5 Advantages to Marrying Your High School or College Sweetheart

I met my husband in high school and dated him throughout college. We got married after graduation and will be celebrating our 3rd anniversary this October. Although there are some drawbacks, which I will explore in another article, here are some of the reasons why it can be great to marry your high school or college sweetheart.

Advantage #1 - If you start dating in high school or early college then by the time you graduate you will have a solid foundation to build from since you will have dated for quite a few years. The longer that you date before you get married, the more likely it is that you will have had the appropriate discussions about what you want out of your marriage and your life and what you expect of eachother. Although it is possible to get married soon after meeting and have it work out well, I do think that a longer period of time allows you more of a chance to really be sure of what you want. This advantage could still apply to people who meet after college, but generally by that time people are in more of a hurry to get married and are less likely to date for several years.

Advantage #2 - Your partner will have seen you at your worst. Unless you are one of those people who never leaves the house without being completely put together with makeup and perfect hair odds are that if you are going to school and attending early morning or late night classes with your significant other they will probably see you looking less than perfect. When you are seeing eachother only for planned dates you are more likely to put that extra effort into your appearance all the time. In our case since my husband saw me before school at 7am barely awake and with no makeup I never felt like I had to try hard to impress him. He had seen me at my worst and still found me interesting and attractive so I knew that there must be something solid to our relationship.

Advantage #3 - You can skip the "dating scene". I have heard many stories from my still single friends of their dating exploits after college and frankly I'm happy that I never had to go through that. Trying to meet people when you are no longer seeing hundreds of people every day in various classes, not to mention the several hundred people who live in each dorm hall is much more complicated. After college dating seems to be mostly made up of people that you meet at clubs, bars or coffeeshops, blind date set ups from friends or for the more adventurous online dating sites or speed dating events. This is all very complicated and can lead to lots of funny stories about the awful people that you meet, but if you don't have a good sense of humor about it all it can quickly become frustrating.

Advantage #4 - You have a shared history. Many times conflicts can arise from trying to integrate two people's lives when they start dating because they have two very different sets of friends who don't always get along. If you have known eachother since high school or college then you probably share a lot of the same friends already which makes it easier when trying to plan parties and outings.

Advantage #5 - No worries about your "biological clock" or ending up alone and miserable. I have seen this with all of our single friends. No matter how happy and confident you are, if you are not in a great relationship and you are nearing 30 the thoughts start to sneak in whether you want them or not. It's not such a big deal to be single and in your 30's, but then you start thinking about what if you are still single and 35 or 40 or on and on. This is especially difficult if you are someone who wants children because you start wondering if you will ever have the chance. By the time you are 30 you have probably already tried all of the previously mentioned ways to meet people in the "dating scene" and you begin to wonder how you will ever find the right person for you. If you meet in high school or college and get married soon after college then you get something of a head start.

These are just a few advantages that we have found. Obviously this is not the only way to be happy and live a great life, but I do consider us lucky in that we were able to avoid some of the stress factors that our friends have gone through over the last few years.