During my 14 month engagement, I have read a plethora of stories about young women in their early 20s who were bent upon not being engaged. All the articles were written by different women who emphasized just how important it was to be single in your early 20’s because of all the cool things you can do (like eat Nutella and not feel ashamed). The author made a failed attempt to use eating Nutella in your underwear as a reason to stay single while young. We will get to that later. I tried and tried to understand where these female authors were coming from. During my engagement, I also tried to understand where friends and family were coming from when they said I was too young to be hitched or that I had the rest of my life to be married. But, I realized that these people who I deemed to be close to me weren’t trying to see my side of things. They weren’t trying to see the awesome experiences I have had because I have been in a relationship. They didn’t even want to see how a healthy engagement was changing my life and paving the way for a fun yet stable future. I decided to no longer focus on their viewpoint and solely focus on mine. This is how I see it.
Myth 1 Being engaged/married young means that you stop having fun: Being engaged has shown me different ways to have fun. I have discovered two-person activities and life-changing hobbies that I never would’ve discovered. For example, my fiance was a college football player and introduced me to weightlifting.
Myth 2: Being engaged/married young is too soon to make someone your world: My fiance is not my world. No matter how old I am, I would hope my significant other would not be the sole reason why I eat and breathe. My world is made up of different hobbies, people, and ideas.
Myth 3: Being engaged/married young means you won’t get to date anymore: Isn’t the whole purpose of dating to find someone that you eventually want to settle down with? I found my partner sooner rather than later and now we get to spend more time together.
Myth 4: You are too young to know what you want: I can only speak for myself. The first 2 years that I spent partying and dating around in college was enough of an indication of who and what I do not desire. I learned quickly thanks to some polarizing experiences and eye-opening times. I was blessed to learn what I feel comfortable with and move forward at a young age.
Myth 5: Being engaged/married young will stop your career: This concern is heavily linked with the outdated assumption that couples will reproduce very quickly into marriage. Let’s just get this one out of the way. If you are a couple who decides to have kids, there is more time to do so if you marry young. Yes, I know that women can now have children well into their forties but I am speaking on this topic very loosely. If you get married younger, there won’t be as much of a biological pressure to have children (except if you really want to). Arguably, you still have space and time to develop your career and spend time with one another before the kids. Also, because I know that I am building a foundation and a future, I am working even harder to make sure that we can enjoy our life together. When I was single, I didn’t give care if I was on track or not. My decisions and my habits only helped or hurt me. Now, I feel responsible for building my empire with my future husband and I have never worked more diligently.
Myth 6: You can’t eat a whole jar of Nutella in your underwear if engaged/married young: Any man who tries to stop you from indulging in Nutella if you freaking want it is not a keeper anyways. A good fiance/husband will laugh on lovingly and call you his little fatty in jest.
That being said, the price of being engaged is actually a pretty good deal.
glitteranddumbbells 