What age did you lovely ladies get engaged?

[snkatha]

I'm twenty two and engaged. Won't marry for two more yrs. Have to finish my degree first and work for awhile. In my humble opinion being engaged is a big step, why not wait till you're twenty to make that decision? As many have said before me you wouldn't believe how much your opinions and life changes in ur twenties! Just take those yrs as a way to know more about each other, get your life together etc. You want to present the best you possible when you get engaged.

 

[LMD84]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kazzii-Loves-MA I would never have a child at 16, because i dont feel i could give it much at the moment. im not at all looking down at young mothers/fathers, because it does happen and sometimes young people make brilliant parents. i am done with high school sorry im not sure if usa high school and college are in one, but in the uk we finish high school when we are 16 years old and then go onto college which is a seperate thing . my boy friend does college and work, well he does work everyday and then takes two weeks out every three months to go to college. but ill be at college for the next two to three years. i dont mind waiting, i cant really say if ill feel differently. i am glad i have asked people, i have got alot of different response. so thankyou girls

i'm in the uk and even though school finishes at 16 the majority of people seemed to either stay on to get a levels in 6th form or go off to college to do a training course in something. i stayed in 6th form and then went to uni. i think it's great that your guy is working whilst at college. however you both have so much to do and sort out with your lives. wait until you have steady jobs that you both love. and i also think living togther before getting engaged is a great idea! you know what you're letting yourself into!

i got engaged when i was 18. nick was working full time and i was at uni. we have a house togther and everything was perfect. however we still waiting until we were 22 to actually get married

 

[kimmy]

i'm twenty-one and never been engaged. sure i'm with the man i'm going to marry right now, but we're not engaged yet; he prefers to take things slow.

when i was seventeen, i was dating a "man" that i swore i'd marry. things were good in the beginning when we only saw each other every other day or so...but when we started spending more time together and staying together, i saw that he was really a piece of shit. he still wanted to get married, but i learned to hate him. i left him at eighteen, almost a year after we had begun dating.

my point being: you mentioned seeing each other every week, so i'm assuming you don't spend time together on a daily basis and you probably haven't spent days/nights at a time with each other. at sixteen, your feelings are very real, but there's more to being engaged and married than feeling happy when you're around that person. upon staying with him, you may realize that he is not in fact the one...as i realized with the first one. i've spent many nights and days with my current boyfriend, and though he does some things that drive me batshit, i love him for them. i love him for everything he is, and everything he is not.

i'm not here to discourage you, i just hate to see young people make the mistake i almost made. i don't really believe in a set age you need to be to get engaged, so i'm not going to say you're too young. alot of times though, people don't realize how many layers there are to their significant others, and that's what makes alot of marriages crumble.

 

[FiestyFemme]

I got engaged about a month after I turned 24, and we got married 3 months later. I'm glad I waited until I found the right one... I think it's prudent to not jump into things too young, because the things you want from life and how you feel will change. I don't want the same things at 24 as I did at 21 or 16. KWIM? It took me until now to realize what I really did want... and not to say that how I feel or look at the world won't change as I continue to get older, but I'm at the place where no matter how that changes I'm choosing to stay with the same person. Good luck though! It sounds like you have a good head on your shoulders.

 

[xxManBeaterxx]

I was 18/19 when i got engaged and married. I got married for practicality. Me and my boyfriend, now husband, got pregnant at 18. I wasnt working and i was in my first year of college. Since he was a few years older he was already working a full time job, a job which gave family medical for basically a small fee a month, we decided to get married so i didnt have to apply for free medical.

We wed in secret, a lot of his and my family members still don't know where married (its been 4/5 years since we wed) since i don't carry his last name. Maybe one day.. we'll be properly engaged and ill have a proper small low-key wedding and we'll finally get to celebrate our first honeymoon...

It look a lot of hard work and arguments to beat the odds and stay a married couple. At 16, hell even at 18, your still growing up emotionally, you still haven't experienced a whole world out there. Your probably not going to be the same person 10 years from now, and thats where a lot of couples come into problems when they get married so young, you change and become different people with a grown-up set of ideas and goals which quite often doesn't mesh with each other. Add kids to the whole situation (accidents happen to the best of us), and they'll take your relationship to a whole other level. I'd say wait a very long time before you get married, you have a whole life time. A piece of paper wont make your relationship any more special/valid than it already is.

 

[Redz24]

I got engaged when I was 21, actually it was on my 21st birthday.

I've been with my OH for 5 years now, and he is my first serious boyfriend. After being together a year we moved in together. We've both had full time jobs since we met and I went straight from school to work with no college.

So I've been engaged for 2 n half years, with (at the moment) no plans to get married and my OH knows this.

 

[malaviKat]

I am 27, not engaged nor have I been married. I have been with my b/f for 9 years. I don't think that there's any "right" age to be engaged - it comes down to when it's right for both of you.

When I was 18 (just prior to my current b/f) I was dating a guy I had been good friends with for a while and he was very interested in getting married to me - he spoke of this often. He was, and still is, a great guy, but at the time I had not finished high school and could not see myself uprooting my life to put down roots with him. It was also really important to me that I not only finish high school but establish my university education as well...so, I guess you could say that I ended that relationship just shy of a marriage proposal.

I don't think anybody should try to tell you how to feel in this scenario (though I can understand why they might try to tell you how they would feel in your scenario). The fact is, many people get engaged/married/have children young and it works out for a lot of them. From an outsider's perspective however, it seems logical that you'll have a happier/more stable life if you establish your career and adult goals before you move forward with marriage and children.

But... I have a tendency to overthink things - possibly one of the reasons as to why I am not engaged - so what do I know?

 

[Kazzii-Loves-MA]

Hi everyone,
thankyou for your replies, alot of sensible ladies here!

. i must say my boy friend has a full time job and is in college, i am going to college in september to get good qualifications. we spend friday to monday together so its not like i see him one day in a week, we do know eachother fairly well. we have been together since i was 14 and i am now 16 (17 in october) i do feel he is the one, maybe my mind will change. i would only ever want to get engaged at my age, no marrige or children (not that i think getting married or having children at 16-18 is wrong) its everyones personal decision although i personally couldnt have children now because i feel i couldnt give them everything they need and want and it would be unfair. i just feel he is such a sincere person, he doesnt pretend to be someone else and i dont think he would change (maybe im wrong) but hes so true to his self. i would like to move in with him while being engaged i think, and then get married once we had been engaged and lived together for a few years. i know things like this shouldnt be rushed, but i dont feel in this situation they are, since iv known him since i was 13 and iv always liked him even when we wernt together. thanks for your replies ladies

there nice to read. kazzii x x x x x x

 

[malaviKat]

I can't (and I won't) speak for everyone, but in my own personal experience I have changed A LOT since my bf and I got together. When we met I was 18, he was 24. I hadn't finished high school; he was already finished college and working. In essence, he knew who he was and what he was about. While I would like to think I did, it is clear to me now that I was still changing as a person. (The fact that I have 2 university degrees behind me and I'm now starting a third also tends to separate us and our interests, in a way).

After 7 years (of seeing each other primarily on weekends), we finally moved in together. But my logic is very different from yours. I wanted to live on my own, before living with him as he had had years of that experience. Many people I know moved out of their parents' home and into a relationship without learning how to stand on their own....and the thought of that scared the crap out of me. I have friends who don't think they can exist/survive without their boyfriends or husbands and I cannot fathom thinking that way.

I'm not saying any of this to temper your decision. As I said before, getting engaged/moving in together is something that can/should be done when both people feel right. But I think that looking out for your long term interests (should the relationship not work out) is also pretty important. At 19 or 20 I was pretty convinced that I'd marry my bf. Now I'm happy that I don't have to.

 

[MsCera]

I was 21 when I got married. There wasn't really an engagement, we just decided to get married one day (we talked about it for years beforehand.) We got divorced three years later. Things have a crappy way of working out sometimes.

 

[randeezi00]

19...but he has yet to put a ring on it lol

 

[cazgh]

Think I am a bit of a slow starter!! LOL

I was 31 before I got engaged (first time to be asked and I hadn't asked anyone) and we weighed it up and decided we didnt have to save up for it - so we got married 6 months later at the same age.

He is only 26, now 27. I wanted to do it really quietly and just tell everyone we had done it and he wanted a big do with all his family - and I enjoyed all the planning and everything and ended up with a huge dress which was amazing.

I think I have changed enormously since being 16 - I am definately not the same person but that doesn't mean at all that it is a bad thing for you to consider and want to do. For me I probably wouldn't have stayed married if I had as I am almost like a new person - but I think thats because it took me a realy long time to grow up and stabilise. A lot of people have much better heads on their shoulders than me even now!!

I do have friends who got pregnant in college and are still together, I have friends who still can't hold down relationships, I know people who were partners for 10 years, got married and fell apart within months and the upshot is to just be happy - there is no right or wrong way. My mum always tells me that I never came with a book of instructions and thats the way life goes

Whatever happens anyway - I hope it all works out for you and I am sure you will be very happy!!

XX

 

[Face2Mac]

I got engaged at 29, 8 months after I met my husband. I thought it was a joke at first when he asked me, but he had no ring, and we always joked around about getting married in Vegas. He told me to set a date and I picked April Fool's day and that is when we got married.

But I don't think there is a right age. But maybe there is a right time, when you both truly know yourselves, that is the time.

 

[MrsMay]

here's my timeline:

Aged 17 and 2 months: started dating
Aged 17 and 8 months : engaged on our 6 month anniversary
Aged 24: Married

So yeah, we ended up having a 7 year engagement but not really through choice, we bought a house when I was 20 and we moved out of home and moved in together at that point, so we were paying off the house etc.

We have now been married for almost 4 years and have been together for almost 11 years.

 

[~Princesa~]

Me and my husband dated for 6yrs before we got engaged....and when we did I was 25 and he was 26.

 

[jennyfee]

I got engaged on my 17th birthday, 4 and a half months into our relationship, ring, tears and all. We wanted a long engagement, of many years. 2 years after that I decided I would be happier if I went my way... It wasn't easy but I took the decision for me.

Looking back, I don't regret anything since nothing permanent was done, but I definitely think it was too young to get engaged, and that I was kind of foolish (this only applies to me, not you

).

What I think is great is a promise ring. None of the "will u marry me?" which implies a set date and preparations, but more of an "I love u, wear this ring as a promise i want to spend my life with u and ill ask u to marry me when the time is right".

Hope that helped u xxxx

 

[User35]

uuuh got engaged at 21. I begged him for about 2 years and the second he put that ring on my finger I was over that feeling about wanting 2 get married. As soon as I got it...I didnt want it anymore. Story of my life. We went up and down for another year and hastily got married at 22. I should have waited. I felt pressured by my family and him. I went through a really really hard time about 4 months before the wedding...more than cold feet. I should have waited. I still love him to death but I should have put the breaks on. Idk its complicated....but isnt love? yeah love is a bitch.

 

[hello_my_apple]

23. and we were together for about 2 and half years at your age. i always felt in my heart that because we are always going to be together there was no need to rush and get engaged like two of my friends did in h.s. just to warn you my bestfriend got engaged at 17 and she's 26 now and divorced. they became very different as they go out of their teenaged years so just be wise and careful.

 

[RedRibbon]

I was 23. I have known the Mr since I was 16 and he was 17, he was the new boy at college and we were friends for a long long time. For me, I have changed a hell of a lot since I was 16 but the Mr is adamant that I am the same person now as I was then but with more confidence.

Anyway, it depends on person to person. When I was at school I was always the weak one thinking I needed a man etc.. and my friend was always more confident than me saying she could live alone etc..Fast forward a few years and she got engaged, that did not work out and it was called off. She got engaged again and got married, that is going strong so it just kinda depends.

The only thing I will say is prepare for change now because my formative years were from 16-25, now I think I know myself properly and I will not really be changing because I am quite secure as I am.

 

[hello_kitty]

I got engaged at 23, and married at 24. I felt it was good timing in my life, as I had completed college and what not.

It all just depends on the people involved... some people can handle it while younger, some need to wait, and some make really stupid decisions regardless of age. I don't think it's anything to be rushed into, though. As much as it's "just a piece of paper" to some people, there's a lot more to it. If there's problems before getting engaged or married, most likely they won't magically disappear, and if things were all rosy before doesn't mean they will continue to be that way.