Do you agree people don't stay in relationships for several years & not get married without getting some?

Question

I tend to think that if you see a boyfriend and girlfriend who have been in a relationship for lets say 5 years and are not getting married anytime soon it's because they are sexual partners. I don't think someone would stay with someone that long (unless they were very young when the relationship started) without being intimate. I think if you are intimate with someone it almost hinders things from going any further. Some people think why do I have to get married if we are almost in a sense living as if we are a married couple. Such as a cousin I have who will be 30 and she has been in a relationship for 8 years or more and they just got engaged last year and have no plans for a wedding anytime soon.

Answer 1

Some good observations but take some wisdom.

1. Don't assume that relationship most become sexual if the spend that much time together, the sex isn't the relationship, but a result of it. With that said, it happens that people can just met, fall in love, and never have intercourse.

2. Sex isn't intimacy, but intimacy can be sex. The reason being anything can be "intimate" conversation, body laugange, and behavior can be intimate, just like sex. But sex in its self doesn't mean intimacy. Just realise that.

3. Keep looking, your showing some good social awarness and if you keep following your logic eventually your'll realize how marriage actual works. Its more or less a social contract, it isn't a nessary, BUT relaitonships are based on individuals finding a simplar purpose, keeping a marriage together is a good one and has survived the test of time, theres others thou, relationships are what were willing to make them...

4. Generally it takes one failed marriage before you realize how caution you better start being, which is what you cousin more or less figured out.

Answer 2

Right you are.