Marriage can be a wonderful thing. Ideally, it’s the union of two people who are in love with each other and are committed to spending the rest of their lives together.
Marriage does carry some risks, though, and it’s even riskier if you get married while attending college. If you are an older adult and get married while attending college, there tend to be fewer risks. However, the majority of people attending college are generally younger, and the younger you are when you get married, the more you risk a future divorce.
Here are six risks that come from getting married in college.
Major changes still happen
Okay, major life changes happen even if you aren’t in college. However, college is a period in time where things change daily, maybe even hourly. For example, your friends with a classmate one day, hate them the next.
This doesn’t even account for the big one: moving. If you are from another country, like the United States, get married abroad in a country like England, but want to return to the United States, that can get messy. You have to ask your spouse to uproot their life to accommodate yours, which causes many problems in marriages.
You might not know each other well
For starters, you probably don’t know yourself as well as you think you do. If you don’t know yourself, how will your spouse know who you are? It’s a common struggle that happens when you are young. You’re still in this weird discovery phase of who you are or who you want to be.
You might think you know all of your spouse’s interests and dislikes, but they will probably change within a couple of years. When you’re young, you tend to be still open to new ideas and experiences and are bound to change. The person you marry might not be the same person you think they are in two years.
Less free time
When you’re married, your main priority becomes your significant other. This leaves less free time for things you might have enjoyed otherwise, like playing video games or watching your favourite television program.
Worse, it can distract you from your studies. If you’re distracted from your studies, you could potentially do worse in school, and that doesn’t help anyone.
Less socialisation
As mentioned before, your spouse becomes your main priority when you’re married, leaving less time to socialise with others. You’re probably going to see your friends less and not go out to your local pub every night.
It can be unfortunate, too, since college is a major time for socialising and meeting new people. Often, people make their lifelong friends in college.
Alienation
Now, you won’t be alienized in a strict sense, but your peers will look at you much differently. The fact is not many people get married in college. The number hovers around 20 percent.
This feeling can leave you alienated for how different you’re living your life compared to your classmates.
Marriage | It’s stressful
If you ask married couples what it’s like to be married, plenty will say it can be stressful. The simple fact is marriage can be stressful. This is even tougher when you are young and still attending school. You have a lot to manage at a young age.
Generally speaking, it’s not the stress that can ruin the marriage but how you choose to address it. The problem is when you’re young, you might not have figured out the solutions to address these types of stresses.
While there is certainly a risk for a marriage to fall apart at any stage in life, it’s much harder to manage when you’re young and in college.
Now, that doesn’t mean you should completely avoid it. Sometimes it does work out. For many, it might be best to wait until you’re a bit older and can better commit to these things.
