Looking back would I go back and slow down my lightening speed relationship with Yannick? Definitely not.

The responses to yesterday’s WWYDW were pretty much what I expected them to be. They were almost verbatim what my mom did/said when I turned up pregnant within the first six months of dating Yannick. What can you do when two adults fall in love and go through all the steps at Mach 10?

Nothing.

You support them, and give them the space they need to live their lives, this includes any possible long term mistakes based on moving too fast.

In the case of Ariana and Pete what’s to be done? They’re adults, and in their case both independently wealthy, so seriously what can you do as their parents??? In our case we were nineteen, so not quite adultish, but Yannick had been living on his own since he was fifteen, I was living at home prior to moving in with him, but had been working since I was twelve, and both of us felt adult enough. Looking back now it’s quite obvious that we were so NOT adults…like at all. There was so much more to do, to see, to learn. And most of what we did in those early years was just make a mess that we would then spend later years cleaning up.

If I could go back, would I change a thing? I have to honestly say that no I wouldn’t, because if I did then would my life be what it is today? Would I have the three girls that I love more than anything on earth? Probably not.

I truly believe that if Yannick and I hadn’t moved so fast we wouldn’t be together today, and there would be no girls, or family. I don’t know where we might have ended up, but I’m certain it wouldn’t be where we both, as individuals, currently are. Which if I’m being bold is a pretty awesome place to be.

So then what? What would I do if one of my two remaining unmarried daughters turned up with a fiance after three weeks of dating??

Well for starters I would ask a lot of questions. Like a lot of questions.

I would encourage them to move slowly from the stage of ENGAGEMENT IN THREE WEEKS to walking down an aisle.

I would undoubtedly recommend that they follow the same path we did, AFTER we became pregnant, which was to stay living together, get to know one another, and then in time IF they find they’re still in love and that they still want to “do this” then go ahead and get married.

Love and lust make the sparks fly, and the brain cells, AKA healthy decision making definitely a back seat. Obviously it’s super important to get to know the person you’re going to marry. Find out if they’re somebody you could spend the rest of your life with, for better or for worse. It’s mandatory to figure out if when you fight, you can come back from the fights. I’ve said it a million times that Yannick and I had very different fighting styles, and he had to teach me how to fight fair so that he could stay in a relationship with me. We took the time to learn about each other, rather than get married within months of dating because I was pregnant. I’m not saying that taking those extra fourteen months protected us from the almost too difficult and painful shit to come, since there’s no amount of living together, or time passing that can help you deal with the unknown, until the unknown comes your way. Which is why if you’re going to go fast, I think you need a good couples counselor, and a good lawyer, just in case…