Marriage is overrated.
@maineLonghorn: I wondered how you came up with your screen name!
Husband is one of six siblings. None met their spouses in college. All met they spouses after college. I’m one of four. None of us met our spouses in college either.
I have one married nephew who did meet his wife in undergrad school. Another soon to be married did not. The remaining nieces and nephews are out of college…and still looking for,the perfect someone. My two kids did not meet anyone to marry in college either.
Guess it varies from place to place.
Met my husband as a freshman in college. We made plans as a twosome.
An opinion here. When I got married back in the dark ages,mfolks were marrying at 23 or 24…sort of right out of college.
Seems to me, folks are marrying now closer to 30. Lots of time to meet folks after college!
I met the love of my life in college. Unfortunately, I was 20, immature, and I thought there was all the time in the world.
I met my DH after college, when I was 24. Got married at 27.
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My college estimates that 10% of its grads are married to other grads from the same college.
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Unfortunately I did not realize the study I linked to was against TOS, but it was a very large sample population and the outcome was 28% claim to be married to someone that attended their college. That is definitely higher than I would have guessed. Religious colleges make up the highest percentages with BYU students married to BYU students reaching into the 60th percentile. So depending on the college 10% would not be unreasonable.
I met my wife in college sophomore year, must of been all those lovely vapors in Organic chem lab. I would say that for both of us, we probably would not have gotten into it as deep as we did as fast as we did (complicated story/situation), but I can’t say that the end results mean we shouldn’t have gotten together at all, have a marvelous kid and a good life, if intense at time. We both probably needed to get separate from our birth families and find ourselves, work on some less than stellar stuff, that might have made our journey easier, but in the end it has worked out well. Maybe because we went through so much, we have perspective on things we wouldn’t otherwise have.
On the other hand, my son is in a relationship and I have given my advice not to get in too deep, to allow himself to figure out who he is, what he wants to do, before taking the big plunge.
@snowdog what happened?
F40driver, I just asked my husband what an F40 is. He wanted me to tell you he has a Ferrari, too. I bought it for him, but it still needs a paint job. See “Michaels.”
As I look back over 3 generations of my family and DW’s family, I can identify only 2 married couples out of 15 who met while attending the same college–and of those 30 people, 28 attended college and 26 earned at least a bachelor’s degree, with several earning advanced degrees. Three of the 15 couples were HS sweethearts. Four couples met through church groups. Most met through work or through mutual friends, typically 10-12 years out of college.
It’s a similar story among those I went to college with in the 1970s. Of the 20 or so people I was closest to in college, only 1 married someone he met in college. Several were involved in significant relationships during college, but mostly those didn’t last much beyond college. Several people I knew in college were still dating HS sweethearts, but I can think of only 2 of those relationships that led to marriage. Most eventually did marry, but again typically 10-12 years out from college.
College is a great place to meet people, and it can be a great place to experiment with relationships of all kinds. But don’t expect it to be the place you meet your life partner. That happens for some people, but only for a distinct minority. Among college graduates, it seems to be much more the norm these days for people to establish careers first, and only then to look to marry. And at least in some circles, that’s been true for a long time.
Yes, many of us do NOT want to make long term commitments when we are still in grad school and/or first year(s) of profession. I did have several significant long term relationships – one in college and one in grad school. The relationships were very important to me but I am glad we married other people rather than one another. All of us all still happily married with the spouses we chose after we were done with school.
I met dh when I was 20 and it didn’t take long for us to be a couple, but we didn’t get married until we were 28. We spent four long years doing the long distance thing. The first year I had no address at all - I was driving around the country and he was in the last year of undergrad the next three years were grad school on opposite coasts. Then I went out to CA and looked for a job out there. I spent summers and most breaks with him while I was in grad school.
My parents met when my mother was in high school and my father was a sophomore in college. They stayed together despite being babies when they got married.
H and I met at college, though didn’t start dating until after 1st year in grad schools 400 miles apart. A mutual friend set us up in the mail. After 3 years of long-distance courtship, we married, having spent only 2 weeks together in the same state. First year was rocky just because we really didn’t know each other on a day to day basis, but 32 years later we are still married. Working out fine!
My sister met her husband in HS, went to different colleges and married at 22. My brother met his wife through a dating service and married at 31.
The dentkids are all still single…ages 16-28.
Of the very close couples we hang out with almost every weekend. 7 couples met in HS. These couples remained together even though they attended different colleges. Impressive! Solid rock couples. 5 couples met in college ( including H and me). 1 couple met at a job after undergrad.
Most of us have been married anywhere from 17-30+ years.
My siblings: 1 met their future spouse in college. 1 through friends after about 7 years after college, and 1 remains single. She would love to find someone, but is finding it very difficult at 45.
I do think meeting a SO is changing to after one establishes his/her career.
I think with folks meeting on the internet and through extended HS & college networks, it’s not necessarily as difficult when folks are really interested. My nieces both met their BFs via the internet. One is engaged to marry her engineer BF and the other is Pretty serious with her BF who is in his last year of med school while she’s in her 1st year of residency.
@F40driver, I drove him away, made some idiotic choices, spent a few years ‘slumming,’ and married the wrong person. Never forgot him. Many years later and a few months after we found each other again (pre-Facebook era), he died unexpectedly at 43.
Of my family, in laws and friends, the only ones I can think of that met and married from college is my sister and my sister in law - the second now divorced. Even back 2 generations. While college is a great dating pool, just my opinion here, it’s the wrong time of life for such a pool of eligible people.