Amen.

Although, how do you explain to someone who is very young and "in love" for the first time that they shouldn't tie themselves to one person so quickly?

I see my son and his GF and think the same thing, although theirs is not a long distance relationship. If she opts to go to the University of Michigan in the Fall as Ian is, I'm not sure how things will turn out. I suspect if she opts to go to a different university, one or the other may find themselves straying.

I like Donna a lot. She doesn't take shit from Ian (hence the "Bite me!! I've had a long, rough day!" comment she gave him a week ago in my presence). She's also low maintenance, which, if Ian is anything like his father, is required. But I still wonder if they are both going to miss out on a lot of opportunities by tying themselves down so soon.

Then again, you never know. I've also seen a lot of first loves turn into very long lasting marriages too.

There is such a fine line between experiencing your youth with someone you love, and missing out on the goods that the world has to offer. In my opinion, the best option is experiencing the world with the one you love.

The experiences I could be having with other people have always made me wonder if they are worth missing. Then my head turns to Beth and I think about what I would change about her to concoct a person that would equal better experiences than the present. However, the more I try, the more I am unable to find something I would change. She is such a great person that fits into my life like that last piece of that huge puzzle you worked on for the last month.

So, I agree that you have to be mindful of what you are missing out, but you can certainly experience more if not more with a person that you are very close to.

That's because you're young and don't have that same frame of reference.

I knew a couple that were high school sweethearts. First loves/sex partners and whatnot. They were divorced in less than a year. She was shocked even to find that sex could be great when she dated another guy later on. Better to have that realization early on in life than after you have kids and a mortgage.

People change as they grow older. The ability to accept those changes and work through them is what keeps marriages together. I think the younger you are, the more changes you have ahead of you, and the less experience and patience you have in dealing with them.

Eight to ten years down the road, both find separate interests. Things they did together before, one or the other is no longer interested in, and I won't EVEN go into how much adding kids to the mix changes the dynamics of a marriage.

There is also a huge difference between dating/loving and living in separate homes than living together 24/7. Even those who date long term before committing to marriage can have problems adjusting when you find yourselves living in the same house and having to put up with all those little idiosyncracies that never bothered you before. It's worse if one or both are living with parents because chances are good that mommy is doing the picking up, cleaning and cooking.

Needless to say, I'm a big proponent of living together before marriage, and it's not my 60's upbringing that makes me say that, but the fact that my first marriage failed. I figured out 6 months into the marriage that I'd made a big mistake. Had I lived with him first, I would have figured many things out and would never have married him. It was that very strong Catholic upbringing that kept me from living with him first.

So, against my mother's wishes, I lived with Gordon for two years before we married. I knew exactly what I was getting into, but even then we had some major issues to overcome 12 years later.

Linda:

Do you have some crystal ball looking into my/our lives, because if you do... put it down. You're scaring me.

Beth brought up a hypothetical situation to her parents of us living together at college, IF seperate housing situations didn't work out. Her mom immediately took that idea, tore it in half, spat on it, and ignored the pros. It was definately a religous/moral issue, which I won't judge against because I "should" believe in the same. However, what is the difference if Beth and I are living together, or sleeping over every single night? The difference is that her/our parents wouldn't have to deal with the "What would to do I tell people?" factor.

I brought the idea up to my Mom and she was torn because I think she realized the potential benefits, but didn't want to have to tell her parents that we were living together. I accepted that answer, but then my traditional Dad said, "Why do they have to know?" That answer blew me away.