Getting married before graduation?

For some students, getting married before graduation is as normal as attending class.
   
Hearing wedding bells? Do you think you’re ready to take the big plunge into married life? Wait, what about the full load of classes you scheduled for next quarter? Do you think you can handle that, and be a 24-hour spouse? Few say they can.

There aren’t many people who decide to marry while undergrads. For most, the difficulties of English comp and physics are enough, let alone adding married life to the equation. However, a few intrepid souls are stepping up to the altar, then cracking the books on the way to their honeymoon.

Students marrying while in college have a balancing act to perform. The responsibilities that come along with marriage are time-consuming and sometimes tedious. Having a spouse means there’s someone else to be concerned about. Add this to college life, with its 30-page term papers and relentless professors, and you’ve got a circus act that’s not for amateurs.

Time management is a problem for many students who marry while in college. Many agree that it’s hard to find time to buy groceries and then go to a study session.

“Sometimes I feel like Superwoman,” said Courtney Mosely, a sophomore at Faulkner State Community College in Alabama.

Mosely has been married for three-and-a-half years and is also the mother of two boys. She said her biggest struggle between college and family life is trying not to cheat her family of her time with them.

“It’s hard to be a total mother and a total wife when you are in college too,” she said.

Tim and Emme Hobbs are also trying their hands at juggling marriage and school. The couple recently celebrated their first wedding anniversary. While Tim has held a full-time job throughout their courtship and marriage, Emme has been a full-time education major at the University of South Alabama.

Both Tim and Emme agree time management has been one of their biggest challenges.

“When we first got married it was hard because I was taking so many classes. I had a lot more outside responsibilities, and I stayed busy,” Emme said.

Money

Student marriages were more common before the sexual revolution, when people married younger than they do now. Marriage, and student-dom, have changed a lot since then. But some issues are timeless: money continues to be a major concern among married students. Students are still finding that a college wedding means taking finances into serious consideration.

Then
Thirty-one years ago, two love-struck students enrolled at the University of South Alabama didn’t take the vows “for richer or poorer” for granted when they married.

Alan and Ann White were married for two and a half years before they graduated with degrees in Education. Ann said they knew the financial burden of college could cause marital stress, so they did a lot of planning and budgeting before reciting their vows in a small church ceremony.

“It wasn’t easy, but we knew we both had to be willing to sacrifice material things for a while. No new clothes, movies or eating out,” she said.

Now

Money was one of Amberly’s concerns before she married Tim almost a year ago. Looking back, Amberly said it has been easier financially since the two married. She said it is easier to get financial aid, and instead of one person paying all the bills, they now share them.

She said that over the course of the year, she has gotten better at dividing her time between school and home. She advises that it’s just something couples have to work on.

Tim and Amberly Jones are another couple who decided to try dividing their time between family life and college.

Amberly is a marketing major at Troy State University who admits she had trouble focusing on academics during the quarter after she married Tim.

“My grades dropped a lot that quarter because I was trying to take on too much,” she said.

During finals week, or almost any other time when classes are in session, time is precious and scarce. Dr. Vern Russell, coordinator of student counseling services at Auburn University, said it is important for married students to prioritize their time with both the roles of student and spouse.

“It is important for couples to schedule quality time for each other, just as they schedule time for their classes,” Russell said.

Many couples over-exert themselves during the first stages of their marriage when they are trying to show their spouses they will make good partners. This often adds more stress to the situation. Both Emme and Amberly said during the first few months of their marriage they were taking on the traditional wife roles, but it wasn’t long before that changed.

Amberly said she always wanted to have dinner ready for Tim when he got home, but after her grades began to drop she had to ask him to take on a few more responsibilities.

Emme said balancing responsibilities at home and at school is hard, and that sometimes things at home “slide a little.” Emme confessed that as she gets closer to graduating, her home life is suffering more than her school life.

Every couple has their own reasons for marrying while in college. It’s normally an answer they have readily available because they are frequently asked “Why don’t you wait?”

Mark Johnson, a senior majoring in computer engineering at Auburn, said he plans to marry his girlfriend of six years this coming August. Both he and his finance will have two quarters of school left when they marry.

“If we waited until we were out of school, it would probably be another year or so before we got married because of planning the wedding. It looked like I wasn’t going to graduate anytime soon, so I decided not to wait any longer. I’m ready to get my life started.” Mark said. “It’s going to be hard as hell, but it will be worth it.”

Emme said she and Tim had bought a house together and were already playing husband and wife roles, so they decided there wasn’t any reason to wait. She said they knew it was going to be difficult, and that marriage counseling helped them prepare for the changes.

On the other side of the spectrum is Nick Urbin, a student at Raritan Valley Community College in New Jersey. Nick proposed to his girlfriend in December, and after weighing all the circumstances, they decided to finish college before getting married.

“Being in college is a lot of stress, and adding a marriage to the situation would be too emotionally draining,” Nick said.

Even though going to school and being married is stressful, most couples agreed the experience is an exciting and fun one.

Emme said a marriage could be all a person wants it to be.

“At the beginning, I thought we had to act like an old married couple, and that wasn’t fun. Now we go out with other couples, and even single people,” she said. “It’s also great to know you’re coming home to someone, and not an empty house.”

Mark said he looks forward to being married.

“Being married and in school is going to be a totally different experience. Everything is going to be different, and I think it will be fun to discover new things about each other,” he said.

Whatever people have to say about taking the plunge while in college, one thing is for certain: this balancing act is going to take a lot of juggling.

“Finding the balance is hard, and a lot of times you don’t find it,” Emme said. “But if you are really in love with someone you marry them and try.”

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