Erika: My name is Erika Shepard. Some of you may know me as Erika Steigerwald. But that is no longer my name. I am 20 years old, a nursing junior, and, as of a month ago, I am married. Yes, married.
So why would I get married at 20? Some have asked, "Is it because you're Mormon? Are you not finishing school? Is it because you're from another country, and your family planned it for you? You're so young!" The answer to all of those questions is, "No." It is because Allen and I were at the point where we knew we were ready to promise each other our lives in marriage.
People can understand why I love Allen so much and would want to marry him; but many people couldn't — and still can't — understand why we would get married while still in school.
Matt: Last year we asked ourselves, "What does it mean to merely date the one you are ready to marry?" When you get to a certain level of closeness, there is no choice of when or where to take the relationship — you are already at a point. The only choice is whether to completely, publicly join in ceremony or to enter the same phases of the relationship without inviting the family to watch.
Erika: As far as school, we are serious students and being married while in school was not going to distract us. In fact, since we have been dating we have both received higher than 4.0 GPAs. We are going through these processes together and working as a team, and being married doesn't interfere with what academic and life goals we want to achieve as individuals. We support each other through all we are involved in.
We don't have separated budgets — all of our money is together and spent on whatever we need. So whenever one of us needs money to pay for a bill, we reach into our one pot. We don't have much money, but we aren't poor. When we get out of school, we can start making salaries and paying off our debt.
Our daily lives are not much different than they were before we got married except for the fact that we live together now.
As for having a family, we definitely want to have children, but not now. We plan to start a family in six or seven years, once we are both out of school and feel that we are ready to be the best parents we can be. But neither of us feel prepared for parenthood at this stage in our lives.
Meeting each other has been the biggest blessing of our lives. I think our society has put a lot of emphasis on age and grade level when it comes to getting married, but when it comes to marriage, age and grade level are hardly important. The quality and strength of our marriage comes from deep inside of us.
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