Being married vs. being single

[olstyn]

I see a few things going on here. First off, almost everyone resists their parents' vision of what their life should be, especially as a teenager. That's fine. You're your own person, and you have to make your own decisions. Weigh the input they give you and decide for yourself, but don't assume that your opinion will never change, and allow yourself to re-evaluate from time to time.

Speaking as a 33 year old who got married less than 2 months ago, circumstances change as your life progresses. For a long time, I thought marriage was just a straight-up bad idea for me, but eventually I realized that the girl I'd been with for a long time was the only person I ever wanted to be with. Gradually my opinion of marriage changed, and after 10 years together, we're finally married, and now my expectation is that the ring on my left hand will be there until I die.

My advice to you is this: don't cave in. Don't let your parents make your life decisions for you, but also don't assume a final outcome one way or the other. Your opinion may never change, and you may be single for your whole life, or it could go the other way. At 17, you have a lot of life still to experience. I'd just say try to make the best decisions you can. As long as you can look back and not regret too many of the choices you made, you're doing alright, married or not.