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male
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anonymous
writes: I am a male teenager nearly 16. I have a girlfriend of 3 months, and I know what i feel for her is real love. She is 15. I have been with several girls in my life, but she is the only one which makes me feel the way she makes me feel, which is almost indescribable, a unique passion I feel only with her. I really do love her, and she says she loves me. The problem is that she has only had 1 proper boyfriend, who she went out with for 6 months. Her mum sat her down and warned her not to get to committed to our relationship, that she ought to live her life and not just have me for the rest of her life, because my girlfriend may not know what love is really like.My girlfriend says she is almost certain she loves me, and has told me her feelings, but says theres no way to be sure, and is really scared in case we are together for a long time, then we split up and shes missed the best years of her life, and is stranded unexperienced and emotional in her Late-Teens/Early 20s. We both have ambitions of going to university too. I really do not know how to react to this. I have told her I want to spend the rest of my life with her and i think what she said about the risk of it not working is scarily possible.In short: I love her, she loves me, but can teenage relationships really have fairytale endings? I love this girl to bits and want to be with her, at the same time i dont want to go through years of being together and then breaking up.What are your views on this? Should we ignore her mothers advice, and commit ourselves to each other, or realise that one day we should break up and live full lives, and go to university? Please, please help me! I dont know how I can cope with some sort of reassuring advice!!!
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (11 December 2005): Don't worry, if it is love it will work. I am married with a 3 month old child and my husband and I have been together since I was 15. Just dont forget to let her know that you love her, reassurance to a female puts a lot of security in her thoughts about you.
A
reader, anonymous, writes (9 December 2005): What great advice Bev! So true. My advice is just enjoy the moment and enjoy spending time with your girl. Don't get too tied down right now - you are so young, just enjoy yourselves without worrying about things like marriage and children. I know this is hard advice to follow when you feel so strongly for one another and as humans we can't help dreaming about the future. It's a very natural thing.Things will change a lot for you two over the next few years, you will mature and learn and experience new things. The next few years are huge. I'm 22 and when I think back over the past 6 years I have moved out of home, bought my first and second cars, done a degree, started full time work in my career, held down several part time jobs whilst I was at university, shed some old friends, made new ones and fallen in and out of love. All these experiences have taught me things and made me who I am today. The next few years are going to be huge for you and you should get out there and enjoy them and learn from them.If you and your girlfriend are meant to be together, you will experience these changes together and grow even closer together, you will form amazing bonds because of these things. If you are not meant to be together, you will move on and meet new people and one day, the woman you are really meant to be with if its not your current girlfriend. In short, don't worry too much now, you have so much ahead of you. Have fun these next few years and if it is meant to be it will, if not, there is someone else for you. Fairy tale endings do happen but if you know the ending, you won't enjoy the story as much. Good luck to youxoxox
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A
female
reader, Bev Conolly  +, writes (9 December 2005):
 Can teenage romances have fairytale endings? Yes, they can.
Do they have fairytale endings very often? Unfortunately, no.
Will yours? Statistically speaking, probably not. But then, maybe you'll both prove me wrong. Neither of us is an oracle, (though I have the slight advantage of having been both your age and my own and having seen how people of all ages grow and mature).
What you don't yet have the 'life experience' to consider is the profound changes that every person goes through between the age you are now, and the age that most people are when they seriously consider marriage (let's say 22-25). It's hard to pledge yourself for life to another individual when you're 16, because by the time you're 20, both of you will have changed from teens into adults and you'll have a lot more experience in living your lives.
I appreciate how hard it is to accept "trust me on this" as an answer to a question that you've clearly given a lot of deep thought to... but with few exceptions, the person that you are at 16 is rarely the person you become at 26. A few individuals mature and develop an adult outlook by your age, but for the large majority of people get to be about 21 or so, then look back at what they were like at 16 and think "Wow... I never believed I'd have changed so much in such a short time". Speak to your older friends, ask them. I'm 100% confident they'll back me up on this.
To put it in perspective for you, think about the person that was You five years ago, when you were 11. Think about what was the driving force in your interests and hobbies and passions, things you felt were crucially important. Things like, oh... Pokemon. Now examine the person you've become at 16. Are those passions the same ones you hold dear now? If they are, you're a rare individual indeed, but if like most of the rest of us, your interests and loves have changed since then, think how much more you'll develop when you finish high school, attend uni, buy a car, start working full-time etc, etc. These experiences are what make you a more rounded person.
Now, getting back to your primary question, the reason that so many teenage relationships fail around age 18 is that people are starting to mature in different ways and the person you loved doesn't really "exist" any more. They have new interests that they couldn't even have imagined at 16. This is going to be true for both of you, and the differences may eventually split you up. However, you'll survive that emotional pain and move on to use what you've learned in this relationship to make your next ones even more satisfying.
Your girlfriend's mother is being wise. You're both really too young to think that you can commit to a lifetime together (Honestly now: can you even imagine being aged 30? And 30 isn't that far off.) and never expect that you'll break up. Almost all relationships end. If they didn't, you'd still be with the first girl whose hand you held, right?
Enjoy the fact that you both feel that this love is real. Enjoy dating. Enjoy the feeling that you're sure this is going to last. Don't worry too much about your collective future this early in the game. When you've been dating for five or seven years, and you're both finished with your university studies and feeling ready to settle down and get domestic... THEN you can worry about whether this is the only relationship you ever need.
For now, just relax a bit. Don't take it all too seriously. Remember that you might "outgrow" one another, or change in ways that make you not suited to each other over time. That's normal and it's fine. Then again, you might change again further down the track and find you fall in love all over again. Stranger things have happened.
No need to take things too seriously at your age, though. Enjoy what you've got and let things develop naturally.
Take care!
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