These days, it seems that if you’re rich, famous, and in your 20s, you’re getting engaged to someone you barely know. Pete Davidson put a ring on Ariana Grande after a few weeks of officially dating, and earlier this week, Justin Bieber popped the question to ex Hailey Baldwin after being back together for only a month. Ah, young love.
Naturally, there are plenty of folks who think that both of these relationships are doomed. There are stats to back that up: a 2014 survey found that couples who dated for a year or less before getting married were more likely to get divorced. Which makes total sense: if you’ve only known the person you’re marrying for a short time, you have less time to get to know their shortcomings and quirks. What if, after the wedding, you realize that they’re a serial killer? Or, even worse, that they don’t like superhero movies?
To see whether these two pairs of lovesick 20-somethings stand a chance, we asked three people who got engaged after just a few months to tell us their stories — and whether or not it worked out. The answer was unexpected, to say the least. Here’s what they had to say.
1) Théo, 28
“I met Antoine when I was 20 on a dating website and we immediately clicked. I lived in Montreal at the time, while he was living about three hours away in Quebec City. We met about a month after we started talking online, and we started seeing one another pretty quickly after that. Things got very intense really quickly, and we were deeply in love.
“We started to talk about marriage about three months into our relationship. I don’t know if it’s because I was so young or naive, but I truly thought this was it. He gave me a ring a few weeks later, and then we moved in with one another. About a year after we met, we were wed, opting for a civil union at the courthouse. I was truly happy.
“I was blinded with love in the beginning of our relationship, but the thing is, Antoine had a few issues I didn’t know about. Two months after our wedding, I discovered he was talking to someone else online. I was devastated. It was like my heart jumped from a skyscraper — to this day, I’ve never experienced something so painful. We had a long talk about it, and he said that he would kill himself if I left, which I now realize was emotional abuse and manipulation. So I stayed.
“I don’t think I would have seen the red flags earlier, because I was just blinded by love.”
“A year and a half later, I found out that he was flirting and having pretty explicit conversations with a university classmate of mine. I left him for three months, and even started dating someone else, but decided to give Antoine another chance. I loved him, and we were married, so I went back to him. But this time, our relationship was shit. I didn’t trust him, and we fought all the time because of it. Every time I told him I needed to leave him, he would threaten suicide again. It was truly one of the worst years of my life.
“Four years almost to the day after we got engaged, he wrote me a huge Facebook message, telling me that he’d cheated on me again. He didn’t have the courage to tell me in person. That was the final strike. I was tired of his emotional abuse and disrespect. I went back to our home two days later while he was at work to get my stuff, and I moved out.
“After I left, I found a lot of other things about Antoine. He owed money to people, he hadn’t been paying our bills, and he had a drug problem. It’s been a while since I’ve heard from him — he bugged me for about eight months after we got divorced.
“I don’t think I would have seen the red flags earlier, because I was just blinded by love. But I would have definitely left earlier if we hadn’t gotten married. I felt like I owed something to him and to the relationship because we were married. But I’m in a much healthier place now, and I’m privileged to have a great support system with my family and my friends.”
2) Steven, 33
“Vivien and I met on my birthday. I was turning 28. We had a mutual friend who came to hang out at my birthday celebration, and she brought Vivien along. We weren’t so into each other that first day — I guess our chemistry had a bit of a delay to it. But we eventually decided to go out. Our first few dates were very casual, but we eventually hit it off, and quickly became inseparable.
“One day, I was meeting my business partner at the time to register our business with the city of New York. Vivien came with me. My partner called me while we were on the way and asked if we could meet him prior to registering to see his fiancé’s favorite band, Pink Martini. They were performing across the street from the marriage bureau for a promotional video they were shooting. Vivien and I happened to love Pink Martini, and we were treated to 45 minutes of dancing on the streets of New York City. It was magical.
“That night, at home, we revealed to each other that while we were dancing, we each had wished that we’d gotten married at the bureau and had our first dance to Pink Martini. In that moment, we agreed we wanted to marry each other — and right away. A week later, we said our vows at the same marriage bureau that we’d danced in front of.
“In that moment, we agreed we wanted to marry each other — and right away. “
“Everyone in our lives was supportive, not to mention shocked. We had only dated for five months and had never told anyone that we’d considered marriage an option. Both of our families were thrilled, and didn’t give us grief for not having a wedding.
“[For us], getting married so soon was a positive. There’s a saying that the first year of marriage is the hardest. Pair that with the fact that we had only known each other for six months, and you get some real challenges within the marriage. But we knew that we wanted to push through, and we were able to figure things out. Today, it feels like we got the kinks out early, and that it’s smooth sailing ahead!”
3) Angys, 42
“I had just broken up with a classmate of mine, and I didn’t want to go out and party. But it was my friend’s birthday, so even though I was sad, I decided to go. When we got to his place, he introduced me to a friend of his from Chile. I thought to myself, ‘OK, he’s cute.’ We all partied together until about 2:00 AM, and then my friend went home.
“Those of us who were left decided to play a little drinking game — a version of Spin the Bottle. We played and played until the rest of the party broke up. But the cute guy and I wound up having sex.
“We didn’t talk after that night. In fact, I didn’t see him again until the same friend threw another party. I went home with him after that party, and we slept together again. We only had one date after that — where he told me he was moving back to Chile. I felt sad, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. After he left, we rarely spoke, only corresponding over email every once in a while over the next three years.
“Eventually, I decided that I’d visit him in Chile for a few days — and we slept together again. The following year, he came to see me, and we slept together again. Then I visited him for the last time in Chile, and that’s when I got pregnant. He was really happy, and he told me that my getting pregnant made him realize that we were actually meant to be together. Our little girl was born later that year. We’ve been married for 8 years.”
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