[peter12]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

This is probably somewhat true, and I would agree that ideally everyone should not rush headlong into marriage. Having said that, there are all sorts of mitigating factors that will determine the outcome of individual marriages, and I think you are probably making too much of the "scarcity perspective". For the record, I was married when I was twenty, am still perfectly satisfied, and will be celebrating my twentieth anniversary this August.

I'd really love to hear about some of your experiences.

I am 8 months into "moving in" with my girlfriend, and while the first 3 months or so were quite hard, it has turned into a period of day-to-day bliss.

Few things:

• We share almost identical interests, opinions, personalities, basically everything. It is important to be with someone almost exactly like you. Opposites do not attract. There are certainly small differences that make life more enjoyable, but you have to share fundamental premises.
• We do almost everything together, and enjoy it. This includes trips to the grocery store.
• We don't have a lot of money (mid-twenties in school with loans, rent, etc...), but this doesn't get in the way of us having fun. We have never had a money fight, ever.
• You start to realize that while big gestures are a lot of fun, it is the little acts of love, and affection that generate the most positive good will.
• Obey a simple algorithm - relationship stability = frequency of lovemaking - frequency of quarrels. On almost every given week, we make it well into the positive side of that equation. Just from experience, weeks that go into the negative are bad.
• And of course, communicating your feelings, and apologizing for miscommunication.