Dear Miss U,
My boyfriend is going to bootcamp this summer, now most will claim that we are far to young to “need” each other, but our recruiter told my SO that in order for me to be able to come with him I would need to be married to him if we wanted to live together. I am only 18 years old by almost two months, I love him but I am scared that if I marry him this early on into the relationship that we could end in divorce. He cried to me today because he wants me to come with him so badly, and I want to be with him, but should I consider marrying him? I want to spend the rest of my life with him, I know this to be true. He always says he doesn’t want to lose me, I never want to lose him. I love him more than myself, but I don’t know what I should do. I have a few months to decide and yet the stress and tension is building on me, I just want to marry my best friend, I want to wake up to him…I don’t know how to cope with long distance, please help me.
-Worried teen
Dear Worried Teen,
That’s a tough one isn’t it?
Let’s say you did decide to marry him; in that instance I would recommend some kind of marital preparation counseling. Find a professional who will lead you through some really tough-soul searching questions and get to the nitty gritty of what you both need and expect out of a marriage. At a basic level marriage is a contract; make sure you agree on the terms and hammer out all the details before you sign your life away.
Kids? If yes, when and who will be the primary caregiver? What roles will you play, what holidays will you celebrate, what morals will you teach them? Travel? Education? Equality? What prejudices do you have? What strange old hang-ups to a bygone era do you lug with you? Career? (Remember yours is equally as important to his. Gone are the days where you had to be his cleaner and baby factory.) Sex. Talk a lot about sex. You’re probably monogamous right now, and that’s cool. I’m happily monogamous right now too. But that doesn’t mean a time won’t come where one of you wonders if they missed out on something. Or a time might come when one person has a kink they need to explore and the other person isn’t in any way interested in that. You need to know going in how that will be dealt with. It isn’t possible to talk too much about sex! Talk about roles and responsibilities and expectations in the home. Talk about religion, even if you’re both atheist at the moment. Religion is important and can seriously alter a person’s outlook and life style. I belong to a “weird” minority religion and Mr. E supports that even though he does not share my beliefs, however it is very clear between us that a conversion to certain mainstream religions would be grounds for divorce between us because the rules in those religions directly conflict with the lifestyle we signed up for in this marriage.
At only eight months in the two of you are as good as strangers. If you’re going to marry this guy you need to take a crash course on each other before you do so, in my opinion. Think of it as an investment.
I also think it doesn’t hurt to reassess your idea of a successful marriage. Divorce isn’t desirable, but it isn’t the end of the world either. I personally think an amicable divorce is more “successful” than flogging a dead horse and living in misery. If the relationship runs its course, are you both good enough people to potentially remain friends/ co-parents?
Humans are living a long time these days. It’s got to be harder to put up with someone for fifty or more years than it was to put up with them for thirty. People allow themselves to grow and change more than was possible in our grandparent’s day. Plenty of people live long enough to change careers a couple of times, and they do sometimes out grow their relationships as well. Like all things, it depends on your attitude, but it is worth thinking about.
Personally, I do find it hard to make a case FOR young/early marriage (because if you were in your forties and dated less than a year I’d still think waiting would be best.) If you rush into marriage, aside from potentially not knowing the person well enough, not knowing yourself well enough, not having lived together, or not being ready there are quite a few drawbacks. A lot of people I know grew up with their dream wedding scenario, which makes sense, it’s a significant rite of passage. But it tends to be the kind of dream that takes a lot of preparation and often a lot of money too. If either of you are one of those people with a dream in mind, I think it’s a terrible sacrifice to make. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity; if it matters to you, you need to do it right. (Whatever “right” looks like to you!) A big wedding doesn’t guarantee a great marriage, but giving up something you had your heart set on and carrying the potential for regret and resentment into your marriage definitely gets you started on the wrong foot.
That aside, your brain isn’t fully developed yet. You’re not the adult you will become and neither is he. That doesn’t mean you won’t work out, you may very well “grow up” in the same direction, but it could put a lot of stress on your relationship. I often think that if Mr. E and I had closed the distance and gotten married early on in our relationship we would have ended up parting ways. Young Miss U didn’t know her own value, didn’t know her limits and didn’t know how to work through problems in a relationship. Young Mr. E thought people with less money weren’t worth anything, didn’t know how to take care of himself (never mind me!) and needed more time to be irresponsible. Long distance taught us how much we meant to each other. It taught us how to communicate at a deeper level. It taught us what “needing” a partner was actually really about. The kills we picked up doing the distance are invaluable to us, we still use them every day. And when we fight or arguments seem small beside the mountains we have overcome together. If he had come to me and “saved me” like I always hoped he would, I wouldn’t have the courage and endurance I needed to get through today – this day we are both living, right now.
The easy thing isn’t always the best thing. And yet, doing long distance if you don’t absolutely have to is basically insane. I struggle to understand how people can choose that, they must be better people than I am! But one thing I feel is certain: If you can’t cope with long distance you don’t have what it takes to make a marriage work.
Dear Miss U,
My partner and me are having a tough phase. He is from east Africa and I am from western Europe. To close the distance I am planning to join him because he has a safe job that is tied to his country whereas I’m from uni and “geo flexible.” I studied intercultural training/counseling and am sure I will cope with the rearrangement. However his older family members are saying it’s a big risk we are taking and they think I cannot fit into their society (they don’t know me yet). Older people from my family say the same – that I will miss the comfort of European social security and the cultural familiarity. From my studies I know that culture is in no way bound to national states, it is dynamic and heterogeneous even within societies. Young people from my partner’s country endorse my view that the modern world is intertwined and the mass media creates a sort of meta-culture where knowledge and discourses can be shared by all.
But as many people are telling me I will not cope in the new environment I am now worried they might be right (though I have a more professional view of what culture and acculturation mean). The doubts communicated by others leave the two of us insecure. We fear that an idealistic view of the world made us believe our future was easy, that we will be disillusioned at some point.
We’ve managed an LDR for 18 months (met 3 times), we’re happy and had no “culture based” problems but now we’re insecure. Should we stay optimistic or believe the old people?
Cosmopolitana
Dear Cosmopolitana,
Your question was so well written I couldn’t pass it up!
Over-all I think optimistic is the best way to be, however the oldies aren’t entirely wrong. It can be hard, once you close the distance, to feel like you fit in especially if the people around you don’t think you do fit in. For example, I’ve had a partner whose family treat me like a novelty at best and a circus show at worst, all because I have an accent. We have the same ancestry, the same skin colour, the same language but the way they go on about it I might as well be from the moon. You may also really miss the small things. Local produce, customs, etc. You can still have part of that with the meta-culture of the fantastic interwebs, but sometimes that won’t be enough. I can tell you from experience that it is something you should prepare for. Don’t just assume that you’ll be ok. But do it anyway, a little bit of home sickness is a small price to pay for a big love!
