Ah, young love. So pure. So optimistic. You feel like it will last forever. Here in Utah, it’s expected to. Here, where it’s generally regarded as acceptable, you get married as soon as possible, in your late-teens to early twenties, while the rush of a new relationship is still thriving. Little did you know that this could possibly be the worst mistake of your life.

Utah is an abstinence-only state, meaning that for large swaths of the population, sex is forbidden or tabooed until marriage. The obvious solution for many sexually-charged teenagers about to go to college is to get married so that they can have sex with their partner without feeling guilty or experiencing backlash from their various faith-traditions.

Surprisingly, sex is not a good enough reason to get married. If you get married too young and become dependent on your spouse, you become too comfortable and lose your ambition, your drive to have a life that’s all your own. Getting married right out of high school or even before you’re twenty is dangerous.

In the five months that I’ve been graduated from high school, five former classmates of mine have been engaged and three have already gotten married. A girl who was determined to put school before boys and never dated anyone in high school is now engaged to a boy she’s been dating for a month. A month. Imagine marrying someone you barely know. Unsurprisingly, men and women in Utah get married at younger ages on average than the rest of the nation and are more likely to get divorced because of it.

Becoming an adult, going to college, spending some time alone — these things are not just stressful. They change us. They change our habits, morals, attitudes, even our bodies. Imagine going through all of that and waking up one day, married to someone you barely know. I’ve been with my boyfriend for three years, but if he proposed to me right now, I would say no. I’m not getting married until I know who I am as an adult, with a career, and know what I want in life. The point of dating is to find someone you want to marry, someone you want to live with forever. If you find that person at a young age, then that’s fantastic and I’m happy for you. But that person could be completely different in a year or two. If you’re sure you want to be with them forever, then you should be able to wait until after college to marry them.

What if, while in college, you meet the person who you’re truly meant to be with? If you’re already married, then there’s nothing you can do about it because you’re already in a legally and morally binding contract with someone else. What if you meet the peanut butter to your jelly or the missing piece to your puzzle?

You know what’s even better than young love? True love. You don’t know if your love is true unless it has gone through many trials. You don’t know if it’s true unless you’ve thrown up in front of them, seen them get angry, been through a time when you were both broke and couldn’t even go out to dinner. You don’t know it’s true unless you’ve gone a week without seeing them, unless you’ve gone a full week being with them, non-stop and not gotten sick of them, unless you’ve slept in the same bed, brushed your teeth together, cried in front of them or had a terrible fight and still chose to love them. You don’t know if it’s true unless you try, hard, to imagine a future without them. It’s true, especially then, if you choose to stay with that person. So don’t rush into marriage. Let a relationship develop naturally and over time. Spend some time with yourself, learning who you are before you go out and try to define yourself as “wife” or “husband.”

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