High School Sweethearts - Can It Last?

This last weekend, my family visited a relative who was just about to go to her first prom. I looked at her wishing I had half the adventure she has at her tender young age.

You know, the feeling that God went on vacation and left you in charge?

Dan and Jennifer have brought up the topic of High School Sweethearts as well. It must be that time of year — young love and prom — it really does something to people, doesn’t it?

I started to comment on **Ask Dan and Jennifer** with my response, but felt the topic deserving enough to carry it over here to Dating Dames. I hope you’ll join me…

As a woman currently married to my high school sweetheart I can’t really say I’m an ‘expert’ on the topic, but I’m more then willing to share my own perspective.

Had my husband Rusty and I stayed together as high school sweethearts, I have no doubt we would not have survived in a marriage.

Though in my heart I’ve always loved him - and though I kept track of him from a distance after graduation for many years and as much as I love him today, I can honestly say that there were life lessons we both had to endure before we could get to the place we are today.

Living in a small rural community, I’ve seen so many examples of high school sweethearts marrying right out of school and I can’t say that I know of one that were still together at our 20 year reunion just a couple of years ago.

One couple really did stand out in the community though and when it was found they were getting divorced, everyone was shocked. This entire family had put on such a happy family face for so long, no one ever suspected trouble. In reflecting on this relationship, I’m not sure I would even call it trouble as much as I would just call it life.

Somewhere after graduation, these kids grew up. They grew up, woke up and realized they’d been playing house and now were burdened with heavy responsibility to two children and living with a decision that was made by children several years prior.

If high school sweethearts do marry and it does last, I think it’s more out of maintaining an image then anything.

Think back 10 years in your own life? Are you the same person you were then? If you’ve evolved as a person, don’t you think a partner would to? Nothing guarantees that your partner will evolve in life, the way you do either. Sometimes that evolving in life is nothing more then growing apart.

What are your thoughts on High School Sweethearts? Can they last? And if so, why do they last?

Tags: high school sweetheart, prom, love, marriage, relationship