Less than 2% of people marry their childhood sweetheart

[LillyP88]

… according to Google! Do we think this is true? Has anyone come across the studies that these articles refer to? I suppose some couples choose not to marry so whilst they are in a long-term committed relationship, that wouldn’t count towards the data here.

Me and my DH are childhood sweethearts which was what sparked our conversation. We have a few friends who are still together too so I was a bit surprised the figures suggest it’s less than 2%!

I’m in my late thirties, all the people I know who married their childhood sweethearts are either now divorced, or in the process of getting divorced, seven couples in total.

Not the small town where I grew up. All my primary school friends married their first boyfriends. Not sure it’s always the best idea.

Dd age 17 has the loveliest first boyfriend DH and I very fond of him and he adores her. But admit I would feel quite uncomfortable if they never split up. My mother laments that she wishes they had met later!

Sounds about right! Out of all the people I know, only one couple who got together when they'd just turned 14 are still together. However, he cheated when they were in their early twenties so it's definitely not a perfect relationship.

I just feel a bit sad for people that marry the first person they’re with. I get it feels safe, but there’s so much life experience they’ve likely missed out on. You only get one life, I can’t imagine it being settling down with your first partner and living a little local life.

Sounds trite but I learnt so much from my 2 long term relationships. Makes me appreciate dh (met at 27).

I only know 2 couples like that.
Assuming they mean childhood sweethearts being kids who met in school.

I do know lots of couples who met just after school at 18 / 19 / 20 who are all still together decades later

My DD and her boyfriend met in Year 9, 2020. They are still together now, he does live with us, both at uni. I would be over the moon if they stayed together, they have both been great for each other. He is very much part of our family.

A local life? Whar are you on about?
How rediculous.
I have a marvellous life and its far from 'local'.
I feel a bit sad for people like you who dont have what i have.

I never married anybody, but my childhood sweetheart (if you can call it that really) died in his sleep in his early 20s.
My next boyfriend was a terminal mummy's boy and I'm very grateful it never went anywhere with him!
I have a friend who married her first boyfriend but they didn't meet until she was nearly 30. Still married.

Not childhood but DH and I got together during our first year at uni and are still together 30 years later. We’re not stuck in our teen era, we’ve grown up together.
Obviously we’re not the same people we were back then, but we still love each other and have been through such a lot together.

I’m actually quite surprised by your standpoint, as someone who did marry your childhood sweetheart. Surely you, possibly more than most, understand the massive changes that have happened in both your personality and your husbands throughout your time together. It’s rare, I feel, that a couple of individuals grow together rather than apart with all the big changes that happen.
Plus, of course, I don’t know about anyone else, but I, at 15, certainly didn’t choose my 17 year old boyfriend for his good-husband qualities, rather go the fact he was very tall, absolutely gorgeous and went to the gym a lot 😂
I’m now 32 and have been with my husband 10 years and even in that time, we’ve both changed loads. Luckily it’s drawn us closer but we were still so young when we got together!
I do think, and have noticed, that some couples (some! Not all!) who get together very young seem to stay in that mental headspace throughout their relationship.

I only know one couple who've been together since school, so this sounds about right to me. Statistically the chances of someone meeting a perfectly compatible partner during their childhood who they then happen to grow and change into adulthood with in ways that stay compatible (life goals, personalities, etc) that also survives uni or young adulthood is very unlikely. Nice when it genuinely works out, but it can't be particuarly common.

have friends who met aged 5 and started dating at 15, so cute. My parents met at 14&17 still married 55 years later. These are pretty rare as most of us didn’t meet anyone worth marrying until at least university age

What a load of rubbish! I didn’t do this but my sisters have - they’re happy as clams after 20 years. No messy exes, no ‘set in your ways’ type behaviour. Of course if your childhood sweetheart is an utter bellend I wouldn’t recommend it, but to somehow pat yourself on the back because you’ve slept with more people is laughable. Look at all the messy ex/half/step ‘blended family’ shite on here. I’m jealous of anyone who settled with their first boyfriend and still truly loves them.

why always the need on this site to shit on other people?! Why can’t we just be happy for each other? While not for everything, knowing your partner for so long is a very unique experience and you’ll probably be strongly bonded to each other. It’s lovely when it works out.

What experiences are you referring to?

Everyone dating on here seems to have a miserable time, endless drama and be disenchanted with men completely

Again, rude.

Why would having the same boyfriend for a long time mean you can’t have adventures, go to university, meet different people or move house? What exactly have these couples missed out on?

Or is this just about having sex with random people, because that is the only thing you can’t do.

The only childhood sweethearts who I know that are still together all became pregnant in their late teens. I doubt if they would be still together otherwise.

im surprised it’s that high. How many adults are still with their teenage boyfriend now? So unlikely.

There is one girl , only one, that married her 6th form boyfriend (which is about 1% of the year!) I was engaged to mine but didn’t get to wedding so we almost made the 2% stat (we’re all in our 30/40s now)

Why wouldn’t it be true? It’s very uncommon to marry someone you got together with as a child… I met DH at 18 and even I’m not included in that figure.

I know one person who is with their boyfriend from 15. And they’re not actually married (age 31)z That’s the only person I know to have stayed with someone from childhood and they’re also not included in that figure due to lack of marriage.

DH and I got together at 18 and I’d already had other boyfriends. We’ve lived in 3 countries, I currently live 300 miles away from my hometown, worked in international media, got paid to stay in £2000 a night hotels, travelled to 50+ countries together, I have 2 soon to be 3 degrees… and I’m only 30.

Don’t imagine that just because you would have a little local life never having done anything if not spurred on by… (what? Singledom? Chasing men/women?) that everyone else can’t combine long term monogamy with achievement and adventure.

Not surprising at all. Many people do not have romantic relationships at all during childhood and the average age for a first marriage is no where near childhood sweetheart territory.

I don't know what articles you're talking about, so I can't consider the studies. I'd also ask how any study on this would define childhood sweetheart and how they collected data - would it be specifically by age alone at marriage or, as it comes across reading other posters and I'd agree would be a common cultural definition, the idea of a first romantic relationship that started as children from meeting while living in the same area? Or would it be more subjective like self reporting as marrying one's childhood sweethearts? All of those will alter who is included.

My husband and I met and started our relationship as teenagers within childhood, and we married as teenage adults, but I would not call us childhood sweethearts. We were not each other's first romantic relationships, we did not meet in school or through living in the same area - we didn't even go to school in the same country or live in the same country until we'd finished secondary, our families never met, we do not have anything I'd associate with being childhood sweethearts beyond the ages we met and then later started a long distance relationship and the age we married. I'd dated and had several sexual relationships before my now-husband and I were together.

It's nice if people make it work, but I'm not surprised it's only 2%.
I know two women from school who are still married to the men they met at 14. All in their 40s now.