Dating takes as long as it takes. But there is a time limit of course. And your statement is a little contridictory... You just got done explaining a wrong way to start a family with your friend example 😂 You are right that you shouldn't rush into marriage. Happens way too often now, which is part of the reason for the high divorce rate. Personally I think the consequences of divorce should be waaay higher or even illegal. (Excluding adultry and abuse of course) We should discourage getting divorced to the maximum extent. If there's a possibility thing just don't work out in the future then you shouldn't be getting married in the first place.

Fwiw I don't regret having kids when we did. But I do wish we had started sooner.

I think you may have misunderstood my statement. The husband's parents, my parents, and our friends' parents are from a generation where you had a courtship (dating), got married, and had kids within a year of marriage. There was no time for them to get used to being married before they had kids, I think that is an important step for a marriage. Now that we're all grown and have kids of our own, all of our parents are miserable with each other because they realized after the fact that they don't really like being married to each other. So I chose the way I did to go slow with the marriage and starting a family as to not end up the same way. I guess I could just shorten all this down to what's right for you isn't right for everyone and to encourage people to rush doesn't help anyone they have to decide what's right for themselves. As I said in a comment last night opinions and assholes, everybody has them 😁.

That is great for you, but I'm happy that I waited. 💜