Sit back and relax, for I'm a guy that likes to ramble and give as much detail about his situation as possible so that responses can be accurate and helpful (gasp).
First of all, I am 19, my amazing girlfriend is 16. We met about a year ago by chance on the online game Runescape, and after a few months of talking and video chatting on skype later, we came to love each other. At that point I decided to drop everything in my life and hop on a plane over to her hometown, 1800 miles away and on the other side of the united states. A day before the plane was scheduled to leave, my friend nearby her hometown dropped out of the deal he made to help me, so instead my girlfriend's grandmother decided to kindly step up and invite me to stay with her instead (lucky break eh?).
Now a little background on the people. I myself was raised by a verbally (and at times physically) abusive mother. During the months of chatting with her over skype, I learned of how both her parents were just as bad as mine, undermining her self esteem and devaluing her (to this day it is a painful source of pride that the day we declared eachother bf/gf that she stopped rusting razors with her own blood). She is the most amazing person who is kind, responsible, and very mature for her age.
Back to the timeline, I managed to snag a part time job in the next month of my stay here, and since then been working on my relationship with my gf and her family. In 2 months now I need to move 3 hours away so that I may start my eduction for a career in biomedical engineering so that I will be able to support a family and my gf as she finished high school and goes to college as well. This is where the problems start to arise. My gf and I are 100% sure that we want to be married and start a family, and both of us are very eager to have a child soon.
You might say we are eager to start a family because we want to create that loving environment we were both starved of in our own childhoods; or you might say that we want a child because it will somehow fulfill a need. But the truth is its just what sits right with us, for we are fully aware of the hardwork and dedication required and are more than ready to take on the challenges ahead as a team.
The biggest obstacle to this though is her family, for her mother and father were also married at 16 and 21, but they never grew up after that. This and their attitude towards us in general have put is into a very painful position. I absolutely must move to my university's city so that I can get my eduction if I want to be able to support my girlfriend, and she absolutely must stick through high school no matter what happens either (our rules we decided on at the beginning, not her parent's) which means we'd be stuck without seeing eachother more than a few times a year for the next three years.
Oh, and did I mention that in all my time spent here, including dates and moving in between rooms in the house, we are constantly supervised by either her grandmother, her parents, or her much younger brothers who are rewarded for trying to get her in trouble, whether they are making it up or not. Not a moment goes by that our throats aren't jumped down for being to close or hugging to tightly or kissing in the wrong way. (This gets old fast, but we make sure to remain civil and optimistic as we can).
Hence any time I would have with her those sparse few days each year would be continuosly invaded upon by unwanted disaprovers, while the rest of the time we would be unable to contact through anything other than facebook (which is also heavily monitored).
We love each other to pieces, and obviously while our relationship would survive that for 3 years, it would be excruciating. Our other option is to basically fight back. In florida here, a minor is emancipated through marriage for which a license may be obtained without parental consent only in the case that the minor is pregnant. We've spent a lot of time talking about how this would affect her relationships and her support system, and we've decided on this being the best course of action. Because of work study and the multitude of grant I'm recieving for my education, obtaining rent and vehicular transport is not an issue. Due to food stamps and the rest of the government help for low income families, food will be provided (and help me break her picky eating habits
). Whether she will want to enroll in a local high school or opt for a special program to avoid the discrimnation she'll recieve for being pregnant is still yet to be seen.
The reason I am posting my story here is because I honestly just need some people to talk about it with. The love of my life is doing for me what I did for her 9 months ago and literally giving up everything in her life, her comforts, her friends, everything, so that we can be together and so I cannot by any means show any kind of doubt or worry that things might not work out as well. We'll survive, and get through school, but the weight of being responsible for the life of my dearly beloved and our soon to be child in such a difficult situation makes sleep hard some nights. And this is why I must not mention my worry to her, because she has more than enough to worry about right now, and she needs me to be the person she looks to that reaffirms her confidence, that crutch that will keep her walking through the times ahead.
Thanks to all of you who actually took the time to read this. I look forward to our conversations. I will gladly provide more details if asked, and appreciate whatever helpful advice you may have.