telling parents your engaged while still in colledge

[quaddio]

Thank you everyone for the replays and I am using my phone so I am sry if my typing is a bit off it has never been my strong suit. I am still living at home but I pretty much pay for everything I read one of the previous posts that said there relationship got better after thay got engaged , and that it showed that both parties were commited long term. If I do this we would wait till after graduation to get married. I also understand the people who say wait as well I am still pondering on what to do my heart says go for it my head not quite as much thank you guys for all the replys. I would love to hear from more people who have gotten engaged in college

I'm surprised how much judgment your thread has received. Why are you asking this group in particular? Are you under pressure to deliver on bling/engagement?

I know a happily married woman who was engaged at 19, when she and her husband were broke Christian missionaries. They married less than 6 months later and are happy living in comfortable simplicity. Choose your priorities.

 

[FrekeChild]

I got engaged during my junior year of college.

Of course, we were both 26, he was a graduate student, and I already had an associates degree too. He waited too long, but that's a whole other basket of eggs.

If being completely financially independent and being able to pay entirely for your own wedding are the societal requirements nowadays, then we still aren't capable of being married. Considering that my husband just got his PhD over the summer, has awful amounts of student loans, and my dad paid for the wedding...

We could have done it on our own - but we would to have had to wait to save up the cash, and seeing as my dad is already really quite old, and we had both recently lost our mothers, he wasn't about to let that happen and take that risk.

My husband told my dad after it had happened. He told him that he hoped we would get his blessing. My dad was pumped!

And my mom knew we would be getting engaged before she passed away...

So yes. Involve them. Talk to them, but I wouldn't necessarily ask them for permission if you want to show that you are both adults.

 

[soocool]

If my soon to be 20 year old daughter told me she was getting engaged while still in college I would only express happiness for her. While at times it is diificult for me to admit, she is an adult capable of making her own adult decisions. DH and I do help her out financially somewhat, but there are no strings attached to this.

Obviously she would be the one to know if he was the right guy for her and vice versa and no one has a crystall ball to predict if the relationship or marriage would last. So if the two of you are mature enough, tell your parents and let them know of your adult decision. It won't be the first and won't be the last.

 

[TooPatient]

Go for it!

I see no problem with two responsible people getting engaged while in college. Living at home while in college used to really bug me, but after being in college while taking care of a house and the bills that go with it.... I'd have loved the opportunity to live at home and attend school!

One of the downsides to waiting to ask her is that she may get tired of waiting. If you aren't talking marriage and future, she could easily decide that you aren't interested in sharing a life with her. Same problem if you talk about it but don't actually make any movements towards that life. (look over in LIW for some very frustrated waiting stories!)

I do think it would be best to wait until after graduation to actually get married. Partly out of respect for parents (don't want them to think you or she won't finish school) but also because planning a wedding takes lots of time & energy. Another consideration would be any grants or loans either of you may be getting -- your combined incomes could cause you to lose financial aid (including some loans, I believe).

Telling her parents before or not is a personal thing. You know her and them. We don't. I would HATE it if anyone "asked permission" to marry me. Also, I would have been upset if anyone in my family was even told an engagement was coming. News like that spreads fast in my family so any surprise to me would have been spoiled.
Each family is different though!

 

[rubybeth]

My $1.50 (hey, inflation exists):

You are young. If you and she have talked about getting married after graduating, that's great. But I do know women who were cut off financially as soon as they got engaged. This might not be the case for your girlfriend, but I'd tread cautiously.

Money is a big issue in marriage. It's the number one reason people get divorced. It's a HUGE issue. Having less money doesn't mean your marriage is doomed, but being financially able to take care of yourselves is a must. Maybe you can both afford rent right now, and are just being frugal and living with parents. That's what my husband and I did while finishing up our second degrees. Also, I hated the idea of being engaged for 2+ years. We wound up being engaged for 6 mos. It wasn't a ton of time to plan, but I think being engaged for a year is about right. If you're not going to get married for another 2+ years, why not wait a bit longer?

 

[jazzoboe]

Well, I was not still in college when I got engaged but my now DH was. He proposed on our 4 year anniversary (so naturally I am a fan of your plan to do the same!), while he was a senior in college and I was already in grad school (I'm a year older than him). We had known we were headed toward marriage since a year or less into dating, so this did not come as a surprise to our families, and while he did surprise me with the proposal, we had been talking about it and I knew it was coming within a month or 2. We were married 11 months later. Now there were times in the year or so before we were engaged that I wish he could just give me a ring already even though we wouldn't get married until after college, but looking back, the time really did fly, and after 11 months I was sooo ready to be married and not have to think about wedding things anymore, so I;m glad our engagement wasn't any longer.

I will agre with what others have said about being financially independent and living on your own at some point. Both DH and I paid for college on our own and worked throughout college. DH went to school a couple of hours away and lived on his own, and I lived in apartments near campus for most of college, but moved back hom afterward to save some money while I did grad school and worked part-time, rather than having to work full-time just to afford rent. But really the only thing my parents paid for was maybe ~50% of my food. DH also had a job before we got married, we paid for the wedding ourselves, and less than a year in we were able to buy a house. All that being said, if you are in a stable enough place, I'd say don't wait just to wait. You've been together long enough to know if you want to be married, so when you are logistically ready to live as a married couple (ie. not depending on others for help) I say go for it!

As far as telling our families, as I said, it was no surprised to them that we planned to marry sometime soon after we wre both don with college, but I know my DH told his parents when he bought me a ring, and although I know they really would have preferred us to wait until we were a bit older, they really were happy for us (And now that we've been married for a year and a half, MIL is begging me to give her grandkids ) He told my parents before he proposed (apparently he showed them the ring while I was upstairs getting my coat), but I don't think he asked permission as such. My older sister got married 2 months after she graduated college, and had been with her boyfriend only 2 years when he proposed to her, so there was no objection from them about our age.

I'd say just be respectful toward your parents, let them in on your plans, but make your own decisions as adults and accept that there will always be some people who don't agree with every choice you make.

Good luck!

 

[madelise]

I'll still be in college when SO proposes. I'm also a junior, but I'm an older junior. I don't see anything wrong with being engaged or married while in college. But, like some have pointed out, if you're questioning the situation, you may not be ready for it. If you do decide to jump the gun, please keep your parents involved. My SO told his father, but not his mother… because he wanted to show the ring to her when they have the talk. She ended up bawling because she felt miffed that she wasn't part of the purchasing/picking process.