【Marriage Hunting Experience】The story of dating for 3 years but failing to marry | Lessons learned from it

Between the ages of 24 and 29, I used three marriage agencies and matching apps, and met 143 men.

At 31, I registered my marriage with a man I met through a matching app.

I now have a one-year-old child and am pregnant with my second.

This time, I will write about the story of dating one person from age 24 to 26 but failing to marry in the end, as well as the lessons I learned from it.

My first marriage hunting experience at 24

I attended a friend's wedding for the first time at 23 and started thinking, "I want to get married!" But until then, I had zero dating experience. I couldn't imagine myself, with zero dating experience, just drifting along and getting married. So, I decided to spend some money and registered with a marriage agency.

Registering with a marriage agency

After registering with the marriage agency, because I was 24, I would schedule about two matchmaking meetings every Saturday and Sunday. However, I couldn't easily find someone I felt was right for me...

Getting bored of matchmaking meetings and going to town-cons

About three months after registering with the marriage agency, I got bored of the matchmaking meetings every weekend. I thought, "I hate these meetings, I want a break... but I don't want to give up on finding a partner..." At that time, I learned about town-cons and decided to participate once as a life experience.

Meeting N-san at a town-con

I met a man at my first town-con. N-san's specs were as follows: - Works at a major manufacturer - 7 years older than me - Looks like Kei Nishikori. He was good-looking and had a sense of humor, so I thought he was nice.

Got my first boyfriend at 24!

I exchanged LINE contacts with N-san at the town-con, and then we went on a second and third date. N-san was interesting to talk to and worked hard, so I was attracted to him. On our third date, N-san confessed his feelings to me, and we started dating. At that point, I also withdrew from the marriage agency.

The first year was fun, but...

The first year was really fun, going on trips together and cooking for him. However, from about the second year of dating, we fell into a rut, and we started fighting around this time. Since I was a bit overweight at the time, he would call me "Boo-chan," or because I'm a bit clumsy, he would call me "XX-pon," which, thinking back now, was a bit like moral harassment.

Even so, since he was my first boyfriend, I thought, "Maybe this is just what men are like," and "I don't dislike him enough to break up," so I kept dating him.

But by the time we had been dating for two and a half years, I didn't even know if I liked him anymore.

I was just staying with him because there was no specific reason to break up, and I felt a sense of stagnation when I would bring up marriage and he would brush it off with, "Well, maybe someday."

When I was thinking, "Maybe I want to break up...", after a minor argument, N-san said, "Shall we break up?" and I replied, "...I see, let's break up then," and we broke up just like that.

Lessons learned from this relationship

My biggest regret is that during the precious period of ages 24 to 26, while the first year was fun, I ended up dating out of inertia for the rest of the time.

I learned the following from this relationship:

・From now on, I will only date people with the intention of marriage and keep the dating period to within one year.
・Do not date out of inertia.

Age is very important in marriage hunting.
I realized that if I started marriage hunting again at 26 and ended up dating the next person for over 3 years without getting married, I would never have enough time.

Also, I realized that dating out of inertia is truly not good.
I used to think, 'What if there's no one else after we break up?' or 'Maybe I'm just not patient enough,' but there's no way I could marry someone I have to endure being with like that.

If that's the case, it's better to break up early and move on, as the other person might find someone better, and I might too.

What I lacked back then was the courage to initiate a breakup and self-confidence.

Summary

Looking back at that time, I feel that while there were fun moments, my self-esteem was quite low.
After that, I had some failures in marriage hunting, but I eventually got married and my self-esteem improved.

I think the first step is to cherish yourself and value your own feelings and time.
I hope that those who are currently losing confidence in their marriage hunting can gain even a little bit of confidence.