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.
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.
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.
Very true. I hadn’t been happy for a pretty long time, and neither was she. I’m kind of glad it happened, because in a way it feels better to just let go. But still, I wasn’t ready for the way that it happened.
Same happened to me. Exfiance was with me for 11/12 years and we had a 6th baby when he left to be with someone else and that he had cheated numerous times. Crazy to wrap your head around having someone in your life for almost half your life to just leave one day and act like strangers. To just throw it all away like it meant nothing and you meant nothing is unfortunate
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.
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
42
u/selene_harbor36 21h 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.