by Nils Herdelin

Created on: November 29, 2009   Last Updated: November 30, 2009

Getting engaged is incredibly exciting. The realization that you really found the one you want to spend the rest of your life with is something that fills you with joy and hope for a happy future. As a soon-to-be college grad and recently engaged 22 year old man, I have a sense of excitement tempered with nervousness and caution. My fiancee and I have been dating for 4 years and have recently made the decision to get engaged. Naturally my parents had some concerns and questions regarding what seemed to them like a spur-of-the-moment decision on our parts. Their concerns ranged from practicality and timeframe of the engagement to personal dreams and independence. I found myself unexpectedly calm during the whole discussion and for the most part I think I was able to put their minds at ease.

We have decided to get engaged, not to rush into a marriage, but to simply begin the process of spending our lives together. It seemed to my parents, who have been married almost 25 years, that my fiancee and I had thought of a lot of the possible difficulties and issues that might arise. We have a particularly interesting relationship; she was practically raised by two nuns since the age of seven while both of my parents have been married my entire life. With her not having any real model for how a married relationship works it could be a potentially difficult obstacle for us to overcome.

As a young couple we also face overwhelming statistics that say we will not make it. However, with the realization that these statistics exist we will work even harder to beat the odds and show that young couples can make a marriage work and that the institution of marriage is not dead. By no means do we expect everything to be easy all the time. I don't even expect things to be easy a third of the time but that is no reason to not get married.

Discussing our plans with my parents was very helpful and as we move closer to spending the rest of our lives together, my fiancee and I will depend on their help and advice more and more. Any young couple in a similar situation would be well off to do the same thing if at all possible. There are many issues that need to be addressed before we are ready to take that final step and actually get married. As a young couple we both still have lots of dreams and goals; we wish to accomplish before we are tied down with a family and all the responsibility that comes along with that. However, youth does also provide us with more hope and motivation to accomplish those goals than if we wait. Young couples can and do make marriages last through great times and adversity and we understand that. We refuse to let age or social norms dictate our life together.

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