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<p>One step at a time my friend. I’m open to long term relationships in the mean time, though. Up until the last year or so I had decided that I wasn’t even going to get married. But I’ve come to realize that life without my own family would feel really empty.</p>
<p>Hey Hurricane, the hurry to get married is to have sex! Remember, I am committed to marital sex only, sooo, by 25 my scratch will be a mega itch!</p>
<p>That is a terrible, terrible reason to get married.</p>
<p>I don’t really support committing my life to one person to be honest. I don’t know if I’ll ever get married. It’s interesting when you research the history of marriage. When marriage was first introduced people only lived to around fifty years old. Today people live to eighty or a hundred, big difference.</p>
<p>I’m cool with long term relationships, but it’s going to take a damn near perfect woman to get me married.</p>
<p>I think we are supposed to be the perfect one before we are looking for our perfect one, eh? Marriage is more about making my spouse’s life even more beautiful/enjoyable.</p>
<p>Yes but not everyone believes in only marital sex, TrueLove.</p>
<p>I kind of agree with crazyday. I think I’d have to be in a relationship with a woman for many years, including living in with her before I’d get married to her. </p>
<p>Part of the reason I’d want to wait is that people are constantly changing. However, that change is much more rapid and deep between 22 and I’d say 30. Once I get settled into a routine, find a city I want to live in for the rest (or at least most) of my life, and have a secure career (or at least a secure career field) then I’d want to settle down. Because at that point, the changes that occur to a person would probably be much less marked and as such more easily adaptable to (which is the key to a successful marriage).</p>
<p>Nobody is perfect, but getting closer to said goal takes time. That’s why marriage is definitely not on my plate until my 30’s because if I’m not as perfect as I’d like myself to be, how can I know if my partner is as perfect as I’d like her to be? What if me and her are no longer congruent as I progress towards betterment?</p>
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<p>That’s not what people who have premarital sex do. We don’t just party and fornicate. I don’t see anyone saying anything negative about you and your beliefs. Why do you have to talk that way about anyone who doesn’t share your puritanical views?</p>
<p>When I’m 30something and driving a corvette around (damn, 7 years till I’m 30!) I’ll worry about marriage. 
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<p>Call me crazy, but I have other goals in life I want to do before having kids.</p>
<p>I’m with you Hurricane, to a degree. I believe that being flexible/resiliency is the best sign of mental health. So, indeed, people change. But you just work with that. That is where unconditional love comes into play. I am not marrying someone to get from. And I certainly want change (not the Obama way, tho’), because I wouldn’t want to get bored. Change is exciting! It sounds like you are afraid of finding Miss Wrong. Be focused on you being Mr. Right. When two people do that, they have an amazing marriage.</p>
<p>You’re way too naive. Please don’t go jump into a marriage. Unconditional love doesn’t exist, and if it does, you’re doing it wrong (except for your children of course, although I don’t know once they pass the age of 18).</p>
<p>I don’t give away my love, it has to be earned. That’s why I’m not jiving with the idea of marriage, because if she lets go of herself and stops being the woman I married, I’m leaving. And marriage complicates the process of leaving very much.</p>
<p>Sorry Pea. I had no intention to moralize. Just a real question. I am not sure why anyone would want to marry, if they were able to get the goods at whim. Ya know?</p>
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<p>Like I said, it’ll take a damn near perfect woman to get me to marry :P</p>
<p>But getting married because you can’t get girlfriends (or friends with benefits, if that’s your thing) in your life 24/7 is not the right way to go. Just throwin’ that out there. Work on your game, don’t get married because you can’t get laid.</p>
<p>Well said DCHurricane and crazyday. Instead of some unrealistic notion that we are going to have a perfect marriage how about doing everything you can to assure that it has the best odds possible of succeeding.</p>
<p>I’m approaching 50. Almost everyone I know is divorced. I know no one asked me but the best advice I can come up with to have a marriage that doesn’t fail is to wait. Wait until you know who you are, wait until you are established in a career, wait until you are older and smarter. It’s much harder to find out who you are if you are married and if you have kids it is even harder still. Do you think going to school is hard now? Try doing it when you have kids to take care of, it’s almost impossible.</p>
<p>TrueLove mentioned I might be comparing my spouse to my earlier boyfriends. That thought never even entered my mind. It is so far down on my list of things that are important I can’t even begin to tell you how unimportant that is. When you get married you don’t have time to think about stuff like that. You’re thinking about having to fix dinner having to clean the house having to entertain the in-laws who you don’t like very weel and holding down a job on top of all this. I don’t mean to sugar coat it but that’s what it is like.</p>
<p>Enjoy your 20s only having to worry about yourself. There is plenty of time for all the grown-up stuff later.</p>
<p>Crazy, I may not be communicating the best. I was joking, kinda, about getting married for sex. I am not that superficial. But come on! I am just being real. Regarding dating. Never a problem. I am pleased to say I pretty much get what I want! // I digress// I still need an answer to why get married, if you can get all the goods?</p>
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<p>No problem TrueLove. You are entitled to have your own point of view and I respect that.</p>
<p>Maybe there is no reason to get married. Is that so bad? crazylove is right, it makes it harder to leave. I like the idea of being with someone by choice, being married adds an element of having to stay. Do I believe in it? I don’t know, I believe in commitment, but that doesn’t come from a piece of paper.</p>
<p>There is no reason to get married when you’re young if you can get all the goods. And if you can’t get all the ‘goods’, you should learn how instead of resorting to marriage.</p>
<p>If I get married, it’s going to be to an amazing woman who is independent and everything I’ve ever looked for. And I’ll get married because I’ll have already lived the young life and I’ll be ready to settle down with an amazing woman that is perfect with me. I’m sure meeting new women will get tiring after some years, and that’s when I might settle down.</p>
<p>@Pea – I am not sure “waiting” makes a great marriage. Two people that are committed to making the other as happy and fulfilled in their life is the answer to marital bliss. I have seen it in my own family. It is not unrealistic. It takes hard work and the reality of unconditional love, which takes love beyond my selfish desires. Re: having multiple sex partners. I would never want my sweetheart to think I would be with anyone other than them, the person that God had sent to me. May sound naive, granted. But I have three generations of this mentality from whom I base my reality. It works . . . with Jesus being the example of TrueLove!</p>
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<p>No one else can ever make you happy. They will be able to do that for about two years until the heady rush of an infatuation wears off. You have to make yourself happy. Then you are asking for less from the other person and that will make the relationship easier. Believe me, easier is better. There are so many stresses outside of your control that will be challenges for your relationship, if you can make it easier by already being happy when you enter it then you should.</p>
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<p>You’ve seen what your parents have allowed you to see. Being the good parents that they are there may have been tension behind closed doors that they didn’t want their kids to be aware of. Every marriage has troubles.</p>
<p>A marriage certificate would never keep me with my spouse. My character will. When I make a commitment, I am true to my word: “…'til death do us part”!</p>
<p>Going along with what Pea has said, I’ve seen many dysfunctional marriages where the two people have stayed together for reasons outside of their control, including children. You may call this “fighting through the trouble” and strengthening your marriage, I call it how I see it: two people living in misery because they’ve forced themselves to.</p>