I’m a fourth year and I got married this summer

Like most of my friends, this summer I traveled, worked, relaxed and tried (and failed) to get ahead with my reading. Unlike most of my friends I also got married.

My husband and I met at school when we were 11 and became friends. Eventually after other failed relationships (and much rolling of eyes from our friends) we got together just before our final year of school. We got engaged when we were 20 and married two years later. We were flat broke and my parents paid for our wedding, (thanks Mum and Dad!) so we got married at the village church where my parents live and then partied it up in their garden.

Just married

We’re Christians and didn’t have sex before we got married. It’s a great bonus but it’s not why we got married. One of our married friends was right when he said: “Getting married for sex is like buying a jumbo jet for the peanuts.” We might be young but we’re not stupid. Marriage is a huge commitment and we knew getting laid isn’t worth that hassle. (Try and plan a wedding and you’ll see what I mean).

We also didn’t live together before we got married. Instead, four or five years together have been long distance. That’s definitely been one of the biggest adjustments.

Being married at uni is definitely weird, because it’s not what the vast majority of my friends are experiencing. We’re still doing the normal things, studying, working, socialising, but there are some definite changes since we got married.

After a lot of discussion with our friends and family and reconciling it with our feminism, we agreed on what do with our surnames and it’s been super strange getting used to being a Rothwell-Burn rather than just Burn.

We’re obviously both really keen to spend time together, but studying means this isn’t always easy. Sometimes I have to sacrifice a lie in so I can study and free up the evening for a date night, other times he’s got to lump it and come home to an empty flat while I’m pulling a late one in the library.

At my husband’s graduation in June 2015

Socialising has had its challenges too. I’ve lived here a few years now and have lots of wonderful friends. While my husband knew and liked a lot of them before he moved to Glasgow, it’s certainly not the same for him. I’m really close to a lot of his uni friends and we share our pals from home. Thankfully he’s also made really good friends up here but it’s been a process.

Taking the wedding a lot less seriously than the marriage

We’ve been through bereavements, mental illness, moves, his degree and most of mine, living in different countries and growing up together. Being married to my husband makes life more fun and more fulfilling, not because he completes me or anything but because he’s my best friend and genuinely my favourite person.