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What Mariah Carey and I Have in Common

A couple weeks ago, I was pleasantly surprised to find that my wife and I were featured in a Yahoo News article about “celebrity couples with whirlwind romances.*” (Must have been a very slow news day. I mean, how much more can you really say about the missing Malaysian airline other than it’s missing?)

Click the pic for the link. Making this list is easily the peak of my celebrity career.
Click the pic for the link. Making this list is easily the peak of my celebrity career.

I liked the reference because it said, “these couples are still happily married and proudly showing affection na ‘di awkward.” I was touched that they’d say that about us. 

It was surprising because the list also featured Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds and Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon. This is probably the last time I’ll ever be on the same list as them so I had to blog about it.

But seriously, the article made me think, “Did my wife and I really have a whirlwind romance? Why would the article think so?” Funnily, some of my friends who dated much shorter than we did said our dating period was long compared to theirs. This begs the question:

Is there a perfect length of time in dating someone?

The answer is a resounding NO. My brother and his wife dated for seven years before they got married. My sister-in-law and her husband dated for six years before tying the knot. Another good friend of mine got engaged to his wife two weeks after meeting her.

There is no magic length of time. The only suggestion I’ll make is move with purpose. Dating is a great time to know if you’re both moving forward to marriage or not.

If you know you will get married, then don’t waste time – take the next step.

If you know you won’t get married, then don’t waste time – end it!

And if you don’t know, then get to knowing. Don’t just date for the heck of it. On Wednesday, I’ll talk about signs to look out for in one another to help you know.

 

*I don’t know what sources the writer used, but he/she was wrong about our timeline. Carla and I were engaged after ten months of dating and we got married seven months after that.

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