5 Things I Learned From Getting Engaged To My Forever Person

1. The performance you play on social media isn’t as important as day-to-day life. You can look like the perfect couple on Instagram. You can post a million cute selfies and write statuses about how much you love and support each other. But it’s better to tell each other how much you care than to tell the world how much you care. There’s nothing wrong with posting about your love online, but make sure you’re also doing those same cutesy things in person. Don’t let your love become an act. Don’t put more energy into impressing strangers than into strengthening your own relationship.

2. Not everyone is going to support your decisions — but your opinions are the only ones that matter. Your family and friends are always going to have opinions about your relationship. They might tell you how to plan your wedding or how to solve problems or how to raise your children. But you have to remember, your family and friends aren’t the bosses of you. Their opinions don’t matter as much as your opinion matters and your partner’s opinion matters. You can’t let others impact your relationship. It has to stay between the two of you.

3. The only way the relationship is going to last is if you’re capable of handling stress together. Wedding planning is stressful — and there are bound to be a million other obstacles that cause stress throughout the relationship. That being said, you aren’t going to be able to make a relationship work if you’re only able to enjoy each other’s company when you’re at your highest points. You also need to know how to communicate when you’re feeling low. You need to know how to solve problems in a way that is fair for both of you. You need to know how to get through your most stressful moments and make it back to the beautiful ones.

4. If you’re going to be together forever, there’s no need to rush. You don’t have to speed through your milestones. You can enjoy your engagement. Enjoy planning your wedding. Enjoy the time you get to spend together. Don’t rush through everything out of excitement (or worse, peer pressure) and miss out on something special. You’re going to be together forever, so what’s the difference if you get married tomorrow or a few years down the line? Try your best to remain patient and enjoy the moment instead of rushing to tomorrow.

5. Things are always going to go wrong, so you need someone who will laugh with you. The proposal probably won’t go exactly as planned. Neither will the wedding. Life is always going to throw curveballs at you, but when little things go wrong, you want to be with someone who can make you laugh about it. You want to be with someone who makes you feel like everything is okay, even when you want to scream into a pillow. In order to make sure the rest of your life is as happy as humanly possible, don’t just choose any partner. Choose a best friend.