What is it about young love that makes everyone assume it’s going to fail? My husband and I started dating when we were in high school, him a junior, and me a sophomore. Once my parents started realizing that we were getting serious at such a young age, probably when he and I had been dating for a year with no signs of that status changing, they started to "panic." Restricting our time together and how we could spend that little bit of precious alone time. I understand some of their worry. My mother got pregnant, then married, then divorced all at a very young age. My oldest aunt did something similar. So I'm sure they were all just seeing that happening all over again, but why is that the automatic assumption? When my husband returned from Marine Corps Boot Camp (I was a senior by then) they still limited our time together. The day he left my parents insisted on having a family day and rushed us through our goodbyes just to get me in the car.
I can only imagine what was going through their heads when he came to them a few months later and asked for permission to propose! But they not only said "yes" but also told him that they'd be thrilled to have him as part of the family. I'm sure they weren't expecting it to happen as soon as it did. He and I had a rough time (we always do when we're apart for long periods of time), but managed to work through it and become closer. So when I called my parents shortly after getting to college and told them that I was planning on leaving and moving halfway across the country to marry him, needless to say they freaked! Mom screamed and cried at me like never before. I thought they'd never want anything to do with me. Even now it seems like they're just waiting for the bottom to drop out sometimes. We've been married for over 2 years! Good God people, can we be supportive yet?
Do they not realize just how many odds we've already made it past?
1) Age (about 45%, from info from US Census '04)
2) High school sweethearts
3) Long distance relationship for 1 year+ (not including deployments)
4) Marine Corps (last I heard the estimate was somewhere around 80% divorce rate!)
It's hard to tell people that young love isn't all bad when you're up against some of the people I've seen. At least three girls in my high school class didn't graduate high school with us because they ended up pregnant. One as early as freshman year! Of course if you ask me, that's more a product of young "lust" than young "love." Then there are the examples of my mother and aunt. They believed they were in love, got married, and ended up divorced before they were 25! I have a friend who did something similar as well. Nor does it help that most young people don't truly understand what love is. They think that as long as they have butterflies and a sexual urge to be with the other person that they're "in love." They don't realize that love is more than that, that at times those butterflies fade and you have to have more feelings, there's work and commitment involved as well. I just wish people would give those of us in love more of a chance and not assume that just because we're young its doomed to failure. Some of us have a stronger marriage and a better understanding of love than people twice our age, or more! Don't assume that because I was married at 18 that you'll be going to my second wedding in the next 10 years....
