Judgment from others about length of relationship?

My fiancé's family thought that we took waaaaay too long to get engaged. We were together almost 5 years when he proposed and will be together almost 7 when we get married, His grandma especially would always act as though I was going to leave at any moment if he didn't "tie me down" with a ring. What they didn't know was that through our entire relationship we talked about what we wanted and when. We both wanted to be sure our foundation was strong and immovable before we got engaged, and it took that long to know that was 100% true.

We were together for almost 5 years when we got engaged, and had a two-ish year long engagement . . . thanks to CoVID.

No judgment on the length of time we had been together, just that we were young.

I feel like people judge no matter what if you're not dating just 2-3 years before getting engaged. Anything before and people think you're moving fast. 4 or more years and people think you're taking too long. We were dating around a year when we got engaged. To our face everyone has been happy but I had some judgement from some now former friends at the beginning

Yep. We were together 14 months when he proposed. We had already been living together 8 of those months though and moved to a whole different state together. I got a lot of the "whoah that's fast!" comments. Meanwhile we are in our early thirties so I feel like it's no ones business.
We will be together 2.5 years when we are married.

The first time he proposed to me we were 4 months in and he gave me one of his mother’s rings and told me he was saving up for the ring he knows I wanted. Then 7 months after that (11 months into our relationship) he proposed again in front of our families with the ring I really loved.


We were married two years later due to covid.

View Quoted Comment I am experiencing the same, and through this experience am learning that people on the other side- who have dated years- are experiencing judgment in other ways, too! Why do people have to worry so much about other people’s lives

View Quoted Comment I get some judgment on it being “too fast”, but through reading other people’s experiences (like yours) I’ve realized on the other end people get judged there too. I guess there will always be people who have something to say. Wish they’d learn to shut their mouths haha

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Oh, there is a lot of it the other way for sure.

I had a friend who, every holiday "couples" photo, without fail, her friends and family piled in with comments like "I STILL DON'T SEE A RING ON THAT FINGER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

And worse, when the ring DID make its appearance, all the comments were like "FINALLY" and "IT'S ABOUT TIME!!!" Congratulations on ruining what should have been a beautiful moment...... how about just saying, "omg congratulations we're so happy for you!"...

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This is exactly what happened to me and it did kind of ruin the moment when telling people. Less than a month before he proposed we got family photos done with his entire family and the photographer made a comment about me not having a ring, totally not knowing that he was planning on purchasing one and had already told his parents, so he thought his mom told the photographer and was pretty upset. Thankfully I was so used to hearing that from people that it didn't tip me off to anything, but it gets old so quickly. It's as if people don't think your relationship is valid if it lasts too long before marriage or if they think you got married too quickly.

We have been together for 10 years and he just proposed 5 months ago. Everyone bothered us about it, but I truly believe the foundation we have set is what will make our marriage incredibly successful

Definitely! We were together 11 years when we got engaged and had our legal marriage two months later. There were reasons why we waited that long, and he also didn't have all of his sacraments (Catholic) to be able to marry, so he had to attend classes, etc to get that done. We had lived together for 8-9 years already and had 2 children. People would always make comments about us not being married yet, but it didn't bother me, this is our timeline, we are happy, we now have 3 kids, celebrating our church ceremony and reception this November! Your happiness and love isn't determined by what others think of it, there is no "perfect" timeline choice that would ever make others content 💓

I think it depends how short we're talking here, and how stable things are during that time. I know a couple who moved in together at the 6-month mark, got engaged a little over a year in, then had a 9-month engagement. That seems fast, but they've been happily married for a few years now with a baby. Then I know another guy who kept breaking up with his fiancé and getting back together multiple times, and neither of them ever moved out of their parents' or got a steady job. They also have a pretty large age gap. The final time, they were together 3 months before getting engaged. Guess what, they just broke up. So there are a lot of factors at play, not just length of time but also maturity, finances, how healthy the relationship is, etc.

View Quoted Comment Definitely, and I think that’s part of what frustrates me personally. What works for one person may not work for another, but often it is all lumped into the same judgment based off what the “judger” may think is long enough! It’s different for everyone!

We have been together 10 years and getting married in a couple of months. It use to really bother me a lot the comments that people would say. Always asking why we haven't gotten married yet, what is taking him so long, etc. I felt I always had to defend or explain why we decided to wait.. I mean if it were my decision we would have been married a long time ago, but life and circumstance. When people made comments, it wouldn't make me sad because I knew it was going to happen when the time was right but I would get mad because people wouldn't treat or take our relationship seriously even though we have been together the longest.

People need something and someone to judge to make themselves feel better. Let the haters hate and just do you.

I got asked by certain people all the time, “when’s he going to ask????” It got quite annoying because not only did it put undo pressure, I felt like they were constantly imposing their insecurities. Like one woman actually went as far to suggest that he might not be interested and leave me. Obviously she did not know the two of us or our relationship very well. I’m glad we waited (just over 5 years when engaged which sounds relatively normal reading the comments on this thread, and married at year 6).

Everyone on my side was pretty cool with it when we got engaged after 2 months. his family FREAKED OUT. It probably helped us that Covid hit and we wound up being engaged for 2 1/2 years before we got married.