DS proposing at 18

A bad sign!? 😆 How? Why?

Why do you think it's your job to control someone else's life? Or decide what their potential is? Or how they fulfill their potential ...

I met my husband at the age of 13 school sweet hearts, we got married when I was 26 long engagement as we had to save for our own wedding, been married 35 years but been together 48 years, still happy, worked for us.

No, engagements aren’t irreversible, but a pair of very young adults who would even contemplate restricting themselves to one another at eighteen, at a time when most teenagers are looking forward to spreading their wings in all kinds of ways, are likely to be cramping their own potential considerably, even if it only lasts a year or two, and they don’t marry.

It would worry me enormously if my child were even contemplating this — it’s a bad sign.

An engagement is not irreversible.

Weddings & marriage are not irreversible.

Babies are the ONLY irreversible!

Children are the only irreversible AND lifelong commitment.

AND in the situation where a couple has been together a good while - IF there's a pregnancy, IF they're happy - YOU be happy too! Keep your doubts & fears to yourself (its already too late) - they don't need to hear it - be supportive of whatever decisions they make.

Life and it’s irony.

I say that because
@MagicFarawayTea made a post with the subject below.

“Sad that my kids have never had a girlfriend/boyfriend”

You have to let us know when he does propose OP! You’ll be a mother in law soon 😉

Don't object, he is 18 and an adult. Hopefully they won't marry and once they get to Uni they will see sense. I married at 17, down right bloody ridiculous and i truly believe nobody should marry or have children until they are at the very least 25. He will live and learn.

money to travel this summer and extra to get stuff

Travelling together for a while would have been a good test of the relationship and they could have 'lived together' in a sense whilst travelling besides just being a life enhancing experience but no, he bought a ring. Romantic, I suppose.

I think it's a bit weird. My husband and I started going out when I was 17 and he was 18 whilst in sixth form , he was the year above me. He left for uni a year before me but we stayed together and I then decided to go to the same uni as I thought it was unlikely we'd stay together if I went elsewhere. We didn't live together though. I would have thought he was crazy if he had proposed to me at 18, I think I would have thought it a bit possessive. Like being girlfriend and boyfriend wasn't enough and he wanted other people to see I was taken. But maybe that's just me! We didn't actually move in together until a couple of years after finishing uni when we'd saved up enough to buy a flat together although we spend a lot of time together at either of our parents houses. He proposed after 9 years together and we're still together now 22 years later.

I agree with you and think it’s a very bad idea. Teens think they know it all but at 18, he’s not got enough life experience behind him to settle down with his current girlfriend.

Going away to University is about far more than getting a degree. Ideally, he needs to live in halls or a shared house with other students in his first year, not his girlfriend. He needs to join a few clubs and societies and meet some new people to broaden his horizons.

I’d tell him that I don’t think it’s a good idea at all, but maybe compromise by getting engaged but living apart during their University years to see if the relationship is strong enough to survive the time apart.

I'd just support him. An engagement whilst it is a further commitment it's one that is easy to get out of if it doesn't work out. I'd be slightly more concerned about the living together at uni if they break up it's usually a year contract.

That aside, marriage these days isn't some unbreakable contract. Given that plenty of unmarried people have financial ties via property, and/or children.
If you have no shared children or assets then a divorce is quick and easy. It'll cost you a couple of hundred pounds, but that's all.
I'm old-fashioned and think proposing before you're ready to marry makes it meaningless, hence my original reply, but to each their own. At least they're not reproducing or buying property. Having said that I married my husband pretty quickly ( because we wanted to buy a house and I refused to do that without a permanent commitment). I figured that if it didn't work out all we'd have to split was the house, same as if we were unmarried.
As if turns out he's a decent dude. But yes, marriage isn't that permanent is my point these days.

He's an adult? I'm confused. What is wrong with your adult son getting engaged to his long term girlfriend? Cut the apron strings, jesus. I've been with my partner since I was younger than your son and we've built a whole family these some 15 years, so imagining it's foolish and won't work out is immature of you. Leave them be.

Some people get engaged before 20 and are still with their partner 30/40/50 + years later

Some people get engaged at 30 years old just to separate not that long after

Some couples go long distance for years and make it work whilst some couples can live in the same town and end up breaking up

It is different for everyone. Most people will give opinions on what their experience was, if they didn’t meet the one until later of course they’re going to say 18 is far too young. Well we all met our partners in my friendship group whilst in college and here we are all married with children.

I got engaged at 25 and married at 26. So not too young at all in my eyes, but some people still had their judgements on that.

Cousin, who was a wild child, married at 17, had four children. She’s still very happy with husband and lots of grandkids 40 years later. There is no right age to meeting the ‘right one’. It’s a bit of luck at any age, for sure.

I taught a lad who was married by 18. Not a "shotgun wedding" or anything either, he and his wife had known each other right through school and had decided that was what they wanted. Their parents decided to allow it, and as far as I know they are still together in their 30s.

My Mum used to say "it's not as if the wedding is tomorrow", I've seen others talk about putting things in a box and actioning it when it needs action.

I was with the same guy for most of uni, we broke up and I got engaged to someone else within months and am still married to him twenty-five years later...

Don't fight this. It might end wonderfully and I have friends who are still married now after meeting at school. I have friends who found they changed at Uni and mutually parted ways. It's an important part of life to experience and if you interfere it will just estrange you from your DS.

He's an adult. Back out of it. I also met my husband at 14, he proposed at 18, we married straight after uni, 2 kids and 33 years later, we've had good times and bad, but we would never be apart. Some kids just know... and if they don't... so what. They will break up and you can support them but tey bot to be the person remembered at their silver wedding anniversary as the arsehole who came between them.

I wouldn’t worry OP. They’ll almost certainly split up once they go to uni, and as long as they don’t actually get married, then there’s nothing legal to worry about,

I got engaged at 18 and married at 21 I’m still with my husband.

I was engaged at 18 and married at 21. We were married thirty years until he died. Engagement is not a legal contract, and I wouldn't worry about it if I were you.

50 years ago this June DH and I got engaged just before my 18th and DH was 17yrs and 4months. His mother went ape-shit, mine just went with the flow she had got engaged at 16 and married at 18 herself. It's our golden wedding next year sadly DM died 12 years but his is still alive but he disowned her years ago, he resented her attitude to me and her hypocrisy as she had got married herself at 17 . Just let him love who he wants to, if it's meant to last it will. If you oppose it he won't forget it, he is a legal adult and his decision should be respected. My own DS got married at 18 it didn't last but second time round he's very happy. DH and I supported him both times and we are close as a family. Adult children need to make their own decisions that is how they learn. Don't worry it will work out.

I suspect that some of your concerns, @burndelight are more to do with, if/when it all comes crashing to a terrible halt - you and your husband will lose your friends. That your long-standing friendship will be uncomfortable, awkward, and irretrievably broken, because an engagement or a marriage between your son and their daughter's ended.

Actually, I get that. The kids dating...? Eh, it's nothing serious, is it...? Just a bit of heart-warming fun! Now that their 'A'-levels are over, and they're legally adults (although still very young, incredibly sheltered, and about to discover that the real world of uni... is nothing like they've actually imagined it to be!), it's natural that they're making these plans. They're a safety net for one another. And that is very sweet, but probably unrealistic in the long-term.

Sometimes these things do work out (my mother was 19 and my father 22 when they met... and they were husband and wife 6 weeks to the day later! 53 years on, they're still together) - but very often... they don't. My son's father and I were 11 when we first met, dated on/off between 14 and 20, 21 when we got together "properly", 28 when our son was born, and 33 when we split because he cheated. Apparently (according to his mother) I "held him back". If anything, it was the other way around. He travelled, but I went to university. He went out with his mates, I stayed home with the children (I have a daughter from a relationship that went sour when I was 18/19). He was free... I had all the responsibilities. One of my oldest friends met a boy at 18, married him at 22 and was divorced by 24 because she felt stifled by him. Another friend met her husband at 4, we're all now 46/47 and they've been (very happily) married for 25 years with two lovely daughters.

It's swings and roundabouts, OP, and unfortunately you don't know which way this is going to blow. You don't want your son hurt, you don't want to lose your friendship with the girl's parents. All you can do, is trust that your son knows what he's doing, advise for a long engagement, and support them in this. University and the different sets of friends they'll make may well tear them apart - but they're clinging to the familiarity of one another, because of how anxious this first step towards leaving home and growing up is making them.

As long as the holiday isn't to Vegas, it'll work itself out gradually, I'd imagine.

And no; it's not easy. My son's 18 and the thought of him tying himself to one person for the rest of his life at this age is... downright terrifying. I get it, OP as do most of the other posters.

I got engaged when I was 21 and am still married 20 years later. I have friends who coupled up in sixth form, got engaged at 18 and who are happily married to this day. Actually, my PIL were 17 when they married and are still together. Unusual doesn't equal wrong...