DS proposing at 18

As this has been bumped

So @burndelight did ds propose a few months back

Is 6 months really long enough to be considered a zombie thread?

I remember this thread! What happened @burndelight?

I got engaged at 18.

If we hadn't both then gone away to Uni I think we.would possibly have stayed together if our worlds hadn't changed, so to speak.

It's extremely unusual these days but I would support but also say its not necessary to marry nowadays until they feel fully ready.

Sry, just realised zombie but a few posters have resurrected it.

I wouldn’t support a child making a life decision at 18yo. The law of averages though is that one of them will meet someone else doing their time at uni and end this nonsense. No one is telling them to split up, just that plans of marrying at this age (otherwise why bother with engagement?), is likely fanciful.

They sound like decent smart kids, I would be supportive of them, unless I get reason not to be.

I don't necessarily think 18 is too young at all. I met my husband just before my 18th birthday, moved into a flat with him two months later, and bought our first flat by the time I was 20. We're still together 48 years later. Several of our friends were similar ages when they met and are still together as well.

Sweet? It's bloody sexist and out of the 50s.

My school boyfriend proposed to me when I went to uni — it was just a way for him to feel like we were still connected and would end up together. Of course we didn’t. We grew up instead. It’s a sweet gesture. Unless he’s buying a big ring, I wouldn’t worry.

I actually think your response was fitting. You expressed your opinion but told him he would have your support. What would the alternative have been? Going batshit and alienating him?

Would I want this for any of mine? No. I don't want them to make their world unnecessarily smaller. There's a fine line though between being a concerned parent and allowing them to find their own way. Best of luck op.

How did it go in the end OP? Any updates?

I also agree with this!

My main issue short term (slightly hypocritical but it was 3rd year, not 1st, where we lived together) would be accommodation if they split up. Mid-year room-searches are a ballache.

I think it's really sweet. However, I don't think living together at uni is the best idea, and I'd strongly discourage it. I'd suggest they live separately at uni, at least for the first two years.

My worry would be that they pop off and elope. I'd be stressing that there was no rush to get married, and you're really looking forward to the wedding. After they graduate. Your DS sounds quite mature, having taken you out for dinner rather than just letting notice a ring in her hand.

I think it’s lovely of them to be engaged. It’s responsible of him to be discussing it with you and his gf parents. I think the ultimate test will be what she replies.

Agree with this

Have you spoken to the girls parents? What do they think?

He is still a boy

The absolute misery in this thread.
Your adult son wants to marry his girlfriend that he's known since a boy. He doesn't plan on getting married until after university. You should be proud.

If it helps I was engaged twice before I was 18 and didn't marry either of them.

@SemperIdem is right though. Even a healthy relationship will affect their decisions. Biiiiiiiiiiig world out there, and to have to stay small enough to fit a teenage romance is going to limit a young person. And as for an unhealthy relationship, well unfortunately, at 18, it will leave a mark.

So glad my dd aged 20 hasn't had a bf yet.

No projection based on my own relationships. Nor any in my immediate family.

I think it’s based on the people I’ve met who have had this sort of set up. It seemed really “off” to me when I was very young and had friends whose boyfriends were allowed to stay over etc. I say off, not because I can’t articulate it better now, but because that is how I thought of it at the time. 14 year old peers having their 16/17 year old boyfriends staying over felt “off”.

As I got older I worked with a really broad cross section of people in terms of age and the “been together forever” set up just played out as co-dependent time and time again. Female colleagues who would happily say “I don’t know who I am without him” about their husbands, male colleagues who would say “I‘ve been bored for years, but her family are my family and I can’t lose all that” about their wives. Often they were much older than me. It just didn’t appeal to me in any way.

That isn’t to say the posters on this thread who have this set up aren’t happy, I hope they are. I’m not wishing misery and failure on people’s relationships. There would be much to find undesirable about my relationships, I am sure.

It’s just not something I wish for, for my child. If they choose it and are happy then I’ll be supportive but I would discourage the relationship becoming symbiotic and co-dependent.

Is this a projection of your own life?
Do you feel your teenage/young adult relationship/s held you back?

If not the case then what's actually lead to you thinking this way?

I see very serious relationships at very young ages as life limiting and co-dependent. I see no romance in being with the same person from 13 for the rest of your life.

I wouldn’t dream of that for my child. Absolutely nothing I can do about it if that’s the path they chose. But I could, and would, be quietly sad about it.