“It felt like we had sort of joined this secret club…”
1. “Honestly, I don’t feel like much changed… but that’s partially because we’d been dating since freshman year of college and we’d been living together for a few years as well.
The only change was my parents would try and use the words ‘fiancée’ and ‘engaged’ as many times as possible whenever they saw us.” — Peter, 28
2. “I feel like friends started to treat us a little differently. It’s like once you get engaged, you’re officially moving into ‘old married couple’ territory.
I don’t think it was a conscious decision, but it felt like we had sort of joined this secret club where our handful of married friends would call us to hang out more and our single friends sort of hung out with us a little less.” — Max, 27
3. “We had a short engagement, so I equate being engaged with just pure chaos. We planned a wedding in about 6 months, so everything changed when we got engaged and I barely remember any of it. It was a blur.” — Dave, 30
4. “There was definitely an energy that got injected into the relationship. There’s a giddiness there that doesn’t last the entirety of the engagement, but for a few months you’re riding this high of, ‘We’re getting married!’” — Steve, 29
5. “Well, after we got engaged my now-very-much-an-ex-fiancée started cheating on me.
I guess she thought I was a lock so now was the time to be promiscuous and also maybe get it out of her system?
I’m not entirely sure, but when I confronted her about it she said she planned on stopping once we got married, as if that was supposed to make me feel better. Anyway, we didn’t get married.” — Adam, 28
6. “Well, I don’t think in this day and age a lot changes when you get engaged.
Like most of my friends, we lived together before we got married and so many factors really stayed the same. But there was this sense of peace, almost, with being engaged.
I felt like ‘OK, we’ve officially committed to each other and this is really forever.’ It’s not like I didn’t think it would happen or anything, it just feels final. Like signing off on a contract for a job offer or a house.
You might know you have it or you might have talked about getting married, but once the two of you actually agree to get married it just feels more concrete.” — Ray, 29
7. “Yeah, well, obviously there’s the super secret Married People Society you get invited to once you’re engaged. Have I said too much? Don’t print this.” — Eric, 28
8. “I noticed a bit of a shift once we got engaged. I lived with my girlfriend (at the time, now she’s my wife) before we got engaged.
Once I popped the question, there were suddenly lots of serious issues to tackle, like getting a joint savings account, making sure my credit score was good, and figuring out whose health insurance we’d go on.
I really feel like getting engaged was what flipped the switch into ‘adult mode’ for us.” — Brian, 30 9. “Well, her parents hated me (I swear, they had their own hangups and I didn’t do anything but it’s not worth getting into) so when we got engaged her family stopped talking to her for a while. Things are good…well, good-ish now, though.” — Kevin, 29 10. “I feel shitty about it to this day, but my now-fiancée was originally ‘the other woman.’ It caused a few people to stop talking to me, and I don’t think people took us really seriously until we got engaged. But once we did, it sort of softened the blow, I think. It was like, ‘Oh, OK.’ I’m still not proud of how things happened and how we met and the people we hurt in the process, but she’s the love of my life. I had a few friends warm back up to me after the engagement, and they basically said in so many words, ‘Ok, I guess you’re not as big of an asshole as we thought.’” — Mike, 28 11. “I don’t have a problem saying this because my fiancée knows, but I basically freaked out internally. We had talked about marriage a lot. I’m very happy with her. But I had a few moments of cold feet, I guess. I started thinking to myself, ‘Oh this is it. This is it forever.’ I didn’t have a problem with my fiancée and there was no one else I was interested or anything. I just think I got into my own head about how serious it was and how it’s such a big step. But she’s wonderful and amazing and helped me sort through it without yelling at me.” — Jared, 29 12. “My fiancée and I moved in together when we got engaged. It just happened to work out that way with our leases ending and we were obviously serious enough at that point. So our engagement also felt like a ‘trial run’ that I guess went well enough for us to get married.” — Evan, 29
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