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Your Relationship Timeline -

HungryEyes's picture

I'm just curious - How long was the time frame of meeting your SO/BF/DH to when you became engaged and then when you were engaged to when you were married - if it applies?

Also when did you meet the skids?

How do you think this timeline affected your relationship? What would you do differently?

Comments

HungryEyes's picture

I'll go ahead and answer quickly - SO and I have been dating for 16 months. We are not yet engaged or anything.

I met SDs at about month 3. After that - everything moved very quickly. At the time, I remember not being able to catch my breath and thinking 'this will go down as a huge mistake.' when we moved in together.

But honestly - it hasn't. It's been wonderful. It's been one of the best decisions I've ever made. However SD's are young. BM is the reason I'm here at this point.

HadEnoughx5's picture

I dated DH for a year and then we became engaged. We married 8 months later. We began introducing the skids to one another 6 months after dating. I think things went well in our timeline/plans until BM started her alienation tricks on DH and the skids.

QueenBeau's picture

DH & I dated for about a year. I met his SD when we were just friends before we dated. We broke up for around 8 months and then got back together for a year and a half before we got engaged. We were engaged for 6 months before we got married. We moved a lil fast because we were already living together.

stormabruin's picture

DH & I were together for 7 years before we got engaged. We got married a year later. BM wasn't around when I met DH. He had the kids FT. I met them about 3 weeks after I met DH.

As far as our timeline, I was ready to get married sooner. However, I wouldn't change what we did. I think it was best that we waited until DH was able to really feel comfortable with it as well. I don't have children. He was a FT parent to two. Had both of us not been fully prepared & committed to our relationship/marriage, we could not have endured the challenges we have.

overworkedmom's picture

We met through our kids. SS and BS were in the same class and were friends- kid play dates turned into "us" dates later.

We dated for 1 year and got engaged. Moved in together right after. Got married 8 months later.

I am not sure what I would do differently other than insisting from the get-go that SS had issues and needed therapy. I shouldn't have ever left it up to DH to handle, thinking that it was just adjustments.

I would probably been more reluctant in taking on the mommy role for SS. I should not have been to willing because now I am stuck with this crap...

HungryEyes's picture

I think this is kind of why I was curious. I know the honeymoon period in a relationship ends between 18 mo and 4 years so I was wondering who waited that 18+ and how it affected their relationship.

Also for those like the above who waited 7 years - was that a great idea - or did it work for you personally etc.

New second wife-step-mom's picture

I've known DH since I was 13 - 14.

We got back in touch 5 years ago. We dated for 6 months then DH asked me to marry him and we married 6 months later.

I met SS after we became engaged.

I think we are both very committed to our relationship otherwise I would have walked a LONG time ago.

TBH, every time we have drama from SS and/or BM I still feel like walking. Sad

BSgoinon's picture

DH and I dated at 3 months when he moved in (yeah I know, he was renting a room from my sister though, and she wasn't paying her mortgage so he was about to be homeless), at 6 months later we were engaged.... at 5 years we were married, and have been for 4 years (next month).

Jsmom's picture

We met online, chatted via email for three months, finally met and dated for another 2 months before meeting kids. Dated for almost three years before getting engaged. Engaged for two years. Just celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary.

Highly recommend taking it slow. Wish we had gone slower and then maybe not moved in together until after all the kids were in college....Too much drama.

Imgoingtoscream's picture

My DH and I met online as well. Chatted via e-mail for 3 months then on the phone for about 2 months. The first night we met he came with his 6 yr old daughter. They drove from another state to come meet me and it happened to be the weekend his daughter was visiting. We dated for about 9 months before I moved in with him. We got engaged in Aug then a week later found out we were pregnant then married that Sept. We just celebrated our 5 yr anniversary last month.

I would suggest taking it slow. I think I met the kids to soon. SD started calling me mom almost immediately and it made me really uncomfortable. SS took a year or so before he warmed up to me.

Steppin's picture

I met DH when I was 20 and he was 25. I met SS10 when he was 4 which was a couple months into our relationship. We dated for a year, moved in together. He proposed almost immediately and we got married a year later. I got pregnant immediately after our wedding. (actually I already was pregnant- just didn't know it!) We have BS3 and BS2.
6 years total-- 4 married. Wouldn't change one single thing Smile

not2sureimsaneanymore's picture

We have "officially" been together for 3 years this past week, but he had been asking me out on dates for four months prior to that. Married for a little over one, dated for a little under than two. Lived together for about 6 months before we got married. Engaged... there was no proposal, we just talked about it and decided we'd like to spend the rest of our lives together and we did it--our sex life was great, living together posed no problems, we were (and are) just very compatible with each other on top of being in love.

myspoonistoobig's picture

We were together for about a year. Had DD22mo, then we got married when she was 6 months old. Then we had DD8mo. So I think now we've been together like... 3 years-ish but celebrated our 1st marital anniversary in February.

I met SS once during that first year, but spent no more real time with him until I was pregnant with my oldest DD. I think, in a way, we both got lucky like that. When I first met him I was TERRIFIED of him. But with all those mommy hormones firing, bonding with him was extremely easy while I was pregnant. It's actually harder to sort out my feelings regarding him now that he's getting older, and BM really through a wrench into it with TV-dinner Dad, since now I get to occassionally hear SS tell strangers how he has 'two Daddys, but only one Mommy.'

Don't misunderstand, I don't want to be his mommy, but my husband I are very close, and it makes me twitch a little when I'm reminded of BM's campaign to replace him with someone she finds more suitable. More power to her for doing it for herself, but her effort to do it for her son makes me want to punch her in the face.

Tuff Noogies's picture

"Had both of us not been fully prepared & committed to our relationship/marriage, we could not have endured the challenges we have." WELL SAID S/A!!!

lets see. i met DH on a saturday. INSTANT, and i do mean instant, heart and soul connection. we were together every day after work for the next week except one day. the week after, he and the boys went on vacation (w/ his parents). the day they got back, we saw eachother, and we havent been apart a day since. the very next weekend he had them, i met the boys (and his parents.)

that was over 5 years ago.

we were engaged a month later, and married (almost to the day!)five months after we met.

i still cant believe how fast 5 years has gone by.

S/A said what the key is. and that was DH and I to a 'T'. we both have very long and strange histories (and we're both COD's!), so with both went into it with eyes wide open, and neither one of us was even remotely interested in something casual or to play games. nope. and we both made that abundantly clear.

i'm here mostly because of Dumbass and MIL. all three skids are awesome, with their own quirks and irritations, but good kids nonetheless, and we enjoy eachother's company.

would i recommend anyone else moving that fast, especially with kids involved? absolutely not. but for us it was right. still right after 5 years, and stronger than ever. ^_^

Tuff Noogies's picture

i wanted to add too - i think the only reason that going that fast did not backfire was because DH was used to having skid weekends over at his parents' house. they have a lot more room and lots of exciting toys (think like 4-wheelers, trampoline, video games, pool, etc). although DH moved in with me shortly after we met, the boys did not actually spend the night until two months after we'd been married.

so i think it was really helpful that their routine did not change at all just because i met DH. it stayed exactly the same, except there was this new chick to hang out with too.

if he was custodial, or if they were used to just "Us and Daddy" time during his visitation, it would've been a huge mistake not going super slow...

Onefootout's picture

SS16 is finally, after a year and a half, getting a little less resentful of me coming between him and his dad. His fantasy is for him and his dad to live together forever with no woman getting in the way.

misSTEP's picture

I met DH when I was 28. We had sex the first night we met. I am not proud of that, but it is the truth. We spent almost all non-work time together for a month. Then he seemed to drop off the face of the earth. I found out later that he was making one last effort with BM for the "sake of the kids" :sick:

It was about 4-6 months later that we ran into each other again. He had completely broken off with BM and told her about me. He told a friend that he couldn't stop thinking about me and the friend told him that he needed to find me again. I met the skids a month and a half after that. We moved in together about three months after we re-met. We got engaged about six months after that.

We got married a little over a year later. It would have been longer but we were planning to go to an all-inclusive resort in the Bahamas. Then 9/11 happened. Between the feeling that life was too short and having a fiance who was already flight-shy, we just went to the JOP and got married.

We will be celebrating our 12th anniversary this Fall. It should be an awesome one as the skids are now both over 18 and CS is ending next week! WOOHOO!!

misSTEP's picture

This was also the first (ONLY) marriage for either of us. We both had children from previous relationships but had never married.

Onefootout's picture

Not engaged, not even close so this doesnt apply to me, but I still would like to comment, hope that's okay.

Met the only kid left that's still speaking to SO a couple months into the relationship. I've never met his two daughters who are estranged.

SO is used to moving very fast, usually he marries a few months later. Six months was the longest he ever waited before getting married.

I dated SO for 11 months before moving in with him. He asked me to move in earlier, I wouldn't, but then I had a mice problem in my rent house, and SO was tired of visiting me in my dumpy house. So I agreed to move in for a trial period, fairly certain I'd be moving right back out. I have now lived with SO and SS16 for eight months and no plans to move yet.

I've made it clear that I probably won't consider a further commitment until SS16 show signs of becoming more mature and independent.

myspoonistoobig's picture

Probably a good idea anyway. At this point, just wait till he's an adult and moves on.

bi's picture

i met sd 3 months after dating fdh, which is also when he met bd. sd was 12, bd was 9 1/2. here we are over 8 years later, and we are not technically engaged and no wedding date. i don't really care, i was married once and it was a joke, i'm not in a hurry to do it again. also, fdh has been really pissing me off in some major ways over the past year, so marrying him is not even something i could stomach right now.

GhostWhoCooksDinner's picture

Met- December 2010.
Decided we would be married forever- third date
Met skids- February 2011
Engaged- July 2011
Moved in together- August 2011
Married- June 2012

I had been divorced for 13 years when we got married, DH 3 years.

wanttoscream's picture

Dated in highschool and my first two years in college. Got married the summer before my junior year in college. We were divorced two years later. Went separate ways, and got back together after being married to other people for past 20 years. I was divorced and he was in process of divorce when our paths crossed. She had thrown him out because he was on disability and she was sick of him. We remarried on June 18, 2013, in Vegas. It would have been our 25th Anniversary if we had stayed married. He has three kids, two girls, 19 and almost 16 and boy 11 (my thorn). I have two boys 20 and 14.

The BM has been a nightmare the whole time, and told her kids horrible things about me (lies and rumors) from the first time DH and I were married. Luckily, my SD's love me. Smile