When you find your forever person at university, don’t let them go!
Dear Di,
My partner and I have been together for two years now and I know I want to spend the rest of my life with them. I don’t want to wait any longer to put a ring on it and start our lives together! We’re planning on getting married after graduation next spring, but our friends and family think we’re too young to get hitched. Should we wait until we’re older, or hop on a plane and elope in June?
Madly in Love
Dear MIL,
I totally get where you’re coming from – my partner and I have also spent two years together and have definitely started to have conversations about when we should start looking at rings. However, I think starting to consider engagement is a lot less drastic than getting on a flight to Italy and getting married as soon as you get your diploma.
Consider what your friends and family are saying about you and your partner being too young: is that their only complaint, or do they have more to say about your relationship? Sometimes taking a step back from your relationship and looking at it with a birds-eye-view helps to recognize if the people around you might have a point in taking it a bit slower.
It’s also hard to predict your relationship’s trajectory after you and your partner graduate. University life is one thing; it’s usually pretty consistent and you have the opportunity to spend more time with your partner between classes, work, and your social life.
I don’t know what you’re up to after graduation, but I do know that once you’re released into the big and scary world, relationships can either provide you with much-needed consistency or hold you back. Have you talked to your partner about what the near future looks like for you both and how you’re going to adjust your relationship to fit a new life?
Having said all that, I’m all for a dramatic elopement. If you and your partner feel ready to walk into a courthouse and get married – please, go for it! Or, if you’ve decided that marriage may be one step too far, getting engaged may be a good middle ground between the advice of your friends and family and what you would love to do. Engagements give you time to decide if this next step in your relationship feels right for you, and you can warm up your friends and family to the idea of a wedding on the horizon (and start saving up the money for it!).
The bottom line is that you can talk to your family and friends or write to an advice column, but at the end of the day, the best person to have a conversation with about if you’re ready for marriage is your partner.
Are they 100 per cent ready to commit to you for the long term? Do they see themselves in a place right after graduation ready to build a life as a married couple? Have you talked about how you want to get married? If you get engaged first or just jump right into it? What marriage means to you both, and how your relationship will shift if you were to get married tomorrow? Opening up a clear line of communication with your partner is the best way to make sure your marriage – whether it’s next year or in five years – will stand the test of time.
Good luck!
Di
