I was 15 and DH was 17 when we started dating. I got pregnant 4 months into the relationship. He asked if I wanted to get married. I said no. At that point, I knew he was asking because we were going to have a baby together. To me, that was no reason to get married. I wanted to be sure that when I did get married, it was because I found the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
He asked me again after he got out of boot camp. I said yes. By then, I knew that I loved this man more than anything and could totally see growing old with him. We had been together almost 2 1/2 years when we got married. It was a month after my 18th birthday. We’ve been married for over 12 years now.
I really didn’t care either way about the last name, but he wanted me to take his, so I did.
[COLOR=royalblue]This post’s Swedish word/phrase: “Flicknamn. Efternamn.” = “Maiden name. Last name.”
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Thank you all for shipping in with your stories! I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading them all. It seems everyone has their own reasons for marriage, for engagements and changing their last names. Interesting!
Not that I’m really that surprised. :teehee:
Again; thank you! And please, keep more stories coming. I’m still curious.
I was 25, husband was 35 when we got married. We dated for 3 weeks before he asked me to marry him and about two weeks later we were formally engaged (ring and all) and 8 months after that we were married. We’ve been married going on 15 years.
For us, getting married was the only solution, neither of us wanted to live together and our families probably would have frowned on it too, I guess we both are old fashioned that way. I took his name because my maiden name was “smith” so I was pretty tired of it but he wouldn’t have minded if I kept my maiden name. Marriage was indeed a change, we didn’t live together prior to marriage and we both had our way of doing things, he’s a slob, I’m, well, PERFECT! :roflhard: Nothing has changed in that regard, he’s still a slob and well you get the idea. :roflhard:
I’m not married, don’t even have a boyfriend, but I wanted to comment on some things that were brought up.
Ms. versus Mrs. I use “Ms.” when I fill in forms. It upsets me that men are always “Mr.” but women traditionally had to identify themselves as “married” or “single.” I don’t think it’s anyone’s business what my marital state is, unless I choose to tell them.
I don’t see myself giving up my last name. Maybe hyphenating, but my name is a part of me–and as someone’s DH realized, he couldn’t give up his own, so why should a woman? :teehee: Of course, if I do have kids and keep my own name, I’m going to swallow my pride and be gracious when people refer to me as Mrs. Husband’s Last Name, just because it’s going to happen no matter how much I correct people. My mom changed back to her maiden name after the divorce, and she gets called by my last name all the time, no matter how often you remind people.
Marriage, marriage. . . I can honestly say it’s one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life. In Sept. we will be celebrating 5 years!
We got married when we were both barely 22. We had been in a long distance relationship for the 1 year that we knew each other. As soon as we met (in a bar, btw) there was the instant love at first sight feeling. We didn’t see each other again for about 6 weeks, but after meeting that one time, each of us called our parents and told them that we met “the one”. Needless to say, our parents and friends told us we were all crazy, but in our hearts we knew what was right. We got engaged 4 months after we met (he proposed) and then got married 9 months later, after college. The proposal was really more of a formality, as we had already set the date and were planning everything, but we were in no hurry to do anything “formal”. But he knew it would mean a lot to me, so he surprised me. Since we were living in different states, that’s the one of main reasons we chose to get married - so we could actually start a life together. We found an apt. and moved in together for the 4 months between college graduation and the wedding. My parents weren’t thrilled about it, but I still don’t think his parents have a clue. (His dad is a pastor and his parents would have had a cow!)
Anyway, we got married because we wanted to and we knew it was right. And even though everyone thought we were nuts, we’re the ones who are still together and happy as clams!
I always said I wouldn’t change my last name until I met DH - then I actually [U]wanted[/U] to change it. I dropped my middle name, so my real name is first name, maiden name, married name.
To answer your other question about living together - maybe I’m old fashioned - and I am in no way criticizing people who do live together - I don’t know if it’s something I could ever do. At least when we did for 4 months, we had a serious commitment. I know after building a life together it’s hard to step back and start over if it doesn’t work out. I have a friend who lives with her boyfriend now. She has a good job, wants to buy a house, etc. - but what happens to the boyfriend? Does he automatically have the right to her success, especially when he doesn’t have what she does? They have no commitment whatsoever and call me pessimistic, but I doubt it will work out. :shrug: It just seems to me there needs to be some sort of serious long-term commitment - even if it’s not marriage.
My husband and I met on-line and were friends for 6 years before it turned into something more. We dated long distance for a year (September 03 - September 04) (very difficult) We got engaged in May of 2004. I finally made the big move in September of 2004 to live near him.
We were married in March of 2005. Getting married for me was important because it meant we could live together. He grew up in a very traditional, very religious family so living together before marriage was NOT even an option. It was a shock to go from living in the same state for 6 months to living together. I’m not saying that living together before we were married would have changed my mind about marrying him but it was tough being newlyweds and having to “figure it all out”.
We had 8 people at our wedding. We didn’t want to spend a lot of money but wanted a special ceremony to share with those we loved the most. I wore a white pant suit and he didn’t even wear a tie, because that wasn’t him. My sister stood with me as my only attendant and was allowed to wear whatever she wanted. I didn’t need things to look ‘perfect’ - I was marrying the man I loved and was able to share that moment with my parents and my sister and that was all that mattered. We could have gotten married in the grocery store but as long as I was marrying him and had my parents and sister there it would have been perfect.
We both thought we wanted a traditional family with 2.5 kids and a white picket fence. It didn’t take us long to change our minds and decide not to have children. We realize this will mean our parents will never be grandparents and that was hard, but we had to think of ourselves.
As for names…I too had to keep my madien name because after being that person for 25 years I couldn’t give that up. I now have 4 names, only one last name, and took my madien name as a second middle name…I love my name but it has caused problems because most “normal” people only have one middle intial so forms are tough! However, my father still calls me by my madien name sometimes…he just does it out of habit and so it makes me proud to still carry my madien name.
IrishKnitter is exactly right…any decision has to be made for you and what is right as a couple. I wouldn’t want a big wedding, but I am not going to deny anyone that right! It truly is a HUGE decison, but entierly personal!
Oh man! I can’t believe I just typed for the past 10 minutes and my IE went down and it was all lost! :hair:
I met Matthew in July of 2000 and married him in March of 2001. He lived in NY and I lived in FL and we were introduced by my BF George, who is also the guy I do all my singing gigs with.
I DID NOT want to fall in love with anyone at the time because I was going through a divorce after 19 years of marriage and I wanted to have some time as “myself.”
However, God definitely has a sense of humor because I fell in love practically the moment we met. He moved to FL in November and proposed on Christmas Day. He lived with George and his family until the wedding because I don’t live with men I’m not married to (I had 3 teenage daughters and didn’t think it would be “the thing” to do).
I had taken back my maiden name after the divorce and because I didn’t want to “lose myself” again, I took Avila as my middle name and Rudden as my last. Actually, I think legally my name is Avila-Rudden. I don’t know.:lol:
Matt “gets” me. I’m pretty crazy and eccentric, and he loves that about me. He told me that, the first time he heard me sing, he knew he could listen to me sing for the rest of his life. Awwwwwwwwwwwww, Every day, he tells me he loves me a zillion times. I think, truly, that I can count on 2 hands the amount of times Steve told me he loved me in 19 years of marriage. Maybe that’s why he married the next door neighbor (can you picture THAT scenario?).
Matt supports me 200% and loves me with a love that I always thought I could never have. God knew what He was doing when he brought Matthew into my life and I truly believe that Matt is the only man on this earth who would be able to get me through the stuff that has happened to me and my girls up til now.
My dh and I met on a blind date set up by mutual friends of ours. Sparks flew as soon as we saw each other!! :woohoo: He lived across the state from me so we talked on the phone every day and wrote letters daily. We got engaged and then were married within six months and that was over 30 yrs. ago. I still have ALL of those love letters. :happydance: We are still crazy in love after all this time and three children and one grandchild later.
I felt honored when he proposed to me. It showed me that he wanted me for himself and he cared enough to make a commitment and so did I. I was brought up when you did not “live” with a person…you dated then got married if you met the right one. Just living with him was never an option for either of us. :fingerwag:
Me too! That is TOTALLY how I felt, especially as the wedding got closer and closer. I didn’t care what the flowers looked like, if everything was perfect, I just wanted to be married! :teehee:
:teehee: I’m glad to know I amused you ladies :teehee:
It is the truth! The wedding was hard enough to plan because I broke my mom’s heart and my grandparents hearts which was hard, but we wanted to be sure our wedding day was about us and that is what we did. It is so important to stay true to what you want!
[FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]My DH and I met started dating in 1992. It was love at first sight!!! We dated for many years. Then, we lived together for a year and a half before we actually got married in 2000. I was 30 and he was almost 28. There was no a formal proposal. Actually, I think I brought it up just like I asked him out on our first date. We didn’t want a wedding, so we just went to city hall and got married one morning and had dinner at a restaurant with our family that night. It was in April, but I don’t remember the date. We never really celebrate our wedding anniversary. More important to me was the date we committed to each other on October of 1992. Nothing really changed after we got married. We were “one” since before we even moved in together.[/SIZE][/FONT]
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[SIZE=3][FONT=Times New Roman]I never changed my last name because is part of my identity. It would feel kind of weird…It wouldn’t be me anymore. [/FONT][/SIZE]
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[FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Our 6 year old son has both of our last names hyphenated. After all, he is my son too. Why should he just have DH’s last name?[/SIZE][/FONT]
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[FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Anyway, we’ve been together for almost 15 years and we are happily married. I knew since the first time I saw him that he was the one. He is such a sweetheart!![/SIZE][/FONT]
Well, I’ve been Sabrina J*** L**** for over 12 years. Be kinda weird to change now. And I suppose as much as I dislike my middle name (and I really do), my mom named me after her favorite cousin and I should keep it. They were born around the same time and he was like a brother to her.
Just a little comment. I don´t understand this thing about changing your name. In Spain and all of the central and south america you don´t change your name! (They used to do this long time ago) And when you have a child, you have two last names. First your dad´s and then your mom´s (this has always been the same). For example:
your mom: Maria Garcia
your dad: Antonio Smith
your name: Cristina Smith Garcia
Also, your parents have all of their last names… you just use 2! It´s like you have all of your genealogy in your name! Anyway, just a little comment.
ok, lets see…
My mom and dad have a zillion last names, but you use only two.
Example:
mom: Maria [COLOR=red]Garcia[/COLOR] [COLOR=lime]Mejia[/COLOR]
dad: Antonio [COLOR=blue]Smith[/COLOR] [COLOR=orange]Suarez[/COLOR]
kid: Cristina [COLOR=blue]Smith[/COLOR] [COLOR=red]Garcia[/COLOR] [COLOR=orange]Suarez[/COLOR] [COLOR=lime]Mejia[/COLOR]
I don´t know if you can see it, but you´ll add all of their last names back to your grandparents, greatgrandparents, etc. First it will be the “man” last name and then the “woman” last name.
And you don´t choose, by law is that way. Does it mke any sense?? sorry, it’s hard to explain!! :mrgreen:
We dated for many years. Then, we lived together for a year and a half before we actually got married in 2000. I was 30 and he was almost 28. There was no a formal proposal. Actually, I think I brought it up just like I asked him out on our first date. We didn’t want a wedding, so we just went to city hall and got married one morning and had dinner at a restaurant with our family that night. It was in April, but I don’t remember the date. We never really celebrate our wedding anniversary. More important to me was the date we committed to each other on October of 1992. Nothing really changed after we got married. We were “one” since before we even moved in together.[/SIZE][/FONT]