Would you be concerned if your DD planned to marry her high school or college sweetheart

[Anonymous]

I’m another example of someone who married with young(ish) and is very happy! I met DH when he was 19 and I was 20, and we married at 24. It’s been 15 years and wow we were just observing the other night that we literally never run out of things to talk about, we could just talk all night still if our schedule allowed it!

I always thought waiting to date seriously seemed way harder - by then both adults have shaped their lives to their liking and it seems hard to fully merge. Whereas for us, we each made a series of small decisions in our youth that made us more compatible. Also, once your at the point where you want to move to a new city for someone or otherwise make big life decisions, I think it makes sense to have a commitment like marriage.

[Anonymous]

HS sweetheart? Probably. College? No.

The only thing I’ll note is that the vast majority of people I know who married their high school sweethearts don’t necessarily regret it, but they wouldn’t want their children to do the same thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where are all of the posters from who married their HS and College sweethearts? I'm genuinely curious. I live in DC proper (have for over 20 years) and I know no one who married their HS sweetheart (not even from my HS days!) and I know no one who married their college sweetheart. I know one friend who married at 24 and her husband is a loser. Everyone else married late 20s, but mostly early 30s. And a good handful in late 30s/early 40s!!

I have friends who married after meeting and briefly dating in Highschool and then through college. They are very established in their careers now and have 2 kids. They waited to have kids until their early-mid 30s. They live in the DMV.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think everyone should work for a few years before getting married. This is the only time in your life when you can spend YOUR money the way YOU want. If she persists with the engagement track, I would push her to be independent and move out on her own. Don’t baby her through this time. I guess you should also fill us in —does she have a job, health benefits, a car, etc.

+100. All couples I know who married college or high school ended up divorced or in passionless marriages. I’m older, and they al seemed to have perfect marriages for the first 10 years. Most of them changed when the kids started getting older (late elementary school). I think that’s when things got stale. There were no more new milestones. The ones who didn’t divorce stayed together (I think) because they had never been on their own — ever.

[Anonymous]

I am so grateful we met (19) and married (22) young. We got to grow up together. We experienced every major life event as a couple. We didn't have to merge 10 years of single living habits together, we got to create those habits as partners. There was none of this "mine" and "yours", it was always all ours. By marrying young when we had nothing, we built everything together.

What a gift not to have our hearts broken 12 times before finding "the one". I am his first, he is my second. It has been great not to have the baggage of former relationships.

It also allowed us time to plan kids, instead of feeling a ticking clock and forcing babies into a new marriage because "it's now or never". We were married 6 years before we even thought about kids, and were able to be done with all of them before I was 35. That's pretty awesome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think everyone should work for a few years before getting married. This is the only time in your life when you can spend YOUR money the way YOU want. If she persists with the engagement track, I would push her to be independent and move out on her own. Don’t baby her through this time. I guess you should also fill us in —does she have a job, health benefits, a car, etc.

+100. All couples I know who married college or high school ended up divorced or in passionless marriages. I’m older, and they al seemed to have perfect marriages for the first 10 years. Most of them changed when the kids started getting older (late elementary school). I think that’s when things got stale. There were no more new milestones. The ones who didn’t divorce stayed together (I think) because they had never been on their own — ever.

You need to branch out more. There are plenty of us who married young and are still happy 20 years later. The last kid leaves the house in a couple years and we have a laundry list of plans, both together and independent of each other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where are all of the posters from who married their HS and College sweethearts? I'm genuinely curious. I live in DC proper (have for over 20 years) and I know no one who married their HS sweetheart (not even from my HS days!) and I know no one who married their college sweetheart. I know one friend who married at 24 and her husband is a loser. Everyone else married late 20s, but mostly early 30s. And a good handful in late 30s/early 40s!!

Haha. I live in DC proper, DH was 24 and I was 22 when we married and people always assume that we were married as teens. Nope. The reactions are a hoot when people meet us. I don’t even have to say a word.

I have lived in DC my whole life except for college and I know several. I went to Sidwell, GDS, NCS or Maret and a top ten University. I know more college sweethearts but at least two HS ones.

was going to say I know a ton in Bethesda, particularly Whitman kids.

[Anonymous]

I’d be fine with it because that’s what we did. DH started dating at age 20 and got married at 26. We’ve been married 16 years and I can’t imagine my life without him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think everyone should work for a few years before getting married. This is the only time in your life when you can spend YOUR money the way YOU want. If she persists with the engagement track, I would push her to be independent and move out on her own. Don’t baby her through this time. I guess you should also fill us in —does she have a job, health benefits, a car, etc.

+100. All couples I know who married college or high school ended up divorced or in passionless marriages. I’m older, and they al seemed to have perfect marriages for the first 10 years. Most of them changed when the kids started getting older (late elementary school). I think that’s when things got stale. There were no more new milestones. The ones who didn’t divorce stayed together (I think) because they had never been on their own — ever.

You need to branch out more. There are plenty of us who married young and are still happy 20 years later. The last kid leaves the house in a couple years and we have a laundry list of plans, both together and independent of each other.

My experience is my experience. Everyone is offering anecdotal info here. You don’t like my post, that’s fine.

It’s great it worked out for you, but it doesn’t for a lot of people. The biggest risk is if OP’s daughter never establishes confidence that she can live on her own. That leads to people getting stuck.

If I were OP, I’d tel the daughter to live on her own a couple of years. No rush. She doesn’t have to break up with the BF.

[Anonymous]

My parents were high school sweethearts. I think it was a simpler time back then and there was less of the world to tear people apart.

My HS relationship failed after 6 years. My college relationship failed after 8. I didn’t find my (hopefully) forever partner until I was in my 30s, finished grad school, settled into my career, essentially grew up. Kids today mature much slower than previous generations. For that reason alone, I’d be concerned.

[Anonymous]

I married my college sweetheart, but not until several years after college (age 26). We both got advanced degrees and traveled extensively, some alone, some for work and some together. I'm so grateful I didn't ditch the relationship just to try someone new because I thought I should. We work really well together and always have. We didn't have kids until our mid 30s, as they are a much more significant career interruption than marriage.

I have friends now who are 40 and still single. They are starting to grieve the life and kids they always thought they'd have. Maybe it will still happen for them somehow, but it's far from certain. Several have openly lamented that they wish they'd tried harder to find a match in college when there is a big pool of options.

If your DD is happy and they treat each other well, then power to them.

[Anonymous]

I got married at 24. Still happily married 16 years later.

At the time, I remember feeling like an adult. My H is 3.5 years older than me (we met when I was a freshman and he was a senior in college). By the time we married 5 years later, we both had masters degrees, I had a job offer, he had a good paying job, and he had 100k in savings to put down on our first house. This early start in real estate got us on a solid financial path as we climbed the property ladder in DC, so there is that side benefit.

However, it seems today that people mature much slower than they used to and most people are not ready to marry, buy a house, or have kids until at least their early thirties, if not later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think everyone should work for a few years before getting married. This is the only time in your life when you can spend YOUR money the way YOU want. If she persists with the engagement track, I would push her to be independent and move out on her own. Don’t baby her through this time. I guess you should also fill us in —does she have a job, health benefits, a car, etc.

+100. All couples I know who married college or high school ended up divorced or in passionless marriages. I’m older, and they al seemed to have perfect marriages for the first 10 years. Most of them changed when the kids started getting older (late elementary school). I think that’s when things got stale. There were no more new milestones. The ones who didn’t divorce stayed together (I think) because they had never been on their own — ever.

You need to branch out more. There are plenty of us who married young and are still happy 20 years later. The last kid leaves the house in a couple years and we have a laundry list of plans, both together and independent of each other.

My experience is my experience. Everyone is offering anecdotal info here. You don’t like my post, that’s fine.

It’s great it worked out for you, but it doesn’t for a lot of people. The biggest risk is if OP’s daughter never establishes confidence that she can live on her own. That leads to people getting stuck.

If I were OP, I’d tel the daughter to live on her own a couple of years. No rush. She doesn’t have to break up with the BF.

+1 This thread is slanted heavily toward happy outcomes, which are great, but not the case for a lot of people. OP, just encourage your daughter to establish herself professionally, financially, and socially as an independent person for at least a few years before she gets married. It won't hurt a healthy relationship and it would put her on more solid footing to make her own decisions, choices, mistakes before she starts sharing her life with someone else.

[Anonymous]

What is the rush to get married? There is no reason to break up since they are in love, but I don’t understand why they would want to get married/engaged so young.

I went to Yale also about 25 years ago, and most people I knew did not end up marrying their college sweetheart - they stayed together a year or two after college and then broke up. The ones who are still happily married also waited a year or two (or even 5) after college before they got engaged and married. That makes more sense to me - college is not the “real world” and it’s good for their relationship to develop while they have the real-life stresses of a job and making decisions about next steps together. I think that is where a lot of college relationships fail.

Statistically, younger marriages are more likely to end in divorce - I think the tipping point is sometime in the mid20s, but I can’t remember exactly the age.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think everyone should work for a few years before getting married. This is the only time in your life when you can spend YOUR money the way YOU want. If she persists with the engagement track, I would push her to be independent and move out on her own. Don’t baby her through this time. I guess you should also fill us in —does she have a job, health benefits, a car, etc.

+100. All couples I know who married college or high school ended up divorced or in passionless marriages. I’m older, and they al seemed to have perfect marriages for the first 10 years. Most of them changed when the kids started getting older (late elementary school). I think that’s when things got stale. There were no more new milestones. The ones who didn’t divorce stayed together (I think) because they had never been on their own — ever.

You need to branch out more. There are plenty of us who married young and are still happy 20 years later. The last kid leaves the house in a couple years and we have a laundry list of plans, both together and independent of each other.

My experience is my experience. Everyone is offering anecdotal info here. You don’t like my post, that’s fine.

It’s great it worked out for you, but it doesn’t for a lot of people. The biggest risk is if OP’s daughter never establishes confidence that she can live on her own. That leads to people getting stuck.

If I were OP, I’d tel the daughter to live on her own a couple of years. No rush. She doesn’t have to break up with the BF.

+1 This thread is slanted heavily toward happy outcomes, which are great, but not the case for a lot of people. OP, just encourage your daughter to establish herself professionally, financially, and socially as an independent person for at least a few years before she gets married. It won't hurt a healthy relationship and it would put her on more solid footing to make her own decisions, choices, mistakes before she starts sharing her life with someone else.

Multiple relationships with great guys who dd loves and who love her and who want to be with her long term may or may not happen. Lots of people would happily take one