Ep. 2: Is Timing Everything?

January 22, 2015 / Tom / Source

At various times in my life I’ve found myself sitting with my girlfriends, usually drinking a glass of wine, discussing what it is that makes a man decide to marry a particular woman.

We would discuss how a young attractive 26 year-old friend of ours wanted desperately to marry his girlfriend and didn’t seem to care about missing out on being single in his 20’s. Then someone would bring up another friend of ours who was a great guy in his late 40’s and yet hasn’t been able to find the “right” woman to marry.

My friends and I always assumed that it’s a timing thing for men and that they won’t marry until they are good and ready. However, I can’t help but wonder, maybe timing isn’t everything. Maybe it’s the particular woman that makes him decide to get married, or perhaps it’s something entirely different?

Ep. 2: Is Timing Everything?

So I asked married men the question:

“What Was it That Made You Decide to Marry Your Wife?

A 37-year-old from Georgia married for 2 years told me, “I was having so much fun being single and I wasn’t ready at all for a commitment but then I met my wife and that changed everything. She made me want to settle down because she was different from all the other women I had dated. She had this even keel sense about her and she wasn’t needy or demanding. Most of the women I had dated always forced a relationship on me and were nagging me about settling down. I knew she was different right away and that made me want to marry her.”

A 45-year-old married pharmaceutical salesman from New Jersey, stated, “She was the most genuine person I had ever met. She was super sexy and she tolerated me. It was so easy to love her and she just let me be me. I never felt like she was trying to change me. I’m not sure how she did it, but I think it was just her nature and even to this day, 14 years later, it’s still so easy to love her.”

“I was definitely not ready to get married but the thought of not marrying her and possibly losing her was too great and I wanted to keep my best friend around for a long time.” -59 year old college professor from Wisconsin married for 15 years.

I got a different answer though when I asked a 67-year-old retired business executive from Massachusetts married for 37 years. “I knew I wanted a family and I was getting close to turning 30, so I narrowed it down to her. I was dating a lot of woman back then and I had my life together but my main goal was to have children so I knew she was the best one to have a family with, so I married her. We’re still married today.”

And then there are those men who are just brutally honest.

A 47 year-old sales executive from California shared with me, “I knew I wanted to marry her because she was loving, caring and family oriented, but mostly it was because her ‘BJ’s’ were so good, I couldn’t let her get away!”

A 64 year-old retired man from Wisconsin married for 32 years said, “I was looking to get married and she was young and dumb so she married me. Timing was definitely the main factor.”

“If you love someone, it’s very cruel to marry them. I was young when I got married so I assumed that you just picked the best woman for you at the time.” Shared a 54-year-old writer from Philadelphia, PA married for 29 years.

Perhaps my friends and I were wrong; timing isn’t everything for every man. Even though timing can play a factor, it doesn’t appear to be the main reason that men will marry. After interviewing over one hundred men, it seems to me that men will marry when they meet the one woman that is different from all the others or she becomes the one that they just can’t let get away.