Engagement Vent - long, sorry :/

[nicole]

harsh much? im pretty sure medical advances and one *thinking* about marriage is impossible to be compared.

there's a difference in advances in healthcare and social norms. now by saying this, im not arguing that bc back in the day slavery was ok it is now... but i guess i feel like if there are shows glorifying teen pregnancy... well, then considering an engagement isn't absolutely horrible

I think Lucybelle meant just because they did something way back when, doesn't mean you have to do it now- the fact she used a medical advancement as an example is irrelevant. And really the arguement "I'm not getting pregnant at 18, so it's mature to think of getting engaged" isn't a good arguement either. I'm not attacking you btw, this is just my opinion. Honestly, just getting engaged will not solve those "when you are engaged" comments, you'll probably have a lot of people telling you you are too young and moving too fast. If you don't care what people think then fair play, but you have said you are sick of other people commenting, so I'm guess you do care about that.

You are 18 and still finding your place in the world. A lot happens at this point in life- I am only 21, and I'm still finding what I want to do etc. In 3-4 years, neither of you will be the same person you are now. I'm not saying you will break up, not at all, I'm just saying you are both growing in character and life experience. You've also got a lot of time, there is no need to rush things. I do beleive a promise ring is a great idea. I have one- we call it my "training ring". It's a nice reminder to yourself how serious the two of you are, without the formality. You could even treat it as an engagement ring until your SO is ready enough (emotionally and financially) to make it formal.

[blankita719]

I know everyone hates it when you bring up age as a factor, but it actually does matter. I'm 32 years old and I've had some serious shifts and changes in my beliefs and values and thought processes since I was 18. It happens. And while you may be lucky enough to have already found the person you want to spend the rest of your life with now, the chances are against you simply because of the fact that as you get older, you change. And if both of you can grow and change together, then you really are lucky. Life experiences will alter whatever you think in your head right now. So getting engaged now doesn't prove that the two of you are serious, if anything you'll probably find more people who will tell you that you are too young for it. Being engaged also isn't a promise. I was engaged for almost 8 years and never made it down that aisle. I'm not saying that wanting it is wrong, but like some one else said earlier, marriage is a lot more than just being in love.

[Mizpah]

Please do not rush this. You are eighteen. Enjoy being eighteen. I am not saying you are too young for serious commitment, or that you haven't found the one, but I am saying that SO much growing, changing, and developing will happen in the next two years. I got engaged the first time when I was eighteen to my then-boyfriend of one year. He was almost twenty-two. We were engaged for two years, and I went through the whole "You're too young" and many other objections. I fought them on it until I was blue in the face, but you know what? They were right. They were also right about how wrong he was for me. I thought I loved him, even believed it, but that's just it I thought and believed., I didn't know it. And I because I thought and believed that so deeply, I pressured him much like you are pressuring your boyfriend. In my case, my ex became worse and worse, and even emotionally abusive, so I finally ended things with him three months before the wedding. Two days after we would have been married, I met my husband Aaron. I had done so much growing and changing, and so had my ex, in those years that we simply didn't click anymore. The person I became was the person my husband had spent his whole life looking for. We got engaged when I was twenty, and he was twenty-one, and married four and a half months later. Still young by some standards, and "fast" by others. I honestly believe relatives were eagle-eying my waistline to see if the "fast" was because of an "oops."

The moral of the story? The old saying "haste makes waste" really is true, even in relationships that are meant to be. In my case with the ex, we weren't meant to be, but even if we had been, rushing would have ruined us because while he was in his twenties he had the maturity of the teenager and I WAS a teenager. I think the engagement and the pressures of it are part of the reason why he became an arse (he admitted much of it was to push me away). Enjoy being young and in love, and if you want more of a commitment, then consider a promise ring. It's true you can get engaged now, and don't have to start planning a wedding right away, but an engagement adds an extra pressure to a relationship in the sense you are waiting. Let your love grow and progress, and worry about more commitment when you're older and more settled in life and yourself. Yes, everyone develops at their own rate, and I was always more mature than my peers. That did not in anyway make me ready for marriage when I was eighteen years old. I agree that the length of time does not matter, but when you are eighteen and still learning and developing it does. My husband and I had a short courtship before engagement, but we were older and more settled in who we are and what we want. My parents married when they were your age, my mom was actually a year younger, and let me say that while they are still married and now happy together that they stunted each other maturity-wise and had a hard road because of how much they grew and changed, yes much of it was together, but not all.

[acroush]

Just a side note...

We are all here to support you through your relationship, not to attack you. While it might seem like it at times we are really trying to help you on your way, maybe by bringing up ideas that you did not think of or thought of and did not really listen until someone else told you. I am worried about you because you are so defensive to people who are trying to help you...

I know you are upset and I have been upset by comments too, but they are just words. You need to be mature enough to know who to listen to and who not to. I honestly think that everyone in this community is worth listening to. We collectively have gone through it all and are still stiving to close the distance or be a LDR... We are only here to help and not judge. I know you know yourself and your relationship now, and that is very mature for your age, but know you have a whole life ahead of you and only you get to choose how to live it.

[Brandie]

Just a side note...

We are all here to support you through your relationship, not to attack you. While it might seem like it at times we are really trying to help you on your way, maybe by bringing up ideas that you did not think of or thought of and did not really listen until someone else told you. I am worried about you because you are so defensive to people who are trying to help you...

I know you are upset and I have been upset by comments too, but they are just words. You need to be mature enough to know who to listen to and who not to. I honestly think that everyone in this community is worth listening to. We collectively have gone through it all and are still stiving to close the distance or be a LDR... We are only here to help and not judge. I know you know yourself and your relationship now, and that is very mature for your age, but know you have a whole life ahead of you and only you get to choose how to live it.

I agree with this completely, posting in the forums is just a way to get some feedback from other's on this site who may have gone through similar situations and just to offer advice.

[Mizpah]

Just a side note...

We are all here to support you through your relationship, not to attack you. While it might seem like it at times we are really trying to help you on your way, maybe by bringing up ideas that you did not think of or thought of and did not really listen until someone else told you. I am worried about you because you are so defensive to people who are trying to help you...

I know you are upset and I have been upset by comments too, but they are just words. You need to be mature enough to know who to listen to and who not to. I honestly think that everyone in this community is worth listening to. We collectively have gone through it all and are still stiving to close the distance or be a LDR... We are only here to help and not judge. I know you know yourself and your relationship now, and that is very mature for your age, but know you have a whole life ahead of you and only you get to choose how to live it.

I too agree with this. A community is valuable due to its collective experience, and I know for a fact that everyone here tries to use that experience--positive and negative--to help each other. It might feel like an attack, but it's simply concern for your well-being, and the well-being of your partner and relationship. I also agree, that your defensiveness with some of the other users is concerning and frankly undermines your maturity. But again, the more you grow and develop, the more comfortable you will come to be with yourself and less defensive you'll be over the choices you make or have made. I truly wish you the best.

[Joyce:)]

Jaimie, it made me smile to read your thread. you kind of (quite a bit) sound like me, only that i also tease my boyfriend about green cards and so on. i'm as old as you, so i guess we both have a really promising idea of love, and really want our relationships to be "THE relationship", if you get what i mean. i understand where everyone is coming from talking about being too young, needing to wait, and how engagements are serious things, but obviously i also understand that "desire" to have a ring to look at that reminds you that what you have with your other half is something special, is what some people look for their entire lives.
i'm glad that you have the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, it is such a huge blessing to know you have found someone that makes you a better person, who completes you, and who can be there for you always.
i wish you the best, and i know it's going to be tough to wait for school to be over, i'll be done with university in europe by 2014 or 2015, and it feels like an eternity, and i'm scared about the future and what may happen, but i have faith in my love, as i guess you have in yours.
it sounds like your boyfriend will "pop the question" anyway at some point not too far away, so if ever you'll be giving the news of an engagement, i'll be right here to support you.

[OliveOyl]

ooh i agree on the promise ring idea!! I have one, and I even bought him one! I know we are more serious than casual, and I know he and i aren't financially ready to be engaged, so a nice, cute ring was just perfect for us

[Deleted Account]

well this might all be because of a dream but certainly u shouldnt be considering marriage as of yet. Im getting married this year, and im pretty young lol... but i know that, however me and my BF are ready to face the challenges a marriage life would be... particularly him.. because altho he's younger than me, he's very and he wont do anything without really thing it thru.

An engagement ring is just that... a little ring... in fact in the olden days you wouldnt even get a ring.. you'd get a necklace or a bracelette etc... nowadays the ring is just the trend that debeers started to spice up the diamond market.

Love is the most important factor here. And you really need to be sure you're actually in love with your bf and not with the idea that love brings.. because truth be told, many teenager girls.. like u.. dont really know this. They find a guy they like and they instantly make up all this fantasies about marriage and all and you really dont know what this all entails.

Now as an anecdote i will tell you that when i was 17 i made the terrible mistake of allowing my bf of the time to actually propose to me and tell my parents.......... you should have seen what happened... so yeah.. noo... plz use your head. Not just your crazy hormones. you're not the only crazy girl who thinks shes ready for that kind of comitment

[Rugger]

I know I'm coming in to the game a little bit late, but this topic caught my attention.

Why rush? Love is not a race. Why does it matter what everyone else think of your relationship? You and your boyfriend are the only two whose opinions matter.

Most 18 year olds think they know what they want. When I was 18 , I thought I had my shit together. I knew what I want, I was an adult. I could do whatever I wanted. WRONG. I didn't have it together, I didn't actually know what I wanted. I thought I did, but it turns out after living away from home for awhile, that changed. You change so much between 18 and 22 it's unbeliveable.

As other have pointed out, a ring means nothing. It's a piece of gold with a piece of carbon on it that was crush for a few hundred years. It doesn't guarnetee you are going be together for ever, it doesn't mean either of you can't cheat or break the other one's heart.

You guys haven't even been together a year yet, Don't you want to enjoy your honeymoon phase without the pressures of trying to plan a wedding?

[jlb14]

Everyone wants to make sure you do not miss out on wonderful opportunities. I've been with my Beau for three years and as much as I want to get engaged I want to make sure I can look back at this time in my life and know I did everything I wanted to. I do not want to have regrets I didn't travel more or live life on my own when I have kids and cannot anymore.

I want to be engaged so badly right now but I also know I only have this part of my life once and I want to make myself the best person I can be so when that magical day comes I am prepared mentally and emotionally.

[London-FortCollins]

I know its hard not to feel attacked when everyone starts commenting on your age, I've been there and can appreciate that.

Let me give you a little bit of my experience, just to help see the other side of it without saying "Your too young" etc etc

I'm only just 24. When I was 16-18 I was in a relationship which at the time was the be all and end all of my life. Looking back it was a joke and I cant believe I even went there with that guy. It literally makes me shudder he was so gross and so wrong in SO many ways but at the time I really did have the rose tinted love glasses on.

I desperatly wanted to be engaged. He bought me a crappy ring just as a gift and I asked "Is this what I think it is?" He said "Yeah sure" and we were then "engaged". When that was the term used I suddenly realised that wasnt even what I wanted and I suddenly started waking up, realising what a pig he was.

From there I got into a very serious relationship with a much nicer guy. 18 - 21 I was with him for. I went through a LOT of changes and emotional growth in that time as an individual, but because I was in a relationship I didnt really allow myself to be "me" if that makes sense? I didnt have the time to discover myself or my inner thoughts. This was all realised afterwards though.

Again we talked about spending our lives together. We wernt engaged but we talked about "one day when we're married and have kids". I couldnt forsee a future where we wernt together. But then stuff happened (a VERY long story that involves a cult, change in personality and overal high drama) and we split up.

I then spent a year and a half single. I would not change that year and half for all the money in the world. I was suddenly a very different person at 21 then I had been at 16 or even 18 and I'd barely even noticied the change. I really then began to grow up. I had been selfish in many ways I didnt even realise, had very narrow views of relationships and love and didnt understand how to love myself before I could expect anyone else to. But having the time to learn and reflect changed a lot of that. I absolutly ADORED the confident, vibrant, mature young woman I became in that year and a half.

If I hadnt had that time I would not be with my SO now, or if I was we would not be anywhere near as strong as we are.

I'm not saying any of this necessarily applies to you, just telling you my story and how much I learnt with hindsight. My overal insight is that you really do have to know and love yourself before you can expect anyone else to. And yes this happens at different times for different people, and some people can be very mature and know themselves very well at 18. Some people think they do at 24 but in actual fact still dont have a clue (some of my previous "best friends" included)

In the end if you know this is meant to be, then it will be. And it wont matter if you get engaged at 18 or 81!

[Mizpah]

Guys, the OP hasn't been active since a day after she posted this...Did she leave LFAD?

[nicole]

I did notice this, I just figured we didn't say anything she wanted to hear and it upset her =/ I know no-one was attacking her, though with all of us saying the same thing it may have come off that way to her.

[Mizpah]

Yeah. It's unfortunate, but speaks back to the whole waiting and maturity thing. I hope that she didn't feel attacked, or have her feelings hurt because I know we all only meant well and wished her the best.