Three couples shared their love stories Thursday as part of Black Love Week.
Hosted by the Legion of Black Collegians, “Redefining Love” featured a panel that talked about the couples’ relationship issues, spirituality, friendship and decisions to get married.
All of the couples dated during their time at MU. Michael and Julie Middleton dated throughout their college careers 44 years ago.
“We weren’t really in a hurry, but we were in a very committed relationship,” Michael Middleton said.
The other couples, Brittany Bennett and Darnell Cage, and Miranda Wall and Aaron Dixon are still attending MU and have dated for the majority of their college careers. Both couples said while dating and getting engaged in college had its ups and downs, it was the right decision for them.
“You get to the point where you feel like, I’m not dating to be dating,” Dixon said. “I’m with the person because I genuinely want to spend the rest of my life with them. You get to the point where the relationship has matured in stability to where you feel like it’s time go ahead and get married. There’s no reason not to.”
Bennett said she and Cage faced challenges in getting engaged before graduation.
“For us in college, it’s actually, I feel like a lot of indicators say not to get married right now,” she said. “Especially, like, that was my parents’ reaction as well, (they said) you guys should graduate, you guys should work, establish yourselves and do all these things from an economic standpoint. So for society, we’re not the norm being engaged at this point.”
The Middletons said they didn’t get married in college because that wasn’t the standard 40 years ago either.
“(In college) I loved her, and I think she loved me,” Michael Middleton said. “We didn’t get married in school, I think, largely because at that time the standard was to wait until you graduate. (The idea was) you’re only complicating your life with a marriage and kids while you’re trying to further your education.”
Facing the hardships of marriage, the couples discussed the importance of building a relationship from a friendship. The Middletons said it’s important for a couple to have a friendship to fall back on.
“I think of a marriage as sort of a friendship on steroids,” Julie Middleton said.
On making the transition from single to married or engaged life, none of the couples said they experienced much of a difference. The real challenge was staying in a committed relationship through college, they said.
“I went back and forth with, should I live the single life during college?” Bennett said. “Should I be doing this or that? That’s been kind of difficult, figuring out what should I do, what shouldn’t I do.”
Julie Middleton said she and Michael broke up twice during college, but the separations never lasted. Bennett agreed, saying it was never a difficult decision to stay with Cage.
While issues will arise, having faith in a relationship will pull a couple through, Julie Middleton said.
“For us, (we dealt with struggles by) just putting love at the center of our relationship and knowing that we are a couple — we are a unit,” she said. “Anything that happens, we know that we can work it out.”