissed we both knew at that moment we would marry , we didn't sleep together until we were engaged mmmm wonder is that why he proposed after 6 weeks .

I'm a real believer in love at first sight. There have been two loves in my life, both with the same immediate attraction, but both very different. I guess the first one was more lust at first sight. The second was DH who was more than that somehow. I just knew he was the one.

I don't know what I want for dd. Part of me wants her to live her life adventurously and have lots of fun before she settles down, but she's a solid little soul...a lot like her dad, so maybe she'll go a different way.

Whatever happens, I hope she has half the luck I had with men. I was a late starter, but I didn't get too many frogs to kiss before the prince arrived.

K, here goes again!

In early 1939, my mother's father went to a dance hall one Friday night for the usual ballroom/big band evening.

He was one of 15 children, and they certainly weren't the minted type.

He looked across the hall, and there was his sister Delia talking to a woman in a cherry print dress.

He couldn't keep his eyes off her.

His mates were all nattering away. Then he said, 'See that lady in the cherry print dress talking to Delia?' They: Yeah, so? He said, 'Well, I'm going to marry her.' They all started laughing and chiding. He said, 'Excuse me, gentlemen, I'm going to go ask my wife to dance.'

And he crossed the hall.

The woman in the cherry print had come over from France just a few months before to tutor the children in the big house where his sister worked as a maid in French.

He got his introduction, and his dance.

He was the eldest of a total of 9 sisters and believe you me, to dance with him was like floating along on air, he was so light of foot you barely felt his lead.

She said he asked her for a dance and from the second she stepped onto the floor with him she knew, too.

Three months later, they were married.

He died 44 years later of a heart attack.

Again, they didn't have kids before they met.

But there you go.

It can happen.

What a fantastic story expat. It makes me believe in fate even more than I did!

I saw a picture of DH before I met him and I told his mate, well...that looks like the man I'll be marrying then! Said friend laughed and said, like I'd let you two get together. He then actively ensured we never got to meet until he thought I was going out with someone else. Then he slipped up and asked DH to come to a party I'd also been asked to go to.

I nearly didn't go. My oldest sister turned up and told me no self respecting young woman should be staying in on a Saturday night and drove me to the party.

If she hadn't insisted on me going out, I'd have stayed in and washed my smalls. Lord knows what would have happened to me partner wise then!

DH lived 70 miles away and rarely came to see the mutual friend we had. We'd have never met any other way.

Now I know we all have free will and we make our own destinies, but, at times I do believe there is an element of fate in what we do.

We were engaged within a few weeks. We lived in different towns when I was at Uni, saw each other every other weekend, he called me every day. Said 'I love you' on second weekend together, decided to marry the weekend after that. We have been together 11 years now, still very happy. I think that you just know when something is right. We make each other happy, thats why it works, we are good to each other.

I took a lot of persuading to go out in the first place. My mum liked the sound of him and told me to go out with him "just for fun - it doesn't have to be a serious relationship". We were both fairly young (19) and at college. No big discussions - we just kept on seeing each other. After two years I moved from London to Edinburgh and he stayed in London. We saw each other about once a month for the next 4 years. Then I moved into his house, but he worked abroad and we still saw each other about once a month. But then we realised we'd given ourselves every opportunity to find someone better and, well, we hadn't. And we weren't getting any younger. So we got married, 9 1/2 years after we met.

My grandparents got married three weeks after they met.

Juicy, I agree with other posters, it's different when you have children already. Go with the flow, if he's worth it you wont need to question and second guess it. He will stick around and you will want him to.

Good thread though and found it interesting the amount of couples that went for it straight away.

this is making me very jealous! I've been with DP 6 years and I STILL don't know if he's 'the one'!