We Married Young V.1

I’m extremely happy to introduce a brand new weekly guest post feature here at Take-Hart called “We Married Young”. I will be interviewing fellow bloggers in their early twenties (or younger, if I happen across one!) that have married young and want to share their journey (tips, tricks, triumphs, and hardships!) thus far through marriage! Today I have an amazing guest- Rachie from Rachieann.com! I’ve been friends with Rachie through the internet/blogging for a few years and just recently we were able to meet in “real life” and make our friendship “official”- and I feel so blessed for that! So without further adieu ..

1. First of all, how long have you been married and how old were the two of you when you tied the knot?
Neil and I will have been married 4 years on July 7th. I was a few months into my 21st year while Neil was a few months shy of his 21st birthday when we got married.

2. Tell us a little back-story! How did you and Neil meet and how long did you date before getting married?
Oh Lord, OK are you comfortable? This might take a while. Neil and I met his 7th, my 8th grade year on the bus on the way to a choir concert. See, I was in the eighth grade choir and he was in the seventh grade choir at our middle school. I thought he was absolutely adorable but it was NOT COOL for an eighth grade girl to have a seventh grader for a boyfriend. Also, my best friend, who was in Neil’s class, had a crush on him and that was a NO GO FO SHO! (No go for sure…..if you don’t speak gansta) So I started calling him my “baby turtle”. Don’t ask. I’m not sure how I came up with it but he liked that I called him that. See, he will tell you that he thought I was “way hott” but that I was out of his league. I use to tickle the back of his neck while on bus on choir trips. Back then, that was as far as I had ever gone with a guy. :/

Fast forward to his Freshmen year, my Sophomore year, in high school. We were once again in the same choir and his friend had shown interest in me. I happened to like his friend too so we started dating. Neil will tell you that he was trying to show interest in me at that time too but I just took it as him hanging around his friend a lot. lol
Now, let’s fast forward to December 2003, Neil’s Junior year, my Senior year. We had been flirting in choir class for a week or so when right before Christmas break he asked for my number. He said once he got back from his basketball team’s tournament he’d call. It’s awful, but neither one of us remember when we suddenly started taking notice of each other again – why we started talking and flirting. All I know is that come December 21st, Neil called me, before he’d even back from the tournament. I was actually hanging out with a guy at the time when he called but I quickly excused myself from the room to talk with Neil. I remember just how fast my heart was beating, how nervous I was. Neil will tell you he went back and forth trying to decide whether he was going to call me or not. He wanted to but he was really nervous too. We both got over the nerves, however, just long enough to plan on a movie date when he got home a few days later. Once Neil and I got off the phone I made up some excuse of why I needed to cut my date with the other guy short, which ended my last date with another guy other than my husband.

December 24th, my parents and I were leaving our church’s Christmas Eve service when Neil finally called. He was home and was going to see Elf at the movies with a few friends, did I want to go? It wasn’t what I thought our first date would be but it was nice all the same. And it ended even better when he drove me home and walked me to my door, and let me kiss him. You read that right – I kissed him first. It’s OK though. I wanted to kiss him like, right then right there, and I could tell he was too nervous to. Don’t worry though. He kissed back. =)
Neil and I met November 1999, started dating Christmas Eve 2003, he propsed on July 1st, 2006, and we were married July 7th, 2007. We’ve never broken up and never taken a break, which is not something a lot of young couples can say and Neil and I are very proud of that.

3. Some people might say you got married a little too young (it’s been said to Nate & I!)- did you receive any negative feedback on your choice to get married at a younger age or were you surrounded by support?
The only people who have said anything about Neil and I marrying young are actually my friends. Not all of them but a few have mentioned it in a negative tone. I don’t pay any attention to what they say because it only matters whether Neil and I think we married too young. If we weren’t ready then we wouldn’t have done it. Our four years of happy marriage prove that we knew and still know what we’re doing. =)

4. This is the time in our lives when most of us twenty-somethings are truly finding ourselves and our purpose, through education or by other means. Have you found it harder or easier to work toward your goals as a married woman?
For me, it’s definitely been easier. Neil is so supportive of my ventures, my education, and my hobbies. All the while, I feel like I have been very encouraging while Neil tries to find out who he is outside of high school, outside of college – both of which he was kind of a superstar.

5. Life is fast paced when you’re trying to accomplish so many things and maintain a vibrant and fulfilling marriage at the same time! Do you have any tips on staying connected to your significant other with so much going on?
I could probably write pages worth of tips that work for us but I’ll just touch on the topic. Eat dinner together, whenever you possibly can, with the TV off. With jobs and or school, hobbies, house work, and the daily grind, dinner time might be the only time you and your significant other can find to actually TALK to each other, no distractions. And hey, we all gotta eat. Whenever possible, go to bed together. This lends a few more minutes of quality time with each other at the end of the day. Neil and I usually talk about the best thing about that day and the worst thing about that day, and then we discuss our plans for the next day. It also allows time for intimacy, which like it or not (how can you not? ;P ), is crucial to a happy marriage.

6. What are your favorite things to do as a married couple? Have those things changed a lot or stayed the same since the dating days?
Our favorite things we did together while dating are still our favorites things to do now. We love movies. LOVE. And watching them together gives us something else to discuss later. We walk our dogs together and just take walks together in general. We go to St. Louis Cardinals’ games in the summer. [Boo Rachael! We are Reds fans, how can I even post this?! Haha!] We watch UK play in March. Even though I don’t golf, I go with him while he golfs because I enjoy watching him. We love being on the water; boating, skiing, swimming, whatever. We actually enjoy shopping together, or maybe he just tolerates shopping together. He likes to travel to “fun” places, and I just like to travel so we do that. We did go to Disney World for our honeymoon after all, but that was mainly because it is THE BEST PLACE ON EARTH! In my opinion….

7. Did getting married change anything (relationships, lifestyle, etc.) in your life that surprised you at all?
Our lifestyle changed only because we both went from having most everything paid by our parents to paying for most everything ourselves. We were both still in school too so that was challenging but nothing we couldn’t handle together! Something we noticed and quickly rectified, was that after the honeymoon phase wore off we started acting more like roommates with benefits instead of a married couple. I find this happens with friends turned roommates. We use to take time out of our day, actually PLAN to spend time together but since we lived together, we saw each other all the time. We weren’t actually spending quality time together; which is why we now eat dinner together and go to bed together, among other things. We make sure we have time for each other, even when we’re busy.

8. Are the first few years really the hardest?
I can’t tell you which years are the hardest….ask me again in 5 years ok? But out of the four years that we’ve been married Neil and I both agree that our fourth year was the hardest. Yes, that means this past year was hard on our marriage but together we got through it and we are even closer than before. I can’t tell you that it was one particular thing that changed between the third year and the fourth. It might have something to do with Neil working a job that we both hated. He was unhappy, I was unhappy, yadda yadda. In my opinion, it strained our marriage and those things that normally wouldn’t have bothered us before became a big deal. Every relationship, however, goes through those rough patches. What determines the strength of a relationship is the calm after the storm. Once the dust settles, is the marriage worse off, the same, of better for it? Ours is definitely better.

9. And I think it’s safe to say that everyone wants to know.. when will there be babies?! 😉 Are you choosing to wait until a certain goal is accomplished, a particular age, or just for the “right time”?
The main thing we are waiting on is my graduation from nursing school, which is a year from now! This was a decision that both Neil and I are completely comfortable with. I would like to wait until we are in our house but with Neil’s profession, things are up in the air with where we will be in the future. Hopefully he’ll find a teaching job so we won’t have to worry about that anymore 🙂 Oh, and I’m completely OK with being 8 months pregnant come graduation day!

10. Lastly, if you could give one piece of advice to a young couple who were thinking of getting hitched, what would it be?
Date for more than a year. PLEASE DO THIS. Marriage psychologists all over the world agree that the infatuation phase of a relationship can last as long as a year. During the infatuation phase you are trying to please him, he is trying to please you, neither of you are completely 100% yourselves every moment. Deny it all you want, you may not see it but your friends do. Love is blind, remember? Wait until you both get comfortable in the relationship. Wait until things start bothering you. The way he chews his gum, her compulsion to sing EVERY.SINGLE.SONG on the radio, that he’s a cheap-skate, how she blows all her money on shoes. Once those things bother you for long enough, decide whether you can with it for the rest of your life. If the answer is no, then that’s your answer. If it bothers you now, it will always bother you. The question is, how much. BUT if the answer is yes, then get engaged but take your time. Don’t rush off to the court house or plan a wedding in two months. Yea, it’s possible but it’s not smart. Unless there’s some dire need to get married ASAP then take your time. The feelings you have for each other right now are not going to change. If you’re worried that they will, reevaluate your relationship. Take time to be an engaged couple, instead of just a couple. Believe it or not, there’s a difference.

Thank you so much Rachie, for being a part of my very first addition of We Married Young!

If you would be interested in being a guest in this weekly feature feel free to contact me at xo.steph [@] gmail.com!