The past perfect refers to a time earlier than before now. It is used to make it clear that one event happened before another in the past. Ok, that's good.
So in this sentence 'my brother and his fiancee had been together for two years.' why 'had been' is used not 'have been'? I think 'have been' is more natural. Sometimes it is difficult for non-native speaker to understand past perfect. So, why does the author use 'had been' not 'have been'?
Best Answer
Looking at the complete text in the picture, there is no event in the past that "been together" can be placed before, so past perfect is incorrect in this context: it should be present perfect "have been", indicating that the two years extends until the present.
If some other event had occurred in the past and the two years was before that event, or the meeting had already occurred and this was an account of the meeting, the use of past perfect would be justified:
The later sentence "My parents already spent..." may be OK in American English, but British English would use present perfect for this too:
Present perfect is used when a past action is still in force or has some lasting effect, and in this case the lasting effect is that your parents have checked off spending time with her on their list of things to do.