Most teenagers are not shopping for spouses or pursuing serious relationships, and lifelong partnership is usually not associated with high school romance. But for an exceptional few, high school relationships develop into marriage and long-term companionship.

For CHS math teacher Stacy Felps, English teacher Ben Murphy and Social Studies teacher Dave Aiello, romances that started in high school have led to marriage.

Aiello and his wife, Janis, of 20 years started their romantic relationship on the last day of high school at a party while she was fighting with her boyfriend, one of Aiello’s good friends at the time. During his high school years, Aiello dated several different girls “always one at a time,” (for logistic reasons) but he and Janis had often found themselves in the same circle of friends.
“We were at a party and she was having a spat with her boyfriend at the time and I was outside and we started talking,” Aiello said. “We found that there was a connection there that we had not realized before. Her boyfriend was actually a good friend of mine, his locker was right next to mine and we had played sports together growing up.”
While Janis’s boyfriend went away to school, she and Aiello attended community college together.
“So he gave her the big speech off, ‘Well I’m going away to the big school and I’m going to be dating other girls but since you’re just going to be staying at home, living at home you should just stay here and wait for me,’” Aiello said. “So we dated basically whenever he wasn’t in town.”
They didn’t date exclusively through the first years of college, but their relationship became more serious as the years went on.
“Before my senior year in college is when we realized that we really, really wanted to be just with each other,” Aiello said. “So then we dated for another four or five years and then we got married.”
Murphy and wife Julie have been together for 14 years, since sophomore year, and have never broken up since their relationship began. The couple attended different high schools and colleges, and Murphy attributes their long-term compatibility to their ability to appreciate each other’s strengths.
“For instance, I love how quick and energized she is, and she values my fortitude and thoughtfulness,” Murphy said. “We wouldn’t have survived if we weren’t able to recognize our differences as means of balance and growth. Conducting a long distance relationship during college obviously also required us to be patient and trust each other quite a bit as well.”
Felps and her husband Jeff also never attended school together and started dating in 1980 during her junior and his senior year in high school. They met while working together at Zantigo–a Mexican restaurant that was “slightly better than Taco Bell.”
“At the time, Zantigo had TV commercials starring Ricardo Montalban where he stated ‘You’re gonna fall in love, at Zantigo,’” Felps said. “That still makes me laugh!”
They have never completely broken up although they went through periods of seeing other people.
“Those times were usually really short and just confirmed that we were supposed to be with each other,” Felps said.
Felps credits their balance of shared interests and individuality to their successful relationship.
“We have things that we do together, and things that we do apart,” Felps said. “We have friends that we share, and friends that are our own. We have become our own people in ways that overlap but also separate. We don’t rely on each other for everything.”
But the experiences of these three high school sweethearts are rare, and the likelihood of marrying the significant other of your teenage years is slim.
“I think high school relationships are unlikely to last because people grow and change so much throughout college and early adulthood,” CHS substitute coordinator Meg Flach said. “Even if a high school couple goes to the same college, there’s so much to experience that I think it’s inevitable that at least one of the pair will resent the other for holding them back–whether that’s actually the case or not. College is often a place where people reinvent themselves and it’s difficult to do so with a partner who keeps you tied to the past.”
Saint Louis University Psychiatrist Hilary Klein agrees that the changes that come with maturation contribute to shifting romantic interests.
“I think that adolescent love, and by adolescent I mean teenage and all the way for some people even into your twenties and even into your thirties has a lot to do with thinking that you can find a ying for your yang,” Klein said. “Almost always this doesn’t work out because as you mature and develop more you realize that you have to have inside of you the things that you need. The person you share your life with should not be based on need but rather desire.”
Adults and peers alike often blame lack of maturity for failed teen relationships. This theory has scientific support as the study of brain development provides a concrete explanation for teenage behavior within romantic relationships.
“One of the things that relatively recent scholarship and psychology’s figured out is this idea of the prefrontal cortex being the last part of your brain to really develop,” Aiello said.
This part of the brain, located directly behind the forehead is part of the frontal cortex, which is responsible for higher order thinking. When the prefrontal cortex is underdeveloped, a teen’s rational thinking and problems solving strategies are also underdeveloped.
“The idea that some experts have been suggesting is that a lot 15-16-17-year-olds don’t really have that part of their brain developed, so the relationships formed in adolescence don’t really make a whole lot sense,” Aiello said. “They don’t involve a whole lot of judgment and so they must be coming from other parts of the brain that are little bit more primitive.”
Thus, relationships are more about the emotional and less about intelligent decision-making.
“So we have relationships because the person is really cute and inspires some emotions in us, not necessarily because we are thinking logically, ‘This is a person that would make a good partner,’” Aiello said. “It feels good, it’s enjoyable right now and so that’s the sort emotional reason for a lot adolescent relationships.”
Lack of lasting teenage relationships is undoubtedly connected to faulty emotional attachment.
“I think teenage love is lust,” senior Hannah Klein said. “People don’t know enough about themselves at this age to find the person they will be compatible with for the next 20, 30, 40 years down the road.”
Aiello agrees that teenage romance is unlikely to be based on actual love.
“I will oftentimes make that joke in class, you know I’ll say something like, ‘young lust’ or whatever,” Aiello said. “I don’t want to minimize the possibility that there actually could be what experts would say is true love in high school. I say it’s the exception to the rule simply because of the biology of the brain, chemistry and hormones and all of that kind of crazy stuff that happens.”
Growing apart is easier to do in modern times, as teens are more inclined to attend school in a different state or country.
“Fifty years ago a large number of kids who started dating somebody in high school, spent most of their adult life in that same community,” Aiello said. “They didn’t go away to school or get jobs in other. The pool of possible partners was relatively small and based often times on where you lived.”
However, the improbability of forming a lasting relationship does not defeat the purpose of dating in high school.
“Some people think there’s no point in dating unless you’re looking for marriage but I don’t agree,” Hannah Klein said. “It’s important to get experience at this age so you know what you’re looking for when you do decided to settle down.”
Felps agrees that dating in high school can be beneficial in discovering individual needs or desires for future relationships.
“Dating in high school lets you begin to see what you like, or don’t like in a potential partner,” Felps said. “Each time you are with somebody new it should help you learn more about yourself, what you want from life, and how a partner fits in with and supports who you are.”
Flach, who had several boyfriends throughout high school, found her experiences beneficial.
“I honestly think dating in high school is really important,” Flach said. “There are so many social nuances that need to be learned and practiced in the relative safety of a high school setting. Once you get to the freedom of college, not having any dating experience can lead you in all sorts of dangerous directions. Practice makes perfect and high school is a great place to figure out how to flirt, get together, stay together, fight, make up, break up and all the things in between. Just don’t take it all too seriously.”
There are also dangers in emotional entanglement in the early years.
“I think that it is possible to become cynical very quickly,” Hilary Klein said. “I think that it’s possible to think that you as an individual are there to please the other person, to make them happy rather than to share the happiness between you. The biggest danger is in stinting the individual’s development as a person, a fully rounded person and therefore not allowing her or him to understand what it is that they would like in a partner.”
But the decision to date during high school is contingent of many factors including familial rules, religious influence, and personal preference.
“I don’t date because I haven’t found the right girl yet,” senior Casey Lawlor said.
When daughter Hannah Klein started dating seriously in her junior year, mother Hilary Klein found herself more open to the relationship than the her husband was.
“Much of that was gender based,” Hilary Klein said. “My kids’ father had difficulty with our daughter dating but had no difficulty with our son in the same situation. Much of that stemmed around his ideas that dating equaled sexuality and his discomfort with that. I don’t necessarily think those are related although they can be. The more comfortable you feel with it the more easily you can transform that comfort to your children.”
Aeillo has three daughters, the oldest 13 years old, and while he is a proponent of adolescent dating, he too is wary of the sexual activity often coupled with a romantic relationship.
“I personally would oppose sexual activity for a long, long time,” Aiello said. “I strongly believe in monogamy and I believe that a married couple should be monogamous so I don’t think that sexual experimentation should be a part of dating. Lots of research that has been done over the years shows that people who have fewer sexual partners and less sexual activity until they end up with the person that they are going to have a long-term relationship with, oftentimes end up much, much happier.”
Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) leader John Holland and Jewish Student Union (JSU) leader Daniel Iken both view dating from a religious perspective.
“Many different Christians put many different spins on the rules for dating,” John Holland.  “But the abstinence rule applies almost universally, since it is indeed stated in the Bible that ‘the marriage bed is to be undefiled’ (Hebrews 13:4).”
Holland identifies the two basic rules of dating in Christianity to be date only Christians and abstain until marriage, though the latter guideline is more widely accepted throughout Christianity.
“I’ll only date a Jewish girl, not because I’m discriminating against non-Jews, but because I want to raise a Jewish home and that would be easiest with a Jewish spouse,” Iken said. “I meet many other Jews through involvement in youth groups, camps, and Jewish organizations.”
In Orthodox Judaism, Jews date for marriage, usually much later in life.
“I know some people who have gone on two dates and gotten engaged,” senior Kerrin Ast said. “Often Jews don’t date unless they’re ready for marriage.”
Matchmaking still exists in traditional Judaism even on a professional level, and parents are heavily involved in setting up their children.
“Generally according to strict orthodox Judaism your not supposed to date before age 18,” Iken said. “There is an old expression in Judaism that says ‘At age 18 we should see you under the marriage canopy.’”
In Christianity, the rules are less explicit, but the sentiments are similar.
“Generally, I try to stay away from any truly close encounters, and at the same time I hope to reflect God’s love for everyone in my interactions with girls,” Holland said. “I suppose it’s a tricky scale to balance, but I believe every Christian man must pursue as pure a relationship as he can find, and not encourage anything that is not true to his own emotions, and that is what I try to convey in my own practices.” 