Ask HN: What made you decide to marry your spouse?
A popular "Ask HN" was posted recently, that asked how to find a wife[1].
Suppose you have found someone. When do you know it's the right time to get married?
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14332698 Step 1: If your girlfriend is also your best friend then move to step 2. Step 2: if you both want kids then move to step 3. Step 3: If you want to protect your assests against your best friend with whom you want to build a family, go ahead and setup a prenup. Though, you might get stuck at that step because you'd put your money or your career first then your wife (best friend and mother of your kids) second. Why not? It's totally possible. Thought, I would NOT recommend a marriage in this case because it doesn't make any sense. Step 4: let's say you skipped step 3 and made it to step 4. At this stage, you can pop the question, it makes sense. Congrats. Step 2: I would say its more "Do you both agree on wanting kids or not." Step 2.1: If kids, what is your religions position for our children. Step 2.2: Ensure sex drives and preferences aligned. Invariably its money or sex that result in marriage break-up so you want to make sure there is a compatibility here. Step 3: Have to disagree about if you want a pre-nup not recommending a marriage. I would easily admit I'm more practical than romantic, but I see no problem with this conversation. I believe marriages would last longer if people were more practical about discussing these things rather than believing their commitment to each other overrides these realities. In my experience couples often haven't discussed money/religion/children core requirements. For modern relationships, I'd discuss money and assets before you got to marriage as I assume you'd move in together. This is a better point for this conversation and agreement given its more 'trial stage' and with defacto laws in many countries your assets sharing starts at this point. ...anyway I'm 15 years in with my partner with 2 kids and yet to marry. So not sure I fit the social norm. I actually was the practical one in the relationship. I brought up the prenup to my wife before we got married because I had some descent cash in my savings after working hard for 10 years. I also wanted to protect a little software company I was running on the side thinking I'd turn it into a big thing one day. The first reaction was pretty bad. Again, she's the romantic one and I'm the practical one so she took a big hit. Not because I wanted to protect my money, she understood that, it was the idea of a potential divorce that made her sad. Especially when you're in a marriage mood :) Again, I'm super practical and I always look for the worst case scenario. Thought, we worked it out, talked about it for a while, I told her about the modern way of getting married and all the BS around it. After reading about prenups online and learned about the process, she told me she would do it. Just because that is what would make me feel happy in the long run. She said if you're happy then I'm happy. That's all I really care about. She made the effort, went out there by herself and found a qualified attorney to setup the paperworks for us. Again, she cried when I first mentioned the prenup in the first place and here she was, running the process for us while I was working long hours. All I had to do was to sign a check in order to secure everything and to move on to the next step (marriage). I realized how she taught me a lesson. During the whole process all she cared about was me. Not her, not the money or anything else and that made me realized what a true relationship is. I looked at her in the eyes and said "let's get married, forget about feeding attorneys". Money comes and goes but strong relationships are extremely rare. One year after our marriage I quite my full time job in order to focus on my side company. I thought it was time for me to give it a try and to make it big... I went from making $200K/year on a w2 to pretty much $0. She took on a second job to support us and worked long hours to make sure I could continue doing what I loved. I ended up using a lot of my savings because we couldn't afford living in the Bay area with only one income. Long story short, after a few years, my savings is almost gone and my company ended up being a failure. My wife is still there right next to me, she hasn't changed and keeps supporting whatever I do. I could be rich or broke, she doesn't care. So, make sure to follow the proper steps, money should be out of the scope. Unfortunately, time will tell you if you made the right decision or not. If you're still thinking about a prenup, don't get married... it won't bring anything to your relationship but potential problems. Her love for me and she didn't go away when I told her I battled psychological disorder (anxiety and depression) in the past. She was the person I could talk any topic with her and she was always on the money with her insightful advice. And she didn't drink alcohol, nor smoke, which is hard to find around here. She was religous and sang in church choir. Since I had a lot of bad experiances with girls in the past, mostly on my part, when I met her I told myself, this time go slow but smart. And it's been best last 7 yrs of my life. We are married for 2 years and when we felt we matured enough to take full responsibility over our lives that was the decision moment to get married. He didn't run away when he saw I was reading a nerdy book. Instead, he approached me. Is that your book? He liked my brain. I knew it was time to get married about a week after we met. Everyone else paled in comparison. It took another 6 months to make it official - but I was really married in my own mind after that first week together. >> He liked my brain. Hahahaha. So creepy. "Hey, I like your brain." Or better yet: "hey, i can tell ur the one for me cuz i like your mucus." Hahahahah Awesome article on this very topic. http://waitbutwhy.com/2016/09/marriage-decision.html After a 22 year trial period, we married for insurance purposes. Having lived through my parents' unhappy marriage, I'm strongly resistant to getting married. However, my current partner has better retirement benefits than I do (both Social Security and pension benefits). I recently joked with him that we should marry so that I inherit his benefits should he kick off before I do. That would be an unpleasant reason to get married. Regarding health insurance, currently it looks like we're better off not being married. That's probably also true for tax purposes. We got married before Obamacare so she needed to get on my insurance. Insurance & tax purposes, best reasons ever. Some relationships do not need a written contract. Getting married for taxes/insurance/power-of-attorney/etc is at least a tangible benefit that can be shared and appreciated between two people. So many people get married simply because they used to like each other, are afraid of any change, and buckle to overwhelming social pressure. jaredhansen[0] posted a great response[1] to this question awhile back. If you need to ask, I can only advise you to read the cohabitation laws that apply where you live. You may already be "married" but only for the downsides. The fun and beautiful is what drew me in. As I got to know the rest of her (smart, good head on her shoulders, confident, compassionate) it became a no brainer. Right time? When you both love each other, when you both want to be married, and when you both are committed to staying married. The fact that I worked for an airline and we could only use the cheap flying perk if we got married. Never used it. Still married. Perhaps best not to assume that it ever is. Met in HS at 15, it was super obvious to us by 19ish when we started living together. Same here. It was super obvious to us too when we had been living together for 24 years and had 5 kids. Not too obvious by year 23, but mos def by 24! She did! I had had two fairly good long term relationships before, both of which ended abruptly, The first time, I got kicked out, the second, I initiated the breakup. I said to my self, "the next one that comes along is going to be the one". I was playing guitar in a cheap bar one night and a friend's friend walked in with her friend. As they walked in, through the smoky, bleary light, that girl turned and smiled at me. End of story.