Everyone has their opinion.... comments??

[lizloveskar]

So i am 17 and my FH is 18. We started dating when i was 14 and he was 15. We have been dating for over 2 years and plan to get married February 28th of 2010 after i turn 18. Everyone says were to young and everything else... what do you think??

[BnB]

Speaking completely from experience........

I married my high school sweetheart just one year after graduation, we had dated 3 years, and lived together 1 year while planning the wedding.

I thought everything was perfect.

The perfect fairytale lasted about 5 years until he strayed with my best friend..........

Knowing what I know now, I would've listened to my daddy when he asked me right before walking me down the aisle to wait longer............I would've run

I am now 40, and can tell you I missed out on SO much of my childhood from being with the same 'boy' during my teens, and marrying him at 19, separating at 30, divorcing at 32..........

Regrets, this is my biggest one

good luck to you

[lizloveskar]

I have been told that about missing my childhood... My family and his family are both very excited and have not tried to get us to wait at all. His dad was the one who called him and said lets go get her her ring!

[WebLady]

Well, you are young, but I don't know you, so I cannot say your marriage can't work.

I do know I was planning to marry someone at 15 (well when we turned 18), but we grew apart. Then I did get married to someone else at 18; that didn't work out and we got divorced about 6 years later. I can look back on it now and see clearly why it didn't work and that we should have never gotten married in the first place. But I didn't see those things then and didn't listen to anyone that tried to make me think. Not saying it will happen to you, but you have a lot to consider.

I think the problem most people have with young marriages is that people change so much and don't think about the long term as much when they are young. I know I am not the same person I was when I was 15, 18, 25 ... I know I didn't really think about spending my whole life with my first husband. I didn't go in thinking one day we'd get divorced, but I never really thought about the future, I know he didn't either.

Some young marriages work, some don't ... some struggle, some are great from the start and get better. I think we all go into a relationship and marriage thinking it is great and will never go bad (why would we be there if we didn't) but some people (young and older) don't fully think about marriage as a real life long commitment and never ask themselves or their partner if they are ready ... why get married at all, why this person, why now, there are lots more questions you should talk about before getting married ... Check out this post - The Hard Questions (http://forums.onewed.com/showthread.php?t=24854)

All the best :)

[lizloveskar]

Yeah sometimes its scary not knowing the future.

[Jacobs_Girl]

opinions are like a$$holes... everyone has one, your own is the only one that matters

[FFC]

All I gotta say, is enjoy your freedom while you can. I'm very happily married, but people change *SO* much between the age of 18-23 it's amazing. If you do marry at 18, I hope that you and your man can stick through the changes together and accept them as they come. You'll be surprised when you're 23-24 and look back at when you were 18. You'll be a complete different person, I guarantee it!

Good luck!

[Gertie]

All I can say is listen to your own thoughts, not the thoughts of others, and try to be brutal with yourself. If at any time you find yourself thinking "Maybe......" then perhaps it would be best to wait. If he is indeed the one for you, he will be the one for you six months from now...and six years...and sixty. I know those sorts of things are a little hard to imagine in any clear way when you are so very young. :)

[HisDelightfulFaerie]

I'm so glad I'm not married to the person I was planning on marrying when I was 16. I've grown and changed so much since then. However, I'm 19 and will turn 20 like 5 days before my wedding so my opinion might not count. I dunno. After the first guy I had some life stuff happen that caused me to grow up fast. And then I met the guy I'm with now and we just work.

Everyone is different.

[MrsDM]

I met FH when I was 15, he was 16. 5 1/2 years later, we are getting married. However, this was after we've lived together for 2 1/2 years, and have experienced life together, and apart.

I can't say that you are too young, because I was in your same shoes at that age. I'll only be 21 and FH, 22 when we get married. However, who's to say you can't wait a few more years. If you love each other and want to be together now, it can happen in a few more years.

Quite honestly, if you even give your age a second thought, you might not be ready. Don't break off the engagement, but wait. If you love your FH, it won't matter what people say to you guys because the two of you know you will be okay.

[NurseLau84]

I started dating my husband when we were 16.....I'm 24 and he's almost 25. We waited until just under 8 months ago to get married. Yes, it can work for you and your boyfriend but I would URGE you to wait (not break up with him), just enjoy your life as teenagers and young adults for a while.

If it's meant to be, there's still time to get married later on!

Believe me, a marriage is hard work (as is a relationship!) and though I am happily married now, I look back fondly on our days of being "stupid" and silly together from age 16 to early 20's. :) Now there's car payments, mortgage, bills, etc........most of the married "stuff" is wonderful, but what I wouldn't give to be carefree again!

Enjoy your relationship for a while and see what happens. No one can stop you from marrying him when you're 18....but I think you can see from the responses here that it may not be the wisest decision.

I have a feeling you came and posted here because you had doubts, so I hope now you have a different perspective on things. Good luck to you!!!:chimp:

[lizloveskar]

Thank you everyone for your comments it helps a lot. We do plan on getting married in a year and if i feel we need to wait we will cause i have watched all my siblings and parents go through a divorce and its horrible.. My parents was the most recent and it still hurts bad. I am actually living with my FH right now since before Thanksgiving because of my dads new girlfriend. I don't want anyone to think i'm not listening i really am and we are engaged but the wedding can be postponed till we both are completely and 100% ready.

[FFC]

Thank you everyone for your comments it helps a lot. We do plan on getting married in a year and if i feel we need to wait we will cause i have watched all my siblings and parents go through a divorce and its horrible.. My parents was the most recent and it still hurts bad. I am actually living with my FH right now since before Thanksgiving because of my dads new girlfriend. I don't want anyone to think i'm not listening i really am and we are engaged but the wedding can be postponed till we both are completely and 100% ready.

I appreciate that you're open minded to our advice. I hope that when you do marry your FH that you and him are both ready 1000% and happy as can be. Make SURE you're happy - you only live life once, and you're still young. Enjoy it while you can. Enjoy your time with FH and make sure he's your BEST FRIEND, your 'person' you can go to about anything, and know this with butterflies in your tummy and that warm fuzzy feeling that comes over you, knowing you're loved and appreciated and adored.








*Omg... I don't know where all that came from, but I'm going to leave it for you anyway* :innocent:

[starsthrumysoul]

I have two points of view on this, really..

First, only the two of you can really know what's right for you. I'm a counselor, and I have a student right now going through the same thing. She JUST turned 18 and she and her boyfriend of 9 months want desperately to get married. On the one hand, no one can say that marrying at 18 will lead to disaster.

But on the other hand, studies show that the divorce rate is much higher for people who get married young. I asked my student what would change with their relationship if they got married, and she said "honestly, nothing." My response was then "so what's the hurry?" If you're in love and are meant to be together forever, a few years of life experience won't change that. And if you do give yourselves that time, you will only solidify what you already know.

FH and I, though not married yet, moved in together when we were younger (what I would consider younger). I was 20 and he was 22. In my opinion, it added a lot of financial stress to our relationship. We both had parents that were willing to help us, but wanted very badly to do what we could on our own.

And I keep thinking back to when I was 18 and how much I've changed since then! (I'm 25 now). I guess my opinion is that waiting until you've both matured a little will only be good for a marriage.

[doris27]

Thank you everyone for your comments it helps a lot. We do plan on getting married in a year and if i feel we need to wait we will cause i have watched all my siblings and parents go through a divorce and its horrible.. My parents was the most recent and it still hurts bad. I am actually living with my FH right now since before Thanksgiving because of my dads new girlfriend. I don't want anyone to think i'm not listening i really am and we are engaged but the wedding can be postponed till we both are completely and 100% ready.

That sounds like a pretty good plan. I think you've gotten some excellent advice. I know that at your age, I probably wouldn't have listened much to the advice and would have rushed headlong ready or not. But I do think there is value in a person making their own choices and even sometimes their own mistakes. I think there are a lot of experiences you and your FH can enjoy together before being married that will in no way take away from your eventual marriage, but that you might miss if you get married before you're ready. Also, you both will probably learn a lot about yourselves in the next few years. I would say, if you can stand to wait a while, wait. You can have your whole lives together, and it might be good for both of your if some more of that time comes with a little less responsibility.

[ChristineLS]

I'm 23, and FH is spitting distance from 23, so we're both pretty young.

We know we want to stay together, and we know we want to be life partners, and we're living together now and managing the money very similarly to how we plan to when we are married. In that, we split everything fifty fifty, so right now that looks like counting receipts and in the future that means we both contribute the same amount of money into a shared bill-paying account. We felt it was wisest to keep our money 100% separate before we married, though in actuality we treat each other's possessions as joint and are happy with that arrangement. The reason that we are getting married now, as opposed to waiting, is that we both know what we want from our careers, life goals, how we want our marriage to look like, live like, etc. We have the same philosophies on life and money. We're virtually self sustaining, minus car insurance and cell phones (we are still on our family's plans) but we are taking those over once the respective contracts are up. And we can afford to. We both know that the other can adapt to changing life circumstances, hardships, and changes in the other person since we've lived them. We also know that we can put up with the other when they are miserable. We can live apart, but we don't like it - it feels like we're missing part of our essence. I spent two months in Russia over the summer, and the hardest thing for both of us was not being around each other.

A lot of the grown-up stuff that is listed will eventually happen whether you are married or not. You will need to pay rent, regardless of whether or not your are romantically involved, and if you choose to have a car you will need to pay for that. You will need to pay for groceries. If you have a cell phone, you'll need to pay that. When you get married young, a lot of those get pushed on your sooner whereas if you are not married it can be a milder transition. Now, if you are already financially independent they won't make a difference. I would not underestimate how much stress living together can be. I know the first few months FH and I lived together were really wonderful, then it changes to seeing your FH is not really a treat in the same way - he lives there. It's a different kind of treat.

When I was 18 I thought of getting married as one of those life inevitabilities that I needed to accomplish. I do not see it the same way - I see it as optional. You're still an adult, married or not. I'm also not religious so I don't have other pressures on me to be married, so that as you will. I would not get married before being 1000% sure that there is no one else in the world you could possibly prefer, and being 10,000% sure you can support yourself financially (and that he can support himself financially!) before you get married. Life's rough, and if he's here to stay he'll remain here to stay while your wings grow a bit stronger.

[gwenshack]

I'm in this thread late, but I guess the only question I have is - what are YOUR thoughts? We don't know you, lovely as you seem! - and we can't tell you if you're making the right decision for YOU.

For me, at that age, I was insanely immature. I didn't really grow up until I was about 24 or 25. I wasn't really ready for a serious relationship until I met DH, and even then I had my doubts, mostly because I enjoyed my freedom!

You may be entirely different than me. But from my experience, I would have been way to young.

If you are having doubts in your own mind - outside of what other people are saying - then make sure to go to counseling first. Otherwise, follow your head and then your heart. :)

Good luck! :)

[f77g4]

I was 16 when I got together with my FH who was almost 19 at the time. We are getting married this August after almost 9 years of dating (come Dec 2009) and we've lived together since 2003. We both wanted to get a better education and be working before marrying. We own a house, both have good paying jobs and have lived together for years. However, if we had gotten married right after I was done high school, I don't know if we'd still be married. We've both changed alot and it's taken some adjusting and living together - wow that can change some things...lol I will be 25 and FH 27 when we finally marry.

Now my parents on the other hand married when my mom was 18 and my dad 20 and they are celebrating 29 years. They got married a month after mom graduated high school and didn't even date all that long - and no there was no reason for a shot gun wedding as I am the oldest. So when you know you know.

Good luck!

[lizloveskar]

Thanks again for everyones responses. We are planning on getting married february 28th 2010. We are both way excited... Now just a little on us. We have been together for over 2 years now and before we started dating we became really good friends for about 5 months before we dated. We started dating and have now lived together for 6 months. Us living together made things a lot easier. We have talked a lot about divorce cause of my family and kids and school. May sound crazy but we may go to counseling just to make sure we can do this. Seeing my family go through divorces i dont want that. So we are definitely considering everything that can happen we're gonna make this work. Thanks so much for everyones comments it has helped a lot.

[gwenshack]

Thanks again for everyones responses. We are planning on getting married february 28th 2010. We are both way excited... Now just a little on us. We have been together for over 2 years now and before we started dating we became really good friends for about 5 months before we dated. We started dating and have now lived together for 6 months. Us living together made things a lot easier. We have talked a lot about divorce cause of my family and kids and school. May sound crazy but we may go to counseling just to make sure we can do this. Seeing my family go through divorces i dont want that. So we are definitely considering everything that can happen we're gonna make this work. Thanks so much for everyones comments it has helped a lot.


Good for you - discussing the difficult topics is important. Too many people are so busy being happy and honeymooning that they gloss over the hard stuff - and then when things come up in the future they aren't prepared and are sometimes taken aback because they don't agree on key issues. I think counseling is a fabulous idea and considering that really shows a maturity that I can definitely respect. :) Sometimes a 3rd party can allow you to hit those topics that you just don't think about or are touchy. Good luck - I think that you're headed in the right direction - even the fact that you're thinking about NOT wanting a divorce is a good first step. So many people jump in without a second thought. :)

[rubysync]

it's still up to you if you wanted to get married as soon as possible. other's even get married when they are old but did not work out...

[DanDanNoodleBowl]

Im 18 and married :)

[lizloveskar]

I will be 18 when i get married about 2 weeks after my 18th birthday.

[amisteratwisterandme]

I jumped in really late for this. All of these ladies have many valid points and experience. It seems to me that you are really listening to what everyone has to say, and going to counseling sounds like the best idea yet.

Knowledge is power, and perhaps the more you know about what issues will likely come up after getting married the better you are prepared to deal with them. Good luck.

[FutureMrs.Lestician87]

I don't know you but it does seem like you're in love with him.Everyone is going to have an opinion but the only one that matters is yours.If the two of you feel this is right,than that's all that matters.All the best of luck to you both :yesnod:

[Mrs.Johnson111111]

opinions are like a$$holes... everyone has one, your own is the only one that matters

lol... i love that quote...thats hilarious!

[lizloveskar]

Thank you everyone for your opinions =]