COLUMN: Myths of being a married college student
I am like every other college student at Central Michigan University, only married.
I married my boyfriend of three years at the beginning of my sophomore year.
When I tell people that I am a married, 20-year-old student, they often look at me like I am completely crazy.
Usually, people make assumptions about a married student, assumptions that are far from the truth.
One question I get often is, "If you are married, why are you in school?"
Just because I am married does not mean I do not have dreams of my own. And this is not 1952, when married women were commonly housewives. I want a degree and a career.
Another one that we both get a lot is, "Don't you get tired of spending every moment together?"
Who said anything about spending every moment together? I certainly did not sign up for that.
We are both full-time college students with different focuses, meaning we are usually on the opposite sides of campus all day.
We both work, and we are members of Greek organizations, so a lot of our nights are taken up, too.
Our days are usually jam-packed with commitments. There are some days, usually on the weekend, when we go to dinner and a movie together. We see each other every night and every morning, but we are nowhere close to spending every moment with each other.
My favorite question people ask me, and I get it more often than I ever expected I would, is, "Don't you ever miss having fun?"
Well, no, because I never stopped having fun.
Despite what movies and books seem to think, marriage is not a death sentence.
We are young, and we love to go out and have fun, whether together or separately.
I recently got home from a weekend road trip with my sorority sisters. It was a lot of fun and the perfect "girls weekend." My husband kissed me goodbye and told me to have fun.
He often goes out with his friends and has adventures of his own, too.
A lot of people compare marriage to jail time. This is not true. We love spending time with each other, but we love to spend time with our friends, too.
We can go out together and have just as much fun as we do with our friends. The only difference now is that we never have to worry about not having a great dance partner.
We heard a lot of questions and opinions when we got married, and we still get them six months later.
The fact is, we are just like you and your boyfriend or girlfriend, only we wear rings on our left hands.
