Marriage has never been a priority of mine. It is something I have always envisioned as a worry for down the road, but for other college students down the road is now.

A friend of mine on campus married this past summer, and a best friend of mine from back home is currently engaged in addition to the numerous engagements and marriages of former friends I hear about. Counting back, my own parents married at 19 and started having children at 21. Times have changed, but has marrying after high school just shifted to marrying out of college?

Currently I am taking a communication and conflict management course, and one aspect of the course focuses on conflict with romantic partners. The more areas the conflict exhibited in romantic relationships the course explores, the less enticing the concept of marriage seems.

Prince Charming doesn’t tell Cinderella he gets tired of her and she doesn’t whine that they don’t spend enough time together.

One of the hardest parts of growing up is arriving at the realization that fairy tales are just that. The childlike innocence and naive interpretation of how the world works slowly diminishes as we mature, and we are left to cope with reality. Inevitably, conflict is a part of interaction, whether within relationships with romantic partners, family, friends or in the workplace.

Marriage was never something I feared, but exploring all the conflicts and management devices to correct problems is enough to swallow, let alone the startling statistic of marriage success rates, the predictors of divorce and the dimensions of interpersonal relationships.

I viewed marriage as a task I’d complete once I was done living my own life. The reward for giving up bachelorhood would not be a transformation of my surroundings into an enchanted kingdom, but certainly not a never-ending life struggle.

One unnerving point brought up in class discussion is that we live longer now, so in marriage you are signing up for the next 50 or 60 years. Committing to the same dentist is hard enough, let alone decades of marital bliss. However, times have changed since the days our parents started their lives together.

The education and lifestyles of our generation in majority are very different from that of our parents generation.

Men and women have grown in equality.

More causes for or types of conflict may arise from the growth in independence and equality with our generation, but more independence also depletes other conflicts or restrictions that lead to conflicts.

Having more experiences and opportunities makes people more sure of what they want, who they are and how and what they want out of life.

In addition, techniques for identifying, approaching and managing conflict are expanding and evolving as well as therapists and counselors performing studies and working with couples directly. For example, the Four Horseman is a a series of specific conversational strategies if allowed to pervade interaction will kill a relationship.

Research discussed in class indicated that 84 percent of newlywed couples high on Four Horseman use, but stable in repair attempts were still married six years later.

This is a great improvement in comparison to numerous divorce statistics. Benefits of sharing your life with someone vary with each relationship.

Though I encourage the concept of promoting single female empowerment shows like Sex & The City exhibit, being independent is glamorous, not necessarily being a spinster. When love happens, it happens. It may not be perfect and may hit you at any age.

Like many other challenges in life, commitment is scary. Marriage isn’t a necessity in life, but it also isn’t the kill all of independent existence I once viewed it to be.

Some may have different interpretations of what marriage entails or disagree with its concept, but you can’t plan your life on a time line no more than you can turn a pumpkin into a stage coach and ride into the sunset.