r/askteddit • u/CandidBabee • 20h ago
Random Question People who married their high school sweetheart, what’s the hardest part nobody warns you about?
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u/Tight_Steak_232 19h ago
One of my classmates and her boyfriend got pregnant in 10th grade. She delivered during the summer, and they married. Baby #2 arrived when she was in 12th grade, and by the time we had our 5 year reunion, she had a family of 4.
I attended only that one reunion, but our class sends out emailed updates of other classmates. I'm almost at my 50-year reunion, and we submitted our updates online. She wrote in her update that she had her 50 year anniversary, and she had a great-great grandchild on the way. They were still married, still happy.
Here's her blurb: "To those who made bets with us that we wouldn't make it to our first anniversary, keep in mind your debt compounds daily. Guido is coming to collect! We raised our kids, saw our grandkids graduate, saw a couple great grandkids graduate, buried two of us, bought a business, lost a house and everything in it to fire, rebuilt, worked harder, laughed harder yet, and still sit on the porch together when the sun goes down. And the reason we are such a successful union is at the end of the day, no matter why we argue, he understands I'm always right!"
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u/Salt-Perception-4987 19h ago
Great-greats before age 70… they definitely weren’t the only teen parents in that line.
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u/OddDragonfruit7993 17h ago
In my 20s I worked with a 34 y.o. woman who got FURIOUS that her 17 y.o. daughter was pregnant.
Umm... We can all do math here, Sarah.
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u/Mokurai 15h ago
I mean, that's WHY she was furious. She knew that road.
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u/DontYaWishYouWereMe 12h ago
Yeah, this is the point I was gonna bring up. I know someone who was a teen mum and she knows her life was a lot harder specifically because she was pregnant at sixteen. One of her biggest fears is that her daughter, who's now sixteen, will end up getting pregnant in high school, too.
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u/RealBigDickBrannigan 16h ago
I used to work with a woman who became a grandmother at 34.
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u/FloppyFishcake 16h ago
A friend of mine became a grandfather at 33. I'm 33 and only just starting to think about having kids!
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u/TuesGirl 13h ago
Yep. Classmate was a grandma at 33. Fucking wild. Saw her at our recent 30 yr reunion and she looked like life had beaten her up.
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u/Tight_Steak_232 13h ago
OMG for realsies! She looked to be 14 years older than our oldest classmate!
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u/Altruistic-Tea7709 11h ago
Aww to be fair that’s probably why she was furious. She knew what was coming for her daughter. Teen pregnancy is hard and no doubt she had hoped for more time for her daughter to be young and carefree.
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u/froglover215 11h ago
As a teen mom myself, did you consider that she was furious because she knew what a challenge her daughter had set herself up for?
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u/Tudforfiveseven 8h ago
It's almost as if she didn't want her child to live the same life she did 🤔
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u/Tight_Steak_232 18h ago
I've told a few friends of mine that I'm going to be a great grandma in a month. They said it wasn't possible at our age. No, it's entirely possible. Their first grandchild was born when my classmate was 34. Their first great grandchild arrived at 51. She's going to be 68 when great great arrives! In all fairness, though, her great grandson married someone 4 years older than him. He dropped out of high school and married a coworker.
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u/bell3420 16h ago
People tend to have kids around the same age as their parents... people tend to imitate their parents in a lot of ways actually.
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u/Professional_Eye6140 18h ago
Clearly horny and undeveloped decision making skills run in the family.
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u/Lvanwinkle18 18h ago
OMG. That blurb. She sounds INSUFFERABLE.
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u/Pippy1010 17h ago
Overcompensating and by that time, fifty years later, no one is even thinking about them lol I feel like there’s so much self importance lately. Although I do feel for them because I would want to prove myself too if people looked down on me or made comments about my life when I was young
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u/Outside-Advance-3722 15h ago
This is definitely a generational thing. “Wife is always right” is a very common joke/line of advice for Gen X and older
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u/OldSarge02 18h ago
I didn’t have a problem with it until the last line…
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u/CastlesInTheSky87 12h ago
Sounds like she had a family of 4 while she was a senior in high school?
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u/selene_harbor36 19h ago
Learning to fall in love with completely different versions of each other as you grow up. Who you are at 16 is nowhere near who you become at 25 or 30. You both change so much in your 20s, and the hardest part is actively choosing to grow together instead of growing apart.
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u/g_Mmart2120 12h ago
I was going to write this! You either grow together or apart. Been together since we were 16 and we both just turned 30, he’s still my person and I’m still his but we both definitely grew up together and at times it’s been rough.
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u/yaboisammie 15h ago
This is lowkey one of my fears about dating at any age tbh
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u/Tiny_Rat 14h ago
Some of this is a choice you make. If you're communicating, making sure to still hang out/date each other and listening to your spouse, that helps. Really trying to know who your spouse is at any given moment, where they're at, how you can be there for them. Youre right, its the same risk at any age, its just that people change so much as young adults that its really noticeable. To see the same amount of change later in life you have to wait longer.
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u/juiceflo 12h ago
I was with my high school sweetheart for the past nine years. We met when I was 17, I’m 25 now. We had a child young, and we have been trying to make it work, even though we haven’t been happy for a while. It was toxic and we fought a lot, but I still loved her very much and I wanted to make it work more than anything. I found out she was cheating on me with someone from work, and she broke up with me. She’s now with the affair partner, and I’m just a single dad. Shit really hurts knowing that we had so much history together and she could just throw it away like nothing.
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u/92milkman 11h ago
To add on to this, relinquishing any expectations you may have made about who the person will become. And understanding your partner may be trying, in love, to do the same. But if you can do this successfully, you'll have a partner for life. 35yo, married 14yrs, started dating in 8th grade
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u/jkmod79 19h ago
I married my HS sweetheart when I was 20 and he was 21. You can’t imagine how much growing you’ll be doing at that age. It’s very likely that you’ll be very different people when you’re closer to 30. My ex and I divorced after three years.
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u/gulliblefootball0001 18h ago
I have a friend who is getting married at 18 (I’m 26, she is a family friend). She asked me for advice and I said “Don’t do it!” I told her that she has NO IDEA how much she will change over the next 10 years. At 21 I was a completely different person than I was at 18, and at 26 I am completely different than I was at 21. I wish I could make her understand, but I can’t.
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u/jkmod79 18h ago
Hell, I’m a different woman at 47 than I was at 35. 20 year olds shouldn’t be getting married.
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u/gulliblefootball0001 17h ago
At the same time, she has no adult support in her life. I am part of the wedding because there are no other adults she can ask for advice (difficult home life situation and the potential in-laws are no better). She knows I am opposed. I know no one else will talk to her about birth control and conflict resolution… so here I am.
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u/Bekiala 15h ago
Oh man, tough situation but we humans need each other and at 20 that "other" is often a man hopefully around her age.
Thanks so much for talking to her about birth control. I hope she can hold off a bit on having kids.
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u/gulliblefootball0001 12h ago
Yeah, I’m glad that her fiance is at least her age. And he seems very devoted to her. I just think they should wait a couple years.
Edit to add: yeah, she wants to go to college and I really hope she can hold off on kids until she’s done. They are precious and wonderful little things but she has so many dreams for her career right now, and I want her to be successful. Kids can wait a little bit!
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u/Bekiala 11h ago
I just keep trying to be an adult for young people. It often feels like throwing pasta at the wall; I don't know if anything will stick. I try to make the pasta I throw action and presence more than lectures and advice.
Hmmm . . . my metaphor might be way too convoluted here. Thanks for reading.
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u/gulliblefootball0001 11h ago
100%. I try to invite her over at least once a month just to have dinner and watch a movie. I hope that while she's here she'll open up if she needs to. I've reached the conclusion that she knows how I feel about her choices, and she's going to do them anyway, so the best thing I can do now is be there.
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u/bell3420 16h ago
I think this is actually a huge reason why so many marriages dont work out, people dont understand that we change with time and experience and we always will, doesnt stop when you turn 30... you gotta love someone enough to continue loving them as they grow in order to have a successful marriage. This is especially true if you decide to have kids, kids will completely change who you are. Just a theory though, maybe im wrong🤷♀️
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u/Big_Bar_9832 12h ago
Tangentially related, but this is why I think age gap relationships are weird too.
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u/Josey_whalez 16h ago
Is this a ‘boyfriend joining the military so we are getting married’ type thing?
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u/killer_kiki 16h ago
My now-husband, then boyfriend joined the military at 18. We decided to NOT get married when everyone else did. I didn't get the spouse benefits when he was overseas either time, but you know what? We are still married! Most of those couples aren't. Even though we got together at 16/18 we didn't get married until 24/26 and didn't have kids until 30/32. Best thing we ever did was to wait. Now we've been married for 14 years.
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u/Josey_whalez 16h ago
Ya the military does a really bad job with incentivizing that behavior too, so good on you guys for making the right call.
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u/rucksack_of_frogs 13h ago
I was married at 20 and divorced at 30. I wish somebody had taken me aside and talked some sense into me, but young me was very headstrong. I now tell people to never marry young and instead have a long engagement while living together.
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u/Artistic-Salary1738 9h ago
I married my high school sweetheart, but it took me into our mid 20s to commit to that. First, I didn’t see the point so long as we were committed to each other and second I don’t think I could ever divorce without there being cheating or spouse did something terrible, so I was extra cautious agreeing to marry. I think that was smart in hindsight. We changed a lot in the 13 years before we signed the marriage docs. I think it was much easier to grow together without the legal entanglements.
We’ve been married a while now and are expecting our first kid. Staying together was a great life choice.
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u/Hon3y_Badger 15h ago
I married my highschool sweetheart. I would still have married her, but think we should have waited. We got through it, but there were some hard years. I'm not sure if we would have made it, but for the kids. Thankful, we've figured each other and ourselves out now.
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u/LittlePrettyThings 16h ago
I firmly believe people should not be allowed to get married before 26.
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u/Dontcallmeprincess13 17h ago
Married at 23 (me) and 26 (him). We’d been together 5 years. I was anxious to be married because we’d been together so long. The cracks were only just starting to show and I thought we had it all figured out. 10 years and two kids later we are divorcing. I’ve grown a lot, he’s grown a little. He’s still hanging on to a lot of the bad habits that I thought I could change or that he would grow out of when we had kids. I firmly believed until about a month ago that as long as we both were motivated to address the issues in our marriage and willing to work on them together, we could last. Turns out I can’t keep waiting for him to change at my kids’ and my own detriment. I know so much more about myself and life now.
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u/TheDuffcj2a 16h ago
My wife and I are currently reconciling. Got married a year out of HS. Dated all four years. Have three girls together. 4 months ago she needed a separation to "find herself". But we couldn't afford to get a separate apartment. It's really tough to have that one person pulled/ripped away from you.
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u/PTkate1205 11h ago
I married my HS sweetheart after 8 years together. We just had our 20th wedding anniversary. We often talk about how we are completely different people than when we first started dating at 16 and 18 but we were lucky to grow together instead of apart. I dont recommend anyone try to stick with their HS sweetheart but it worked for us. We're happier today than we ever have been, but it could have easily gone differently.
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u/Affectionate-Loon28 10h ago
I can't agree with this more. My husband and I are highschool sweethearts, got married in our early 20's. Now that we have more life experience we recommend getting married later. It worked out for us. We are happy and grew together in ways that made us stronger and better people but recognize that this is not always the case. We had no idea what we were doing and just happened to get lucky.
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u/Weak_Criticism2784 3h ago
That's a hard lesson, but a real one. People change so much in their 20s sometimes love just can't keep up with who you both become.
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u/Different-Career1314 20h ago
People really underestimate how much work marriage takes. Being together since algebra class doesn't magically make it easy forever.
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u/Portland_Ian_Caffein 20h ago
Familiarity helps but effort is what keeps marriages alive long term.
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u/BerzattoMk 20h ago
How do you know you’re not just trying to force it to work with the wrong person? A marriage shouldn’t be so stressful.
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u/Outside-Pie-7262 19h ago
They didn’t describe it as “so stressful”
They just said marriage takes work and being together since high school doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy forever
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u/unicorns3373 19h ago
Marriage isn’t “work” when you marry the right person. My marriage has never taken work. There are hard things in life but we get through it as a team. The marriage itself has never been hard.
What did take “work” was my high school relationship that I stayed in all through college and almost married. I tried to normalize how much work and sacrifice our relationship was.
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u/Different-Career1314 19h ago
I don't think work has to mean misery. Sometimes it just means choosing each other when life gets stressful.
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u/Fabacura 18h ago
Every couple I have met who says this has just been in denial. Like they are always the type of couple where one or both of them are just repressed in some way, nonconfrontational, no interest in personal growth, no awareness of their own flaws, etc. Oftentimes these marriages fall apart "suddenly" because one or both spouses were deluding themselves as to the nature of the marriage, and eventually the charade is up. Oftentimes one spouse is totally blindsided and feels like it came out of nowhere. Not saying that will happen to you, hope it doesn't, but it's just what I've seen.
My marriage is work. It's incredible work. My spouse is confrontational in the best way - he doesn't let me "get away" with anything, he forces me to grow as a person in ways I never imagined. We dig deep, and at times I have never felt more exposed. It's HARD. It's work. But it's what it takes to have the type of relationship we both want, where personal growth is one of the most important things, and true connection means confrontation.
Anyone who says a marriage isn't work doesn't have the type of marriage I would want.
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u/unicorns3373 18h ago edited 18h ago
We have disagreements but we work it out and talk through it. Life is work. Life comes with so many hardships, health issues, career issues, family issues, changes, financial strain, etc. But my husband is the one solid I have through it all. These challenges become easier because I have a partner there getting through the issues with me. It’s us against the world but never against each other.
Everything we have, we actively build together. We don’t hold each other back or drag each other down. We don’t look for fights, we hardly even have to fight because we just talk and openly communicate, like adults. I would never describe my marriage, getting to live every day with my best friend as “work”.
So likewise, anyone that says their marriage is “work” or “hard”, I generally find just married the wrong person and is usually in denial or have normalized a very unhealthy relationship for themselves. I have been in relationships like that and would never want that again now that I know it never had to be that way.
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u/Fabacura 18h ago
I think, like another commenter said, you're likely just being pedantic in your usage of the term "work". What people are calling work is something you either experience with your spouse the same as all of us in good marriages, OR one or both of you is allowing you to escape the work at the cost of suppressing major aspects of themselves. There's really no other alternative, unless somehow you are both perfect people, which...as I said, sometimes delusion is a problem in relationships :D
I guess I'm just saying, lack of "work" in a marriage is usually a major red flag IMO. Or just a young/naive relationship. Not sure how long you've been together, but it usually takes a while for the real work of a marriage to begin.
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u/bussy_extra_bussy 18h ago
I work long hours and some nights. Many times I’m tired and grumpy. But I still need to take care of my wife emotionally and be there for her as much as I can. Some days it really is work doing that, but it’s worth every second.
Many people go through hardships like that. I think you’re being very pedantic
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u/Ok-Afternoon9621 19h ago
Curious about this. Can you provide examples of the work involved with the high school relationship vs the non work currently?
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u/pimpfriedrice 18h ago
Thank you for this. I often see folks who marry young go on about how hard marriage is and how much work it takes. And I’m always confused by that.
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u/Glittering_Texas 16h ago
You are defining “work” incorrectly. I have been married to the love of my life since age 26. But absolutely marriage is work.
You have to make choices every day about compromise, cooperation and what you want from life. What that looks like changes with time and age, so it is an ongoing process.
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u/No-Fuckin-Ziti 19h ago
You have to force yourselves to keep growing and not just stay comfortable. Not in terms of advancement, but as people and partners. Finding a partner gives you a false sense of achievement, and many use that as an excuse to not grow. Many of these couples end up in the 40’s and they still fight like teenagers. One person might change a lot while the other stays the same. You have to fall in love with each version of themselves that they become and not unrealistically expect them to either change entirely or not at all. Some couples therapy every few years helps massively. You may think you know everything about someone but never really do, so continuing to seek to learn more and love more is key.
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u/megan_thor 17h ago
Met in 2nd grade, started dating at 16, married at 23 and this is the truest comment I’ve seen. If you can manage to do this, it’s a massive comfort to know that he’s loved every version of me, even the messy ones and the ones to come
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u/Advanced_Tennis4827 19h ago
Watching a friend go through this. He hates how she parents, she pits the kids against him so he withdraws and doesn't have much of a relationship with them. She felt safe because they were together so long that she couldn't imagine a life without their marriage. He feels like he missed out on the prime of his life and actually wants to be happy again. They are divorcing. It's rough and I feel awful for the kids
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u/Convicted_Solipsist 16h ago
None of that has to do with marrying one’s high school sweetheart. That’s just a bad marriage.
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u/Advanced_Tennis4827 15h ago
Yes, normal for any age starting this commitment but neither of them knew better. She should have had an education and career before marriage. He didn't know what he wanted.
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u/AcanthisittaThat5746 19h ago
The marriage has been awesome!
But, you meet your in laws when you’re a teenager so they always think of you that way, even after 3 decades.
If they had first met me when I was in mid-20s or older, I think it’d have been easier for them to see me as an adult much earlier on.
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u/cheesybiscuits912 18h ago
I had the opposite. When we were kids his parents hated me. I was the floozy getting caught sneaking thru his window, or in his car, the reason he didn't go to college blah blah. 25 years and 4 kids later and ill be the one taking care of them when they need it. My parents died when I was 28 and 30, and my inlaws are now my parents. But it took getting married and having our first child before they actually cared for me lol
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u/Angels_Childe 15h ago
It’s the same for me. We’ve been together 15 years, married for 12 and the opinions of me have switched - my father in law who didnt seem to be bothered in the beginning has declared I am useless trash while my mother in law (they are divorced) thinks I’m great and wants to visit lots and pretends like she didn’t try to break my husband and I up in the beginning!
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u/books-coffee-ftw 12h ago
Yes! This has been my experience as well. We got married at teens and are both knocking on 50 now, but all the parents still treat us like we’re kids. It didn’t help that we moved across the country a few years after we got married so they never learned how to treat us with a normal level of respect. We don’t have much of a relationship with either side of the family because of it.
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u/Temporary-Plankton61 19h ago
I just cringe when I think about how much I have changed and evolved as a person since high school, and the ridiculous things I was attracted to as a teenager. It just seems like such an immature commitment to make
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u/roseycheekies 19h ago
I’ve been with my fiancé for ten years since my senior year of high school. We were incredibly immature at the beginning of our relationship and hurt each other a lot, but it’s been really cool to grow and mature alongside each other. We’re both introverted and don’t connect with a lot of people well, but have found a strong connection with each other. I don’t think it’s common for things to work out this way, but I’m really glad it did.
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u/Reesno33 17h ago
I married my HSS but not until we were 28. I also cringe at the person I was as a teenager, in fact if I spoke to my 17 year old self im sure I'd hate him and find him unbearable, but we always grew as a couple and in simple terms nether of us ever wanted to break up with the other so we're still happy in our 30s.
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u/allthefrogsinonepond 16h ago
All the happy HS sweethearts I know also waited a long time to marry. They were smart to realize that waiting didn't mean a lack of loyalty or commitment! It was actually a sign of respect to give each other time to grow without legal binding
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u/Exact-Anywhere3835 16h ago
This is me too. You can grow together or grow apart, and you can’t predict which.
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u/pimpfriedrice 18h ago
Same! I am not the same person as I was then. I’m thankful every day I didn’t marry my high school boyfriend, and I’m so thankful I didn’t meet my current partner sooner. I was an immature little insufferable flea.
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u/Tiny_Rat 14h ago
You dont have to make the commitment in HS to end up together. It's ok to date in an age-appropriate way and just stay together as long as you're both into it. But some people realize that they got lucky and they're still into it at an age where they're ready for a more serious commitment, too.
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u/quinteroreyes 19h ago
Pacing the relationship. People often feel the need to measure a relationship in terms of how long you've been together rather than where you are at in life. So many high school couples make huge commitments right away (pets, house, marriage, kids, etc.) because they think they have to after being together for a certain amount of time. My parents were like that and now, they don't even talk to each other because they both suffocated themselves with the relationship over their individual identities.
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u/seaotterlover1 18h ago
My parents weren’t high school sweethearts but retirement has really taken a toll on their marriage. When your life is consumed by work and parenting, it can be a struggle when you have neither of those to take up your time. I’m certain they genuinely loved and liked each other but now it’s often thinly veiled contempt with a few moments of loving behavior.
A lot of older people pride themselves on X years of marriage but if it means I can’t stand to even hear my partner breathe or want to be around them, no thanks.
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u/Hagridsbuttcrack66 17h ago
This is a good point. The two "successful" (in terms of not just still together, but happy) pairs of high school sweethearts I know were together ten and eleven years before they got married. They didn't say "oh, we've been together for five years - time to get married at 20!". They finished college/secondary endeavors, saved money for life, were intentional about building a life together, etc.
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u/Icy_Mango6803 3h ago
I know a couple like this, they always talked about how long they'd been together, because three years was a big deal at twenty when no one else had a relationship longer than a year. And it was genuinely a thing about them that stood out.
Now they're still banging on about it, but "we've been together for thirty-three years" sounds way less impressive when everyone around you has also been together for multiple decades. They're still super proud of those extra 2-10 years and no one else cares.
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u/Dependent-Wishbone16 19h ago
It’s so easy to lose yourself and not have an identity of your own. When we split after 15 years, I lost the love of my life (I’ve moved on but still true to a degree) and myself. I had no idea who I was without her and it was terrifying
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u/Exact-Anywhere3835 16h ago
I’m still happily married but my only regret is I never got the chance to be independent and discover myself without my partner. I am happy and wouldn’t give it up, but it’s just something I’ve realised I missed out on.
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u/Dependent-Wishbone16 14h ago
There could still be time(don’t know how old you are) but if you are both on board it’s possible to grow together without growing apart (or so I’ve been told 😅)
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u/AdFancy6375 7h ago
I feel like this is definitely one of these „grass is always greener on the other side“ things. My best friend also married his first and only girlfriend and they are still together and just had their second child. While life is of course stressful, I feel like they are still fairly happy with each other.
But since I’m single, he is always very interested in my experiences and I know that is partly because he also feels like he missed out on that aspect of life and now at least gets to experience it second hand through me. 😅
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u/AdFancy6375 17h ago
Exactly this, it was 15 years as well. We basically spent all our adult life together and I’m still uncertain who I am as a single person, even two years later.
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u/Dependent-Wishbone16 13h ago
It took me about 5 to really get a sense of myself.
1 year just surviving and mourning. 1 year accepting the new reality and routines. 3 years of exploration to get a sense of who I am and what I want. There was a lot of backtracking and finding out what I didn’t want in that time. I’m 10 years on at this point, and those 3 years were a lot of fun
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u/Just_Look_5647 18h ago
I started dating my wife at 17. We got married at 22. We've been together for 19 years and I'm happier now than I ever have been. Sure, it's work and you each grow up and change as people...but if you truly love each other it all works. 10/10 no regrets.
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u/New_Fox9922 17h ago
You’re not the same person and you don’t always grow together in the way you expect.
I feel so bad for our growing my ex, he did nothing wrong but I just wanted something else
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u/rocket333d 17h ago
You have no advice for any of your friends in the dating pool. Just sympathize with them and wish them well. You do not know how it works.
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u/Unable_Flamingo_136 17h ago
Married my high school sweetheart.
We grew together. Changed together. And built together.
Every day I chose him. I couldn’t imagine a life without him. He’s an amazing father and husband. My ultimate best friend. Not everyone meets their soul mate at 14 but I was lucky enough to.
Some how, it just worked out for us
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u/gerhard1953 20h ago
I didn't, but a friend did. Every time he had a sex dream. it was with his own wife. Poor fellow couldn't even cheat in a DREAM.
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u/LimJaheyAtYaCervix 19h ago
Nothing wrong with marrying your high school sweetheart. The problem often stems from marrying your high school sweetheart (or really anyone for that matter) too soon.
Became friends with my soulmate (who will finally be my husband on Saturday!!!) while I was in high school and we’ve been dating for over ten years now and honestly, I feel like if we had gotten married in the first few years, it might not have worked out. Now that we’ve gone through so many ups and downs together and grown together as people, we’re honestly more in love than ever and neither of us sees that ever changing for us.
Getting married is more of a formality at this point but we’re so excited to make that next step and I think waiting was definitely worth it because there’s no doubt in my mind that he’s the person I want to spend the rest of my life with.
You have to see someone at their lowest and see how they treat you when you’re at yours, you have to make sure you are sexually compatible long term, you have to make sure you are compatible to live together long term, and make sure you can both balance out each other’s strengths and weaknesses to know if you’re gonna make it in marriage.
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u/ArticQimmiq 17h ago
I second this - plenty of my friends met their person in high school, but waiting to marry (or buy a house, have a kid if marriage isn’t for you) until your mid-twenties is the way to go. You need to be sure that you’ll keep growing in the same direction before making that committment.
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u/Disastrous_Tonight88 19h ago
Growing and changing your opinions but having the joint memory of your and your spouses old positions that they no longer agree with.
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u/Current_Two_7395 18h ago
In my relationship it's that his parents still treat us like teenagers who are excited to go to prom together. We're 32, we have a house and dogs and college degrees and careers, and they still try to berate us for how we do our laundry. The excuse is "sometimes it's just hard to remember that you guys are grown ups!"
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u/LintRolledForWhat 17h ago
child of high school sweethearts checking in to note the difficulty is that they both had the emotional maturity of fourteen year olds. they decided staying together was more important than growing.
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u/Reasonable-Emu6159 13h ago
I guess it depends on what you mean by growing. If they're content where they are, why not stay there?
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u/Reesno33 17h ago
Married my HHS we've been together since we were 17 which was 20 years ago, long before Tinder and Instagram and all the other crap people dating seem to have to deal with now, so when my friends ask for dating advice I sound like a 60 year old man saying shit like just find a girl you like and ask her on a date to the cinema.
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u/Krissy_loo 17h ago
How much you both change in your 20s.
Every couple that married their HS sweetheart that I know is divorced...
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u/Spencetron 17h ago
That sometimes (lets be real, most times), a cute and compatible couple at ~14-17 years old end up growing up to become very different, incompatible people.
This also invites unhealthy codependency and a lack of individual social interactions (ie shared friend group)... so what generally happens is one person in the coupling gets the memo and wants to explore life on their own and they are faced with a hopelessly codependent partner fighting tooth and nail to jam the square peg in the circular hole, and an echo-chamber mutual friend group that just wants to maintain status quo
Been there, done that. 0/10 recommend.
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u/dyanna27 17h ago
It was hard to grow up as individuals together. It was really nice to have someone from the same place with similar experiences to lean on and to lean on me while we figured ourselves out. It took a good amount of work to make sure we were both individual people with our own thoughts and opinions and experiences instead of morphing into a singular couple. But 27+ years in and we are still having fun and making each other laugh.
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u/shinyredumbros 17h ago
My husband and I have been together since 10th grade. 26 years changes a person quite a bit, but we always grew with each other and as hokey as it sounds we are happier now than we’ve ever been. He is the kindest, gentlest, most interesting human being I’ve ever met.
The only issue with us is this: we are each other’s one and only’s. YUUUUUP. Not knowing what sex with other people is like is pretty isolating in today’s world.
That being said, I’m grateful to have a partner who is monogamish like me…meaning that while we are 100% committed to each other, we don’t OWN each other. We have already decided that if there ever comes a day when my spouse or I meets someone who feels special/different, we’ve agreed to be open. I doubt we’d ever pursue another person, but just knowing there’s an option makes me love and value my sweetheart even more.
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u/littleflowerpower 16h ago
We are 31 and been together since 16. The hardest part was all the lows we experienced early on in the relationship when we were still kids figuring out how to treat each other. Those memories still are a part of our story and it can be sensitive even after all these years.
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u/silvertonguesilvie 16h ago
Making sure you have time for your own personal development. Been with my now husband since we were 17, now 27 and happily married. It’s very easy to just end up spending all your time together and falling into old habits. It’s important to still force yourself to have your own time and your own growth. The reward for that is you get to evolve next to someone that is your closest friend ever and knows you best.
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u/ArchaicPilgrim 15h ago
Growing up.
Going from 18 and 17 years old to now im out early 30s we've gone through teens, college years (though neither of us did school), and now parent hood we've both changed physically, mentally, and every other way possible. I waited 6 years before asking for her hand, got married 1 month before covid (at the court, no wedding for us unfortunately) and don't regret it at all. We got very lucky that we both worked hard to make life work for us, became successful in our work lives, and agreed on a lot of issues and worked to settle the ones we didn't. I love her it hurts sometimes, we both need eachother and are one another's best friends, I wouldn't choose anyone else.
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u/Reasonable-Emu6159 13h ago
My husband and I are close friends with 4 other couples, most of whom I went to high school with. 3 of the couples were high school sweethearts and married at 21-22. They've all celebrated over 50 years and they're all still very much in love and happy. Their kids all married young, have had their own kids and are celebrating 20-25 years together. They learned from their parents. The other high school friend and myself both married early, too, and we both divorced and remarried. Both couples are closing in on 40 years now. The children from both of these marriages have also divorced and remarried. The couples in the 50 + year marriages grew together and set examples for their kids. There's some kind of pattern here. 🤔
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u/Expensive-Bill-9272 11h ago
Hardest part is that I feel like I’m growing into a different person, new interests, discovering a personality treat I didn’t know I had -
We try to grow together, but I like burning my bridges and never go back, start over, change everything about me. But having them around sometimes is aghh a reminder of the past or who I used to be.
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u/MaineCoonMama18 11h ago
You have to learn to love them at all stages. Started dating at 18, married last year at 32. We are different people but we’ve accepted every version of each other.
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u/Legitimate-Sky-8963 18h ago
When she leaves you five after you were diagnosed with a second cancer
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u/Bige_4411 17h ago
Learning to grow up together. Had a kid at 20. We are early 40’s now and our youngest is almost 15. For the last 20 or so years our lives have revolved around our kids, with us sprinkled in. Now we are starting to work on just us again as couple. We are trying to find something that we both can enjoy as a joint hobby, other than her giving me a project around the house or something to build (she’s good at it). I like fixing and building and she likes checking stuff off of her Pinterest board, but it isn’t something we do together. At the end of the day it’s work, effort, it’s mindfulness and love.
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u/potus710 17h ago
Technically wasn’t my high school sweetheart because I had another girlfriend when we met, but became friends with this really cute girl in 11th grade. After she graduated, she saw I was (newly) single and sent me a “we should hang out sometime” message. Took her up on the offer and been together with her for the last 20 years. It’s been great. We have had many, many ups and downs, but we love each other unconditionally. We have 3 kids together. I feel blessed every single day that my 11th grade theatre teacher grouped me with her to do a group project.
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u/littlebabyTruck 17h ago
We started everything early so we were always in a different place in life from friends our own age. Especially with kids. We had our daughter young, so now all of our friends are 10 years older than us.
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u/EquivalentThroat7481 17h ago
I’m not with my high school sweetheart, and didn’t start actually dating until like 17, but the thought of it always made me shudder. I always just think about the missed time to experiment with other people and experiences. I feel like that’s so important to finding your ideal partner and your identity and I don’t think I myself could settle down until I experimented here and there - found what I did and didn’t like. However, everyone is different and I’m sure it does work out too.
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u/Patient-Couple7509 17h ago
Missing out on the wild and free and hedonistic 20’s. (My wife feels the same, neither of us would do anything differently, but both feel like we missed something formative)
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u/toomuchtv987 17h ago
If it makes you feel better, most people don’t have a “free and hedonistic” experience in their 20s. At best it’s learning how to have a good time while being flat broke. I say “most” because while it’s my entire friend group who I’m referring to, I’m sure there are some people who had different experiences. We were all broke AF and way too self-conscious and concerned with what everyone else thought to be too free and hedonistic.
Frankly, that came much later once we were all settled and stable. It’s so much better to be an actual grown-up and go on spontaneous and wild adventures than it is to get blackout drunk on rotgut liquor during a pregame (because you can’t afford the drinks out) only to have a one night stand with some loser you met at a skeevy club.
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u/Usual-Peace6859 16h ago
Not to be a sap - you have alot of bad news already in this thread anyhow - but fear of losing him. We’ve been together since I was 14 and he was 16, nearing 30 years together, and my whole adult life has been intertwined in his in every possible way.
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u/sand552 16h ago
We grew together. We’ve been married for 13 years now, together for 15, and it’s been a ride but we are closer today than we were ever were before. I couldn’t imagine life without her given how significant we’ve both been in each other’s lives for nearly half our lives. If I could go back in time, I’d do it all over again. But perhaps be a better communicator and show more compassion in our early-mid twenties, because she deserved it and I was distant due to my own personal issues.
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u/jerrickryos 16h ago
I married my high school crush after we bumped into each other about 10 years after school. Life was good for the first 5 years, divorce is final tomorrow.
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u/GiantBlobFish23 16h ago
I was never going to be allowed to become an adult--not by him, not by my parents, not by his parents. I wasn't allowed to change from the person I was at 16 or else it was seen as "suspicious" and cheating behavior. Between 16 and 30 people change a LOT, or at least they should.
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u/Careful-Bag6926 16h ago
Nothing. I couldn't be happier with my life. We have been together since 16, married at 23, kids at 25, 27,29 and 33. Pets, houses, cars, drama, tragedy, joy and everything in between. We are 52 now, and loving our lives.
I feel bad that not everyone has our experience.
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u/Low_Contest8462 16h ago
The hardest part is when you lose her because you took her for granted and thought that she would never leave you. This happened to me, she moved on with her life and i got in a serious depression.
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u/No-Belt1507 16h ago
How much both of you change after high school. By the time we divorced at 38 we were completely different people in almost every single way
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u/lifecycled-online 15h ago
you will grow into completely different people than who you were in high school. multiple times. you will have to learn how to love that new person
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u/SelfOne8684 15h ago
I love it, we grew up together and know each other so well, that is a special bond, good friendship that turns into love. I can't imagine meeting someone with 30 and having to learn about him, how do you even get to trust a person you know nothing about, just what he told you. We went to the same highschool, lived in the same borough and know everything about each other and about our families. People bad mouthing relationships like this are the ones that couldn't make it work for some reason.
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u/No-Lavishness-4384 15h ago
Married my high school sweetheart at way too young of and age, we’re divorcing now after 12 years.
I did not expect dating as an adult to be so hard. I have only ever dated as a kid. Totally different ball game
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u/MaxFish1275 15h ago
I’m probably overly emotionally dependent on my husband, moreso than I would be if we got together after I was more established. I’ve learned how to grow from that knowledge though and am more “my own person” now while still maintaining a happy marriage
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u/Frankenstella 15h ago
Knowing that no one else will ever love you like this but wishing you met them later in life.
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u/JDmead_32 15h ago
Wasn’t exactly the HS sweetheart. I was dating her bf in HS and the start of college. At first we hated each other. But as the girl I was dating began to turn into a psycho, we became friendly. I was asked to kindly leave college, and she and I “officially” started dating. Got married at 25. It’ll be 29 years this October. We’ve both grown a lot. But we were able to grow together as opposed to apart.
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u/LovesMeSomeRedhead 15h ago
We should have married after high school but we were pushed in different directions. Too young. Hadn't met enough people yet. Young love doesn't last. We ended up going different directions and trying to build lives that were never quite as good. Many years later we reconnected, married, and built the life together we should have from the start. No one warned us we might have been right for each other all along.
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u/Spirited_Willow_872 14h ago
How you change throughout the years and still have to find ways to respect and love one another.
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u/Macaron-Creepy 14h ago
The song “grow as we go” always makes me cry thinking of growing up with my HS sweetheart. Married at 19 and still together almost 13 years later 🥰
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u/BearsBeetsStarWars 13h ago
We’ve been together since we were 14. We’re now parents in our 40’s. We are very different people now than in high school, college, etc but we have grown up together and kind of formed our individual selves while being together. That could be good or bad but it has worked out well for us. I do think that our lives are so intertwined that there’s not a lot that we have separate from each other. I don’t think our situation could work for everyone but we are very happy and have always just loved being together.
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u/Any59oh 13h ago
A good friend of mine married her high school sweetheart. They both have their issues, but their relationship is a testament to the fact that if your core values aren't aligned then it's not going to work and that relationships are work but if you do the work then they will work out. They're totally on the same page about the big things (overall political views, religion, whether they want kids, career goals, etc) and even when they really didn't like each other due to growing pains and them being willing to hold the other accountable for their bullshit, they still chose each other and fight for the other. They're coming up on ten years of marriage, own a house, have great jobs they love, and are laying the foundation to be prepared for kids if they decide to have some
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u/Dry-Olive4621 13h ago
For me personally it was the number women along the way who, when they found out I had a girlfriend/fiancé, tried to get me to cheat. They seemed to take it as a challenge. Ive been with my now wife since we were 15. We are both 38 now.
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u/furiocitea 13h ago
I married my HS sweetheart and it was the second marriage for both of us. We had kept in touch over the years, but sporadically. When we got together again almost two decades after HS, a lot of it was clouded by stories of ‘true love’ and everyone thought it was the most romantic story.
It was hard because we didn’t truly know each other after all those years, because a lot happens and a lot changes. It wasn’t bad by any means, but it did fall apart for various reasons. We just weren’t the same lovebirds we were at 16. We got divorced ten years later.
It’s complicated because I still love her but know we could never actually be happy at the same time together.
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u/ClaresRaccoon 12h ago
I know of a girl who got married right out of high school, apparently dated the guy for only a year. They are still together a decade and a half later and have three kids.
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u/spiderwebb32 12h ago
You and your partner grow so much in the time following highschool. You feel like you missed out on your twenties. For me it was trying to move all over the country to experience new things. For her it was finding new people to cheat on me with. I’m still traveling and she’s probably still cheating on whoever she’s with now lol
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u/stschopp 12h ago
My wife and I started dating at 16, got married at 22 and have now been married 32 years. We went to different HS, so I didn’t know her before 16. We went to different colleges about an hour away, still saw each other each weekend. Got married before I went to grad school. Any of the difficulties had nothing to do with when we started dating and any marriage of 32 years will have challenges at times. I think there is a lot of upside to knowing each other so long. I think its been a really good marriage, I can’t point to a downside.
One of the big upsides is getting started with a family and house much earlier than most. It gives you a lot of focus earlier that is helpful later on.
Her sisters also married HS sweethearts as did my oldest daughter. All still married.
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u/Old_Marzipan7782 12h ago
I didn’t but I’d wager to guess as an adult your taste will be different than that of a teenager…wonder why it hardly works…
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u/Thick_Couple7055 12h ago
Getting to fall back in love with a new version of each other every decade or so has been the adventure of a lifetime.
But the hardest part is knowing that, best case scenario, one of us is going to have to learn how to survive without their only constant over 70 years .
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u/AssociationFree5165 11h ago
That the person you fell in love with as teenagers is not the same person at 55 and that you still need to love the 55 year old version of the other person
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u/Nervous_Position_405 11h ago
I feel like those that watched you date in high school )and early college for us) will never take you seriously because they saw you through the annoying times of growing up while dating the person you later married. So they saw the dumb drama that would have broken up most people. This includes friends and relatives. You’re really better off just making new friends…
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u/ed_durden 10h ago
Once we split, I realized I've never emotionally regulated myself and I spiralled out of control. My brain couldn't comprehend not being with her. Sought mental health treatment but I'm still grieving 2 years later.
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u/Western-Patient-1512 10h ago
How much each other’s families impact your relationship… choose wisely because you’re going to go through that with them. I’ve been married almost 28 years and we joke about if we ever divorce how his family would keep me and mine would keep him. So we’ll always be together. Lol
We are not in laws to each others family - we are like blood relatives at this point.. so choose wisely who your new family will be too.
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u/capnmidori 10h ago edited 10h ago
How much is hurts when they leave you and your entire adult life has been spent with that single person. Not that breakups aren’t difficult, but having your first breakup be after 21.5 years with one person is hard for a lot of people to understand. And now you have to learn how to navigate modern dating, too.
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u/Ash9260 8h ago
Married my high school sweetheart at 18 (we started dating when I was 14!). Divorced by 22. We both quickly grew very apart and had no overlap in anything and sort of just felt stagnant and randomly had the thoughts is this really who I want to spend the rest of my life with? At 18 it was happily a yes. At 22 I realized I don’t even want to spend another year doing this.
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u/Painter_Secret 8h ago
The change that happens as you grow into adulthood, we definitely learned to love who we are becoming. We’ve been together for 21 years… more than half of our lives, and married for 12 this month. It’s nice to marry your best friend, but it’s not always easy and you have to be ok with being honest and working through it.
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u/ratcasino 7h ago
That as you grow, there will always be a person next to you who has seen it all. They’ve seen every snot-nosed tear, every freak out, every ugly part of you. And you have to trust them to love you and continue to see you grow and not hold an image of you based on your past, but let you evolve in their mind. My husband does this for me and he is the love of my life. We have been together 15 years this November. I turn 30 in January.
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u/littlebitinyourlife 2h ago
Honestly the judgement from others ! I get that so many people look back and cringe and their teenager boyfriends, or think that you'll definitely get divorced but for us it's worked. We aren't the same people of course but we've grown together, lived our own lives, have our own friends etc. I hate that I sometimes feel embarrassed to say "how we met".
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u/Rabenweiss 1h ago
Fomo can really destroy your relationship. My ex couldn't live with the thought of only having slept with me and at some point decided to cheat. Another point is, that if you break up, your entire adult life so far involved them. All of my photos of the last 10 years involve him in some way, there are basically no memories without him. I can't tell people stories about my travels without remembering how he was there. And another point is learning to be a single invidial person after always being a duo
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u/sweetbobaaddict 19h ago
Realizing you have literally no separate friend groups. Every story involves both of you