Two years is the time frame one always hears, isn’t it? I only did a very quick search but most of what I found seemed to be referring to the same study by Ted Huston, and I didn’t even find the study itself. My impression is that 2 years (25 months, one article said) was the average time spent dating before marriage (not before engagement, as you asked) for happy, stable couples, however they judge that. So, not the most helpful.
But, it does kind of match my intuition that one should wait until New Relationship Energy is mostly over before making that decision, and I often read that NRE (though it’s usually not called that in these articles) typically lasts about 2 years (this matches my limited experience). Also, I’m monogamous, but I’d guess that even if your NRE with Partner A has faded, NRE with Partner B could spill over onto your other relationship(s) and affect your judgment there too?
I don’t remember hearing 2 years, although it is relevant data that you have done so. One complication is that we started dating two years ago, but were broken up for somewhat more than a year in the middle before getting back together. So we’ve spent less than two years dating, but about two years conducting an extended empirical observation about whether we prefer being together or not.
Two years is the time frame one always hears, isn’t it? I only did a very quick search but most of what I found seemed to be referring to the same study by Ted Huston, and I didn’t even find the study itself. My impression is that 2 years (25 months, one article said) was the average time spent dating before marriage (not before engagement, as you asked) for happy, stable couples, however they judge that. So, not the most helpful.
But, it does kind of match my intuition that one should wait until New Relationship Energy is mostly over before making that decision, and I often read that NRE (though it’s usually not called that in these articles) typically lasts about 2 years (this matches my limited experience). Also, I’m monogamous, but I’d guess that even if your NRE with Partner A has faded, NRE with Partner B could spill over onto your other relationship(s) and affect your judgment there too?
I don’t remember hearing 2 years, although it is relevant data that you have done so. One complication is that we started dating two years ago, but were broken up for somewhat more than a year in the middle before getting back together. So we’ve spent less than two years dating, but about two years conducting an extended empirical observation about whether we prefer being together or not.