If you’ve been dating someone for ten years without marriage, then you’re probably wondering if 10 years is too long.
Is dating for 10 years too long?
If you want to get married, dating for 10 years is too long. Most couples date for 2-5 years before marriage. Therefore, after five years, dating is too long. Most men know they want to marry a woman within the first year of dating.
Keep reading to find out other reasons dating for 5 or 10 years is too long, why guys might not want to get married in long relationships, and whether or not you should leave your relationship.
Why Is Dating For 10 Years Too Long? (5 Great Reasons)
There are at least five great reasons why dating for 10 years is way too long. Let’s go over those reasons and why they matter to you and your relationship.
Reason 1: Ten years is too long to invest in a relationship that is going nowhere.
No one wants to spend a decade in a relationship with no end destination. A relationship is an investment.
If you want to get married, then dating for longer than 5 years is too long. Most couples get married after 2 to 5 years. Why bother wasting your time dating for 10 years if you’re not going to end up married?
Reason 2: A man knows he wants to marry a woman by the end of one year.
A man knows he has found “the one” with someone within 12 months. He will start looking for ways to commit early on in that relationship (this doesn’t mean he will propose to his girlfriend of three months, but he will start thinking about settling down).
Men typically start thinking seriously about a woman as a life partner pretty early in the relationship. He will also watch for red flags to make sure she will make a good marriage partner.
If a man hasn’t proposed after 5 years, he usually does not intend to marry you.
Likewise, a woman usually knows she wants to marry you within a year or two. If she keeps postponing an engagement or doesn’t bring up marriage after 2 years, she probably does not want to marry you.
Reason 3: Waiting longer than 5 years indicates that something is wrong in the relationship.
If you’ve been dating someone for 10 years and they are still not ready to marry you, then there is a good chance that something is wrong. As I said earlier, most men know fairly early in a relationship (usually earlier than the woman) that he wants to marry you.
So, if it’s been 10 years, something is definitely off. It’s not normal behavior.
Read the rest of this article for an analysis of what could be going on in his head that is preventing him from making the commitment.
Reason 4: Your dating or sexual market value (SMV) goes down over time.
One of the realities of modern dating is that most men prefer younger women. This isn’t 100% of men, but most men value youth and beauty. By staying in a relationship for 10 years without marriage, you are giving some of your best years to a man that doesn’t properly value you.
As the years pass, your dating value to men goes down. Your sexual market value (the way men view you as a prospect for a serious commitment) goes down. The lower the value, the less likely a man that you want will also want you.
So, it makes sense to put your time and energy into relationships with men when your dating value is at its highest.
Reason 5: You deserve better.
The fifth and final reason is that you deserve someone who wants to marry you as much as you want to marry them. You deserve to feel wanted, desired, and pursued.
You deserve someone who can’t wait to spend the rest of their life with you.
A partner who loves you through good times and bad, a loyal partner who is not afraid of making the biggest commitment to you. You deserve someone who marries you after 2-3 years, not someone who still is not ready after ten years.
How Long Is Too Long To Be in a Relationship Without Marriage?
How long is too long to wait in a relationship without marriage?
Five years is too long to wait to be in a relationship without marriage. Most people get married after dating for 2-5 years. This means couples get engaged before the end of five years. Therefore, any time after five years is too long.
What are the common timeframes for dating before getting married?
| Age Range | How long to date before marriage |
|---|---|
| Overall | 2-5 years |
| In your 20s | 2-5 years |
| In your 30s | 1-3 years |
| In your 40s | 1-2 years |
Some of my friends dated for years before they got married. My brother dated his now wife for five years before they finally got married. I dated my ex-wife on and off for three years before we settled down (and you can see how that worked out).
So, if you’ve been dating for a while, you might be wondering how long is too long. You might feel like your relationship is on a ticking time bomb.
Yes, you may find the love of your life after five years but you’re still in the highest risk zone and statistics show that there are huge chances that it may not work out.
Waiting pushes people into a “projection” mode where they feel their life isn’t moving forward.
And while this might be desirable limbo for some, everyone else is bound to implode from all the pressure that builds up in them internally if they don’t find a resolution.
An important side note is that the average time from starting a relationship to marriage can depend on your age. If you are still in high school, the waiting time will naturally last longer than if you are in your 30s, 40s, or 50s.
Why Do Guys Not Want To Get Married After 10 Years?
The simple answer is that, on the whole, guys don’t want to get married because we just don’t want to take on any more risk than necessary. Think about it: If you had your own space, freedom, and plenty of fun with a girl, why would you give that up for marriage?
Marriage is risky for men. 80% of divorces are initiated by women.
In a divorce, the court proceedings and outcomes typically slant toward the woman, not the man. This means that to get married, a man must accept huge risks and consequences while often receiving very few tangible benefits in return.
There is almost nothing a man can get from a marriage that he cannot get from a long-term committed relationship.
Apart from the inherent risk, many men only want to marry high-quality women. High-quality men and women are harder to find in the modern world.
According to Kevin Samuels, a popular life and relationship coach, most men value:
- Youth
- Feminitity
- Beauty
- Fitness
- Coorperation
- Purity
- Submission
I agree with this assessment. So do the 1.4k men in my private Facebook group for men.
Unfortunately, a woman who meets these standards is not always easy to find. By the time many women are ready to settle down to get married, they are often no longer young and in the best shape. They may have experienced many relationships with many men, have attitudes, and bring drama into a man’s life.
Trust me, if a good man that is ready for marriage found a woman with all of these positive qualities, then he would propose within 1-3 years of dating. Why? Because women with these qualities are very rare.
Men of high quality are also rare.
Here are some other reasons a man might not want to marry you after 10 years:
- The man does not want to ever get married
- The man might be looking for something better
- The man might be immature
- He already has you so he doesn’t have a sense of urgency
Should You Leave a Relationship After 10 Years Without Marriage?
If you are staying in a relationship for more than five years without marriage, then it’s time for you to have an honest discussion with your partner about why you both seem comfortable with the status quo.
You’ve invested ten years of your life into this other person, and you deserve an honest answer. Approach the conversation with openness, love, and peace.
Before you hold this discussion, it’s helpful for you to ask yourself a few questions:
- What do you want?
- Is marriage nonnegotiable for you?
- Is the other person a suitable marriage partner?
- Are you a high-quality marriage partner? (From the other person’s perspective, not yours)
- Why would you marry the other person?
- Why wouldn’t you marry the other person?
- Are you willing to stay together if you never get married?
Once you honestly answer these questions for yourself, then you are ready to talk with your partner.
My personal advice: if your partner is not ready to get married after 5+ years, then move on to find someone who will be ready in 2-5 years.
It might be very painful to leave someone you really love, but they are unlikely to change if you stay with them. By leaving, they might miss you so much that they contact you again to say that they are ready to marry you.
There are also a few other ways to get a man to marry you. I’m going to share the most effective ways below.
How To Get a Man To Marry You After 10 Years
| Program | Price Range $-$$$ | Learn More |
|---|---|---|
| His Secret Obsession | $$ | Learn More |
| Obsession Phrases | $ | Learn More |
| Language of Desire | $ | Learn More |
If you want to get a man to marry you, there are certain things you can do. Although it’s harder after 5 or 10 years, it’s still possible to influence a man to marry you.
This is not about manipulation. It’s about becoming the kind of woman a man wants to marry.
This section will include advanced techniques for getting him and keeping him in love. The strategies work together, and you can choose to apply them to your current or future relationships.
So, let’s get into it.
How do you get a man to marry you?
- Develop and demonstrate the traits of a woman men want to marry
- Make him feel like a king
- Use obsession phrases
1) Develop and demonstrate the traits of a woman men want to marry
When you align yourself to the qualities and characteristics of the type of woman a man wants to marry, you increase the odds of him marrying you.
You can’t travel back in time, reclaim your youth, or erase your experience. Those are choices you made and time you invested that you can not change.
We’re going to focus on things you can change.
How do you do this?
- Get in really great shape. That means something different for different people, but men tend to want to marry women who are thinner and fitter. One of the best products to help you get in shape is Lean Belly 3X.
- Develop cooperation. Eliminate anything that you do that creates drama and irritation. Men value women who bring peace and agreeableness to their lives. Start saying “yes” more often.
- Embrace your femininity. Reduce or eliminate masculine traits of aggression, attitude, and taking control.
- Express your sexual self. Most men desire regular sex, frequent oral sex, and adventurous partners willing to experiment.
Most men want to marry women who have fewer male friends and who do not have any contact with exes or other men who they have ever dated. You can also eliminate and block these men from your life.
You don’t need to change anything about yourself if you don’t want to change.
You only need to change if you want men to find you more attractive as a marriage partner. Remember, men look at marriage differently than women.
2) Make him feel like a king
If you want to be a queen, treat him like a king. Making a man feel special is an underappreciated approach to convincing a man to marry you.
Be humble, be grateful for the opportunity to be his partner, and make him happy. Show enthusiasm when he meets goals. Honor his prowess and show respect by submitting to him and following his lead in the relationship.
Take care of him—both physically (preparing nourishing food, appropriately setting the mood) and emotionally/spiritually (listening attentively).
He wants validation, too!
If you make your man feel like your hero, he will be more likely to marry you. The best program I know of that teaches you how to do this, step by step, is His Secret Obsession.
3) Use obsession phrases
Another underappreciated approach is to leverage the power of language. There are words, phrases, and paragraphs you can say to your man to influence him to marry you. When you speak the language of obsession, commitment, and monogamy, then you condition him to view you as the type of woman he wants to marry.
Examples of these phrases:
- You make me feel so comfortable and safe.
- I love knowing that you’re there for me.
- The way you touch me, I can’t stop thinking about you.
To learn, understand, and master dozens of these types of phrases, check out the program, Obsession Phrases. I’ve personally studied them and can vouch for their effectiveness in relationships.
Dating for 10 Years and Still Not Married (Quotes)
I thought I would add a few quotes related to dating for 10 years but not being married. I hope these quotes inspire you, motivate you, and encourage you to create the best relationships of your life.
“We become miserable not because we’re not married, but because many of us think marriage might finally make us happy.”
― Marshall Segal, Not Yet Married: The Pursuit of Joy in Singleness and Dating
“We accept the love we think we deserve.”—The Perks of Being a Wallflower
“Do what you did in the beginning of a relationship and there won’t be an end.”—Anthony Robbins
“It is only when we no longer compulsively need someone that we can have a real relationship with them.”—Anthony Storr
“Know who you are. Know what you want. Know what you deserve. And don’t settle for less.”―Tony Gaskins
“Relationships: If you put up with it, you’re going to end up with it. Set the standard you want and don’t settle for less.”―Steve Maraboli
For a perfect example of what a man will do when he thinks you are marriage material, listen to what Steve Harvey says in this short, 5-minute video:
Final Thoughts: Is Dating For 10 Years Too Long?
The bottom line is that, yes, dating for 10 years is too long. If you want to get married, use the strategies in this article to influence your man to marry you. Even better, accept that the relationship has peaked and lovingly end it.
Then you can apply the methods in this article to find a man who can’t wait to marry you.
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