When Do You Know?

 

Over at The Federalist, my colleague Holly Scheer wrote an important piece for millennials in the dating pool to consider. Writing after the breakup of Lena Dunham, Scheer highlights the biggest mistake those of my generation and younger are making: treating dating as the destination instead of the journey. If you want to get married, don’t spin your wheels for years in a dead-end relationship, wasting some of your most fertile years in the process.

After five years of dating, and after penning what is now a heartbreaking piece about how she wants to get married, they’ve broken up. In that piece in the New Yorker, Dunham makes clear marriage was always her end goal:

I proudly wore our anti-marriage badge, though I did cut a rug at assorted straight weddings. But sometimes, in a moment of deep gratitude, I would mutter these words to Jack, unbidden: “Marry me.” They became a kind of code, a way of giving a million other kinds of loving thanks. I wasn’t serious, I told myself. It was like when I tell my dog to “get a job.” But I also liked that our anti-marriage plan wasn’t absolute, and that it teased at a brighter future for all (a future where I might get to wear the fluffy white dress).

That future, of course, arrived not long ago, when the Supreme Court ruled that marriage is a right for all, regardless of gender identification or sexual preference. Like so many people around the country, I awoke to dozens of joyful messages from friends and family, rainbows and hearts and a sense that at least one great victory for human rights had been achieved in our lifetimes. What a joy, to have a morning like that, knowing how many people felt affirmed and liberated, knowing that Pride weekend in New York would be an explosion of hope and glitter.

Soon after, another kind of text started to trickle in: “Now you can get married!” “Hello, bride to be!”

She tweeted him at the time:

That was in June of 2015, two and a half years ago. He never did get on it, and they broke up this week.

In response to Scheer’s essay, one of my Twitter followers (correctly) remarked:

To which I replied:

https://twitter.com/bethanyshondark/status/951095143733649410

The responses to that tweet are great and worth a read. Lots of folks telling stories about how crazy fast they knew their spouse was The One. Seth and I have a similar story (and I’m going to try to get him to let me tell it on this week’s episode of That Sethany Show).

Which got me thinking — I’d love to hear from members (and get to know you better in the process!): How did you know your One was The One — and when?

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  1. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    This is topical, with the loss of a long time spouse of on of our most cherished members. He asked us to hug our spouses, so perhaps a celebration for a few days is a great tribute to the love between them.

    My wife and I met in college. She was dating someone else as we got to know each other through a role-playing game . She was a tag along player with her boyfriend. I engaged in a year-long quest to win her over, but mostly at a subconscious level. (I am too clever for my own good, sometimes). Things finally worked, and she dumped the other guy and we linked up. Now, I was, in no way, going to marry a woman who was headed into the Army, and I told her so. However, I was in luv from the moment she even voiced she might be dumping the other guy for me (I remember the moment of being struck by cupid’s arrow). I was telling her “I love you” for a while before she was ready to say it to me.

    After 6 months, we have gone through the “luv” phase, and things had developed. I remember the car ride where I said, “So I am thinking someday we will be married”, and she agreed. We were both still in school, so we wanted to wait. We dated from 1990 to 1994. Our engagement was a mere 5 months (And I did a real proposal, ladies, one knee and everything, it was not just that bit in the car). August 27, 1994 she became my bride. And she is the most important person in the world to me, and I only face life’s battles with her at my side.

    She made the tie pin by the way!

    Love you, Linda!

    • #1
  2. Larry3435 Inactive
    Larry3435
    @Larry3435

    Bethany Mandel: Scheer highlights the biggest mistake those of my generation and younger are making: treating dating as the destination instead of the journey.

    It is an even bigger mistake to treat marriage as the destination instead of the journey.  Anyone who thinks that the words “I do” will end all of their problems has a rude awakening in store.  Don’t misunderstand me – I love my wife and I love our marriage.  But there is nothing talismanic about marriage per se.  It takes effort and compromise to make it work.

    • #2
  3. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    Larry3435 (View Comment):

    Bethany Mandel: Scheer highlights the biggest mistake those of my generation and younger are making: treating dating as the destination instead of the journey.

    It is an even bigger mistake to treat marriage as the destination instead of the journey. Anyone who thinks that the words “I do” will end all of their problems has a rude awakening in store. Don’t misunderstand me – I love my wife and I love our marriage. But there is nothing talismanic about marriage per se. It takes effort and compromise to make it work.

    I disagree. Getting married, going through the ceremony, makes staying together more likely. Humans respond to ritual and there is a type of technology there that we often dismiss in our modern world. Yes, it takes ongoing effort and compromise to make it work. And that is easier is some degree with the ritual and the “piece of paper”.

    • #3
  4. Larry3435 Inactive
    Larry3435
    @Larry3435

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    Larry3435 (View Comment):

    Bethany Mandel: Scheer highlights the biggest mistake those of my generation and younger are making: treating dating as the destination instead of the journey.

    It is an even bigger mistake to treat marriage as the destination instead of the journey. Anyone who thinks that the words “I do” will end all of their problems has a rude awakening in store. Don’t misunderstand me – I love my wife and I love our marriage. But there is nothing talismanic about marriage per se. It takes effort and compromise to make it work.

    I disagree. Getting married, going through the ceremony, makes staying together more likely. Humans respond to ritual and there is a type of technology there that we often dismiss in our modern world. Yes, it takes ongoing effort and compromise to make it work. And that is easier is some degree with the ritual and the “piece of paper”.

    There may be some truth to that, although the divorce statistics don’t seem to support it.  But even if that is true, marriage is still not the destination.  A destination is a place where, once you get there, you stop.  Don’t think you can do that with a marriage.  You can’t.

    • #4
  5. OkieSailor Member
    OkieSailor
    @OkieSailor

    It takes commitment to make it work and reciting vows helps that along if both mean what they are saying. Remembering those vows can help get a couple over the inevitable rough patches.

    Nothing worthwhile can be attained or sustained without work.
    And there needs to be a good deal of fun too.

    • #5
  6. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    Larry3435 (View Comment):
    There may be some truth to that, although the divorce statistics don’t seem to support it. But even if that is true, marriage is still not the destination. A destination is a place where, once you get there, you stop. Don’t think you can do that with a marriage. You can’t.

    Divorce is less common than cohabitation break ups.

    I don’t disagree that marriage is not the end of work. It is the end of a phase.

    • #6
  7. Bethany Mandel Coolidge
    Bethany Mandel
    @bethanymandel

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):
    This is topical, with the loss of a long time spouse of on of our most cherished members. He asked us to hug our spouses, so perhaps a celebration for a few days is a great tribute to the love between them.

    My wife and I met in college. She was dating someone else as we got to know each other through a role-playing game . She was a tag along player with her boyfriend. I engaged in a year-long quest to win her over, but mostly at a subconscious level. (I am too clever for my own good, sometimes). Things finally worked, and she dumped the other guy and we linked up. Now, I was, in no way, going to marry a woman who was headed into the Army, and I told her so. However, I was in luv from the moment she even voiced she might be dumping the other guy for me (I remember the moment of being struck by cupid’s arrow). I was telling her “I love you” for a while before she was ready to say it to me.

    After 6 months, we have gone through the “luv” phase, and things had developed. I remember the car ride where I said, “So I am thinking someday we will be married”, and she agreed. We were both still in school, so we wanted to wait. We dated from 1990 to 1994. Our engagement was a mere 5 months (And I did a real proposal, ladies, one knee and everything, it was not just that bit in the car). August 27, 1994 she became my bride. And she is the most important person in the world to me, and I only face life’s battles with her at my side.

    She made the tie pin by the way!

    Love you, Linda!

    That’s precisely what I was thinking.

    • #7
  8. Bethany Mandel Coolidge
    Bethany Mandel
    @bethanymandel

    Larry3435 (View Comment):

    Bethany Mandel: Scheer highlights the biggest mistake those of my generation and younger are making: treating dating as the destination instead of the journey.

    It is an even bigger mistake to treat marriage as the destination instead of the journey. Anyone who thinks that the words “I do” will end all of their problems has a rude awakening in store. Don’t misunderstand me – I love my wife and I love our marriage. But there is nothing talismanic about marriage per se. It takes effort and compromise to make it work.

    As the child of divorce, this was my biggest lesson to learn. One day I’d like to write a book about how children of divorce fare in marriage; and how we can learn how to weather its storms. I need more than seven years under my belt, first.

    • #8
  9. Brian Wyneken Member
    Brian Wyneken
    @BrianWyneken

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    Larry3435 (View Comment):

    Bethany Mandel: Scheer highlights the biggest mistake those of my generation and younger are making: treating dating as the destination instead of the journey.

    It is an even bigger mistake to treat marriage as the destination instead of the journey. Anyone who thinks that the words “I do” will end all of their problems has a rude awakening in store. Don’t misunderstand me – I love my wife and I love our marriage. But there is nothing talismanic about marriage per se. It takes effort and compromise to make it work.

    I disagree. Getting married, going through the ceremony, makes staying together more likely. Humans respond to ritual and there is a type of technology there that we often dismiss in our modern world. Yes, it takes ongoing effort and compromise to make it work. And that is easier is some degree with the ritual and the “piece of paper”.

    “OK, I’m with you fellas.”

    I liked both comments – I hope that’s allowed.

    • #9
  10. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    Brian Wyneken (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    Larry3435 (View Comment):

    Bethany Mandel: Scheer highlights the biggest mistake those of my generation and younger are making: treating dating as the destination instead of the journey.

    It is an even bigger mistake to treat marriage as the destination instead of the journey. Anyone who thinks that the words “I do” will end all of their problems has a rude awakening in store. Don’t misunderstand me – I love my wife and I love our marriage. But there is nothing talismanic about marriage per se. It takes effort and compromise to make it work.

    I disagree. Getting married, going through the ceremony, makes staying together more likely. Humans respond to ritual and there is a type of technology there that we often dismiss in our modern world. Yes, it takes ongoing effort and compromise to make it work. And that is easier is some degree with the ritual and the “piece of paper”.

    “OK, I’m with you fellas.”

    I liked both comments – I hope that’s allowed.

    It is, even if your name’s spelled funny!

    • #10
  11. Cow Girl Thatcher
    Cow Girl
    @CowGirl

    I met him in 6th grade. I’d gone to a one-classroom school from K-5. Then, the district build a new elementary school in town that was big enough, so they closed the little auxiliary buildings and bused us farm kids to town. (Pop. 1500). He was a town kid. (Who spent most of his life out on the family ranch, or up in the mountains with the family trail-ride business.) Anyway…I was 5’9″ at age 11—built like a flag pole. He was cute and popular, had amazing brown eyes, and knew a lot of big vocabulary words that I thought only I knew. He read a lot of books. He was super polite, and correct with adults: “Yes, ma’am. No sir, Pardon me, sir.” However, his head didn’t even come up to my chin. I’m sure I was invisible to him. But, I was hooked.

    Approximately 10 years later, we ended up married. It’s quite a tale in between. Let’s just say, that he grew taller, and I finally caught his eye. But he’s still polite, well-spoken, and reads a lot. And he loves me.

    • #11
  12. NYLibertarianGuy Inactive
    NYLibertarianGuy
    @PaulKingsbery

    Six months, max.

    • #12
  13. iWe Coolidge
    iWe
    @iWe

    In my case, two days. But I waited for the 4th day before popping the question. We were both 19.

    That was almost 27 years ago.  I thank G-d every day for the decisions I made before I knew better – this one above all.

    • #13
  14. EJHill Podcaster
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    My wife and I are from different states. It took an act of kismet to bring us together.

    • #14
  15. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    I talked about my experience elsewhere. I would add our relationship did not start off as mad, passionate love-at-first-sight. Like at first sight, more like. After a couple of years we were really good friends – yes, just friends, someone you do things with because it is fun. It began to dawn on me she had everything I would want in a partner to go through life with. From there it ripened into love.

    As for your wedding day being the happiest day of your life? I wrote about that here.

    • #15
  16. EODmom Coolidge
    EODmom
    @EODmom

    I tell my young friends not to date anyone they wouldn’t marry. Or bring home and meet favoured and critical siblings. They seem to get that: marriage is the desired end/beginning for the dating phase in life. And now that our EodMarine has married and started his family we are of the Don’t Wait school. Three more red heads later it just seems the right way. We didn’t exactly wait – it just took the Right time/ right Place serendipity to let it happen. Then no time waiting at all. Now I can’t imagine all that’s to come without him and I give thanks daily for the blessing of seeing EODDad inEODMarine and EODboy. I get to know them all the rest of my life.

    • #16
  17. Joseph Stanko Coolidge
    Joseph Stanko
    @JosephStanko

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):
    She was dating someone else as we got to know each other through a role-playing game .

    You kinky devil!

    Oh, that kind of role-playing game. Never mind.

    • #17
  18. Randy Weivoda Moderator
    Randy Weivoda
    @RandyWeivoda

    Bethany Mandel: How did you know your One was The One — and when?

    I don’t know how I knew.  But every year I’m more convinced that she’s the right one.  As for the timing, we met in April or May of 2004, we became engaged the following February, and got married October of 2005.

    • #18
  19. KentForrester Coolidge
    KentForrester
    @KentForrester

    The wisest thing I’ve ever read about a woman dating a man is this:  Don’t pay a whole lot of attention to how he treats you.  Instead, watch how he treats other people, because that’s how he’ll treat you in a year or so.  That works for either sex, of course.

    Kent

    • #19
  20. J.D. Snapp, Possum Aficionado Coolidge
    J.D. Snapp, Possum Aficionado
    @JulieSnapp

    I knew @kaladin was special the first time I met him, and I’d say I knew he was The One fairly early on. I can’t tell you the exact point there I crossed over into that knowing, but I could tell the relationship was going to be unlike any I’d had before from the first date.

    • #20
  21. DocJay Inactive
    DocJay
    @DocJay

    There’s a viral love phase that lasts 6-18 months and after that is when the real work begins.

    Somehow Lena Dunham’s existence, based on her politics, was bound to be associated with odd men.

    • #21
  22. Luke Thatcher
    Luke
    @Luke

    I knew when…

    she was away for two weeks and for those two weeks all i could think of was her. When i got up I was wondering what she was up to. When i went to sleep, I was hoping that she remembered me. When i was hungry I was wondering what she had for lunch.

    It’s getting awfully close to having been … 20 years or so since I had that realization one summer in high school…

    Thing is… that never really wore off.

     

    • #22
  23. Mike Rapkoch Member
    Mike Rapkoch
    @MikeRapkoch

    All I know is that she married me out of pity, and 38 years later she’s 1001 furlongs ahead of me on the road to Heaven (which assumes we’re on the same road).

    • #23
  24. The Whether Man Inactive
    The Whether Man
    @TheWhetherMan

    We met and married in our mid-to-late 30s. I think we both knew that the other was a keeper by about three months, and though it took us 2.5 years from meeting to walking down the aisle (we were engaged after a year and about ten months), that had more to do with geography and work circumstances keeping us in different (but bordering) states than any uncertainty about the eventual outcome.

    My one pet peeve about all these articles is how preachy they get about fertility and settling down in your 20s.  It’s great advice, as far as people have a choice in the matter, but it’s also about the luck of the draw.  Some of us just end up waiting longer to meet the right person.

    • #24
  25. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    I had no idea on the first date, though I liked him as a human being.  By the second date I saw some flaws, but he was still okay.  By the third date, I saw something new, and I really liked what I saw.   I not only liked him, I respected him, and that was a very important realization.  I knew then that we’d get married, and I wasn’t at all surprised when he showed up with a ring.

     

    Anyway, we married in less than a year and have continued to be married for more than twenty years, but I don’t think I realized–as in truly, really understood–how special he was or how lucky I was until about a decade into it.

    So I agree with both the earlier comments that marriage binds but the wedding is just a beginning.  People often quit too early, and that is a shame.

     

    • #25
  26. Songwriter Inactive
    Songwriter
    @user_19450

    Our first encounter, a rehearsal for a gig, was somewhat antagonistic. (She was the singer. I was to be her accompanist.). But we both needed the money, so we established a working relationship. Over the next few weeks, we became friends. And then I noticed just how good she looked in those slinky dresses she wore to sing in.

    A year later, we were married.

    That was 41 years ago.

    • #26
  27. OkieSailor Member
    OkieSailor
    @OkieSailor

    Bethany Mandel (View Comment):
    As the child of divorce, this was my biggest lesson to learn. One day I’d like to write a book about how children of divorce fare in marriage; and how we can learn how to weather its storms. I need more than seven years under my belt, first.

    That book is sorely needed. Don’t wait too long though. In my very inexpert opinion, if you don’t know how to make your marriage last long term by, say 10 years, you will never know. I think you probably know now. You are uniquely positioned to speak to the obstacles faced by children of divorced parents.

    • #27
  28. Tom Meyer, Common Citizen Member
    Tom Meyer, Common Citizen
    @tommeyer

    https://twitter.com/bethanyshondark/status/951095143733649410

    As a general rule, I’d say that’s a little fast: It’s good to see the other person go through a cycle of highs and lows, though that can be done within a year. My advice is that a year is a good landmark for either taking significant steps toward marriage (getting engaged, moving to the same city if long-distancing, etc) or splitting up; if you don’t know by then, you’re likely wasting each other’s time.

    For us, it was a little over two years between meeting and tying the knot.

    • #28
  29. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    OkieSailor (View Comment):

    Bethany Mandel (View Comment):
    As the child of divorce, this was my biggest lesson to learn. One day I’d like to write a book about how children of divorce fare in marriage; and how we can learn how to weather its storms. I need more than seven years under my belt, first.

    That book is sorely needed. Don’t wait too long though. In my very inexpert opinion, if you don’t know how to make your marriage last long term by, say 10 years, you will never know. I think you probably know now. You are uniquely positioned to speak to the obstacles faced by children of divorced parents.

    One thing I can say about my husband and me…  He was the child of divorce so was super committed to never being divorced.

    I was a child of marriage in that none of my great role models were divorced.  (Even my aunts and uncles all stayed together, and since there’s a strong Catholic streak in my brood, there are a lot of aunts and uncles.)

    So his model was “don’t do that or you’ll be broken,” and my model was “say I do and you’re done.”

    This meant even when it was super hard–and I’m not going to lie; marriage is sometimes very hard indeed; people, being people, make lots of selfish, stupid choices that can be very detrimental–we were committed to working through it, getting over that hard hill, finding the next thing on the path that would link our hands together again.

    Our culture works against that sort of commitment, which is a shame and the source, in my opinion, of a lot of unnecessary heartache.

    Sometimes going through difficult trials brings people closer, after all.

    • #29
  30. GLDIII Reagan
    GLDIII
    @GLDIII

    My wife and I met in high school. She was the yearbook editor and I was the photographer. I think within a few months we knew.

    Our relationship strengthen during college, partly because I talked her into attend the U of Maryland, rather than her plan to go to the locate community college. Back then the financial differences between the options were negligible and by both attending the same college kept us in each other’s daily life during the tumultuous social changes of the 70’s.  We both live at home (there was no “co-habitation nonsense” back then) and got married as soon as one of us graduated.

    That was the fall of 1980. We were as poor a church mice, however since we both worked during college we had no debt, and each had a fairly easy segue into the workplace since we never really left it for college. In hindsight huge debt loads is becoming a vast hindrance to millennials and the formation of marriages, who wants to marry into a union with a spouse carrying 100K of debt for an unemployable “studies” major. The kids are not stupid.

    To say it was “happily ever after” does an injustice to what it really takes to have a strong union.  Without adversity how does one measure happiness or success? How does one demonstrate to their offspring, in fine granular detail, what is required to make a relationship work. How does copping out with an easy divorce insure that your children will do better? Humanity has not really changed for as long as we have keep accessible records, what has changed is a cheapen morality that thinks we, at this point in history, know so much more than our predecessors about the human heart. The hubris is monumental.

    Linda & I are coming to the comfortable part of a long marriage, two boys, one graduated college with a remunerative degree, no debt, and engaged, the other in his final year of college with a engineering degree that has potential employers engaging him before he even graduates.

    This was from 4 years ago, we are dress to do our volunteer beer booth service to raise money for the boys Scout troop at the local Renaissance Festive.

    The shot below was our 37 anniversary weekend which we celebrated by “chaperoning” our boy’s Scout troop at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg Va. We had our honeymoon in Williamsburg 37 years prior. Both our boys have “Eagle graduated” out from Scouts at this point, but we enjoy helping the young boys become good men, and after 19 years of Scouting it is hard to stop.

    I wish I could share a picture of when we got married to box this like Bryan did, but film was only just invented then and I have nothing that has ever been transferred to the digital realm.

    As Bryan mentioned, the story Seawriter shared has a bunch of us really tearfully heartbroken as we track his same path, and also look forward to a calmer less driven time with our life long spouses. It feels like he got seriously cheated.

    As of the moment we have no grandchildren to spoil; Soooo…  Bethany do you and the kids still need some socks? ☺️

    • #30
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