Five reasons why you should date for 5 years before getting engaged

It may sound like an eternity. Very few people wait five years to get married. But I’ll argue that, if waiting five years to marry sounds like too long, then you’re the perfect candidate for waiting five years. If you marry someone, it’s with the intention of spending all of your remaining years with that person. So…a five-year time frame spent in any way with them should not feel long. Here’s why most couples should date at least five years before getting married.

A lot of people get along for a year

I’m always terrified when a couple gets engaged after one year of dating. A year? Anyone in that situation could probably tell you that they dated plenty of people in their lives for about a year. And then went onto realize those people were all wrong for them. So…why aren’t they allowing that same time frame to elapse here, just to make sure it isn’t the same case?

You should experience a sex drought

I think every couple should go through the inevitable sex drought before getting married. A lot of couples – and I mean a lot – realize, the instant the sex drought happens, that this was always all about sex, and they really find no pleasure in their partner’s company without sex. Yikes. It’s important to figure that out before getting married.

We change around every five years

Humans go through major changes around every five years. Think about your life to date. You can probably see that that’s true. Around every five years, you learn new major life lessons, and you learn new things about yourself, and those lessons solidify in your being. It could be important that a couple makes sure that whatever it is they bond over, that it sticks after that major change-of-life term.

You need to develop a friendship

You straight up need to be good friends with your partner. You should feel like he’s an old best friend – the kind who you can just look at and know what he’s thinking, and the kind who makes the must dull activities more fun – before you get married. And developing that type of friendship takes about five years.

Test your staying power for romance

If you still want to prioritize your relationship at five years in – if you still pay close attention, every day, to how your bond is feeling and whether or not the spark is still there – then you’re in a good place. Plenty of people have the energy to do that for one to three or four years. Really. They do. That’s child’s play. But if you still have the stamina and drive to keep the spark alive at five years, there is a good chance you’ll want to do so for life.