Someone I was dating once told me three weeks after we had first met that she was ready to get engaged to me. That seemed a bit early and was before the "3-6-9 rule" was circulating on the internet as it is now. But it turned out that the 3-6-9 rule would have held for that relationship, as once the relationship passed the three-month mark, things turned all "Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!" Yeah, us getting married would have been a bad idea.

Like most relationship rules, the 3-6-9 rule isn't a hard and fast one that has legal consequences or holds all the time for everyone. But it does provide some rough guidelines as to how soon may be too soon to make long-term commitments and how long may be too long to stick with a relationship. Each of the three numbers—three, six, and nine—stands for the month that a different common stage of a relationship tends to end.

Let's start with the "3," which represents the end of the first three-month stage known as "The Honeymoon Stage." It is a figurative honeymoon—not a literal one—because if the two of you are already married on Day 1, things may have already moved a bit too celebrity wedding fast. During the Honeymoon Stage, you are still getting to know each other.

This is probably not the best time to make any long-term commitments to the other person because your

© Psychology Today