My view of marriage has always come from the Bible. One man and one woman will leave their families and come together to become one. This vow and ceremony is to be taken very seriously. With this in mind, I have always viewed marriage to last a lifetime, with a few exceptions. If I ever do meet someone I decide to marry, I plan on it being as it was intended–to last forever.
I see all these young, teenage couples getting engaged in high school, or couples getting engaged only after knowing each other for a rather short amount of time. The idea of all this makes me nervous, with so many problems that can surface.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying all of them are making bad decisions. I have definitely seen some happy, successful couples that got married in high school or soon after getting to know each other. I admire all these couples and everything they’ve gone through together.
Like most girls, I’ve been dreaming of my wedding day since I was little. But as I’ve been through different relationships, my view on all of this has changed. Movies and books we see as children made all of this look so easy. You would meet a guy, fall in love and end with the "happily ever after," with no fighting, no struggling for money, or questioning of why so many girls are commenting on his pictures on social media. No one ever warned me that it would be this complicated, that we would get attached to a guy and finally have a face to put on the man in the tux in our childhood dream, and then things would get complicated. You’d start fighting, it would all end, and you’d leave just as confused and hurt as ever, with the intent to never get married, and that men are all the same.
Almost half of marriages are predicted to end in divorce. In my opinion, that number is way too high. I can’t help but think that some of the reason is because of the young and premature marriages. People are also getting married for all the wrong reasons: green cards, unexpected pregnancies, afraid of being alone, etc.
I’m afraid to become one of these numbers–to be so excited about getting married and say yes to the wrong man, plan my "big day" and later on, throw it all away. I want to say yes to a man that is also my best friend. To wake up every morning knowing I made the right decision and knowing no one else could have made me happier. I want to get married for the right reason, knowing that I can’t live without the person and for my relationship to be an example of what marriage was intended to be.
