Hi everyone!!

I've seen couples who were engaged get married. During their engagement, they try to spend every second practically together!!! When they get married, maybe it starts out that way, but as time goes on...they are not inseparatable.

Judging from your own experience (or from people you know), would you say the engagement was the happiest time of your life? Also, for people who spent a lottttt of time with their fiancee during the engagement, did you wish that you did not spend as much time together so the marriage would have been a little bit more exciting/new..?? You get what I'm trying to say??!!!!!


Thanks!!!

It was definitely nerve wracking and stressful. That's for sure!

My girls all said the engagement time was not the happiest time. There were lots of misunderstandings, doubts set in particularly when they were apart, and in general it is a time of strain and anxiety. Once they were married all of this evaporated and they started being really happy.

Engagements totally suck. Wedding planning can be quite stressful, especially when you and the parents don't see eye-to-eye.

I remember enjoying being engaged. We spend a lot of time together, not like glue, but we were both in the same town. I think being engaged is so different than being married that spend time together while engaged doesn't effect the newness of being married. If anything davka not spending time together seems weird- you need to learn to communicate well and make choices as a team, and wedding plans can be training for that.

I loved certain things about being engaged but there were the stressful moments too.
We spent a lot of time together which might not have been the best thing, but I can't imagine it being any other way.

Ditto to whoever said that engagement is a stressful time. You need to get used to including another person in all your plans; if you're used to making your own decisions and now you suddenly have to take another person's wants/needs/preferences into account, that can be very stressful. Before you're engaged you have this wide open sense of what the future holds, while engagement and then marriage means a considerable narrowing down of your options. I'm not saying that as a bad thing, necessarily; on the one hand I craved the stability that comes from being married, but at the same time there is a loss of freedom that goes along with it, and engagement is a time to get used to the new reality. Also you're getting used to his family and your family is getting used to him, which can also be stressful depending on what the family dynamics are and who you're living with until you get married.

I don't think the quality of your engagement period has that much to do with the quality of your marriage. As Nechama said the time you spend together before you're married is so different that it's not going to cause your marriage to feel less "new" or exciting. I wouldn't say we spent a lot of time together before the wedding, probably seeing each other a few times a week and talking on the phone just about every day, but we weren't constantly together.

I remember telling my kallah teacher that I wasn't one of these euphoric kallahs and something must be wrong with me and she said lots of girls feel the same way. Which I guess you can spin however you want depending on your agenda.

My engagement was one of the most enjoyable times of my life. I was barely stressed out. I spent A LOT of time with my fiance, and I don't regret it at all. I remember the entire period as being blissful, thankfully.

1. No!
2. I didn't spend nearly as much time with my choson as I would have liked to, and we didn't speak on the phone much either. At the time it annoyed me, but now looking back we're both happy we didn't. I thought it was actually quite awkward knowing you're gonna be married but at the same time you're really nothing to each other yet. I don't think either way would have impacted anything about my marriage though.

I think the best time is the period between the point at which it is obvious you are in a serious relationship and know which direction things are headed and actually getting engaged. Once you're engaged there are decisions and compromises and irritations.

My engagement period definitely had me on a sort of 'high' but there were also stresses involved at the time.

The engagement was definitely an exciting time for me. Certainly it was not without its issues from time to time, what with all the planning and other matters to deal with, but all-in-all I look back on it fondly. If your engagement is not a pleasant time for you overall, I would wonder if there isn't a problem with the relationship.

Remembering your engagement, did you feel way more happy/excited/on a bigger high during this time than you did after getting married??

(Does it just look this way....)

It's a different excitement. Things are new when you are engaged, and some of that feeling diasappears after a while. But, when you're married you get to live with that person and be around them all the time, so in that sense marriage is much more exciting and enjoyable.

Its like a bell curve

You start out your normal life level of happiness before meeting him/her, and return to your normal life level of happiness some time after being married. But in the middle is this big spike of exciting dating - getting engaged - getting married - sheva brachos and lalala land of marriage.

I agree with what VLG said.

The engagement wasn't a horrible chapter of my life, but there was a lot of work involved. Planning the wedding in a short period of time, finding a dress, booking a hall, finding a photographer, flowers, taking kallah classes, and working full-time, while packing up an apartment - in a 2 month period of time - was fairly hectic. During this time, I also went to Baltimore every other weekend to visit my then-chussin, which was kind of tiring.

It was a very hectic two month engagement, and it was such a relief when sheva brachos were over and I could just be married!!!!!!

The road to a friend's house is never long.

I suppose the way back could be, though.

I agree with both of VLG's points

It's also more fun at that stage because the relationship is more private and you don't get asked a zillion questions about the wedding and stuff. It's really just you and your SO.

Yes, this makes sense. You don't get that high every time you see your spouse as you did when you were engaged. But if you are able to take a step back and look at what your marriage has brought you and how you have gained from it, it's a really amazing feeling.