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When you go to college, you're fresh out of your parents' nest. You probably haven't even voted in a presidential election yet.
Let's face it—you're practically a baby with a lot of future financial debt.
College is typically just four years of your life. But when you're on campus taking finals, it feels like a huge chunk of your life—it really isn't. You've barely lived on your own long enough to know who you are, if you've even lived without roommates at all. You've barely scratched the surface of finding out who you are as an individual away from home and on your own.
Even if you're in the most loving, passionate, and secure relationship—you're not mature enough to get married.
I don't really have anything against marriage. I grew up in a divorced family, so that's tainted it a little, but both parents have remarried and I can see what real love is like now. I just think that if you can't even drink at your own wedding, it's pretty hard to say you're mature enough for the financial and long-term commitment that marriage is.
You're so young. I'm not saying you can't experience life with the love of your life by your side, because you can. You can still plan your future together. You just don't have to rush into it before you've even gotten your degree.
If the love is real, they'll wait no matter how long it takes.
You'll both graduate, plan out your lives, settle down, and then make that big commitment.
The college stereotype is eating dirt cheap food because you're dirt poor. It's standing in line for hours for free t-shirts and going to events just for free food. It's having no money to spend on luxuries, especially if you're the one paying for your school, not your parents. You're most likely already drowning in debt trying to pay for a degree, so why would you stab a hole in your oxygen tank and dive into deeper debt with a wedding?
When you're in college, you've only experienced a small fraction of life. Definitely not enough to make the kind of financial and long-term life decisions that come with marriage.
If you still have your parents fill out your FAFSA for you because you don't know how, you're probably too young to say "I do."
Young love is beautiful, there's no doubt about that. It's very real, and it burns with a passion. But with the high divorce rate—and even my parents' own experience of marry young—is it really worth it to get married before you even walk across the graduation stage?
That shouldn't be your focus right now.
You need to graduate and see where you even end up and get a job, not where you're going to be planning your wedding.
Focus on what you're going to paint on your graduation cap, not what color of flowers will be in your bridesmaids' hands. Wait until you're a little older, a little more experienced with how life works to make that commitment. Establish that with the person you love and let them know that you want to wait until you're a little more secure. Your love isn't going to be any weaker if you just wait a few more years.
It's important to figure out who you are as a person before you have your entire life set in stone. When you're in college, you definitely have no idea who you really are. You're young, you've just accepted a crushing amount of debt, and you're in college algebra, for God's sake.
If you're still trying to make ramen noodles in a coffee pot, you're probably not mature enough to get married.
It's not an insult, it's just the truth.
I know I damn well am not mature enough to get married yet, and I'd actually be able to drink at my wedding. It's crucial to understand yourself and be able to live your life on your own before you commit to someone else's last name.
