Marriage is a beautiful thing, don't rush it. I grew up hearing this and along with many other things, I wish I had listened. Don't get me wrong, many people get married at a young age and are lucky enough to stay that way until death separates them. There are others who get married at a young age and find themselves in a courthouse maybe 6 months, a year or two years later. You leave that courthouse with a status of a divorcee at 17 years old, but you leave with much more than just that. You leave with knowledge and lessons many people your age have yet to learn.

I'm not saying they were lessons that were easy to learn or fun to go through. They were more than likely incredibly heartbreaking. They left you feeling more pain than you knew you were capable of feeling.

I remember being so excited to have my own apartment and a family. Even only being 17, I felt ready. I thought he was too, and that was my mistake.

The problem with relationships and/or marriages at young ages are the simple fact that we are still growing up. We are still finding out our purpose and who we want to be in this world. All of the sudden you meet someone who is going through the same thing. This can go two ways. You can grow together into something beautiful and defy all the odds, or you will clash as maybe one of you grows faster than the other and hurt each other in the process of falling apart.

The hardest part about this all is you can not force someone you to change. You can not force someone to grow up and want the same things in life that you do. If you meet someone and you feel they aren't mature enough or ready for something serious, please don't trick yourself into thinking you can change them because you can't. I promise you that. I know that is the hardest thing to accept because often times we don't get to choose who we fall in love in with, it happens right before our eyes until one day it hits you. After that, all we want is the fairy tale relationship/marriage that everyone dreams about and the problems you see in the other person seem minimal and you tell yourself, "They will grow up," "Maybe I can push them in the right direction." That's your first mistake. You have to love someone as they are and be okay with it, or do not give your love to someone that you don't feel is ready for it. Save your heart. Love yourself more.

Accepting that someone will never love or treat you the way you deserve is one of the hardest things. It's one of the hardest things I've ever had to go through. You spend months, years treating them right trying to change them in hopes that one day they will wake up and be a different person. There comes a day that you wake up to the same person you met months/years ago and it finally hits you. Nothing is going to change. I do not deserve this.

I love seeing the young marriages that lead to happy endings and a life full of love.

My heart hurts for those who have gone through what I have and have lived a married life and then had to find out the pain of divorce. Please remember at the end of the day, you decided to love yourself and put yourself and your well being first. That is exactly what everyone should always do. You are worth more than being in a one sided relationship/marriage. You may think you don't have the strength to walk away from maybe the only love you've ever known, and you may not for a while, but I promise you one day you will wake up and that strength will be there. You will walk away, you will go through the pain, and you will come out stronger than you ever knew was possible. Walking away from someone you love because they don't love you enough is one of the most heartbreaking things you will ever do, but it will be the time that you see how strong you really are.