High school sweethearts might seem like a thing of the past in today’s society. Yet some couples remain who have managed to withstand the test of time within high school and into college, and some have even lasted to the altar.

In reality, only four percent of high school couples do last until marriage, according to several question and answer websites, including http://www.kgbanswers.com. This small chance, however, does not stop couples from trying to make their relationship work for as long as possible, whether they end up married or not.

Seniors Melissa Molnar and Alex Morgan reached their year and a half anniversary on November 5. Molnar said there are several reasons she and Morgan have stayed together as long as they have, but she believes the most important one for them has been their attitude towards disagreements.

“When we get into arguments, we just come to resolutions quickly, we move on. A lot of times in relationships [people] dwell on the negative and all the bad things, which usually is the downfall of the relationship,” Molnar said. “We focus on the positive.”

Molnar said she and Morgan do plan on lasting through the transition to college even though they will not see each other as much. She would advise other high school couples who want to stay together to make sure they love each other for who they are, and understand no one is perfect.

“I think you kind of just have to accept the fact that nobody is going to be perfect. You can’t expect them to be this super human being and be perfect, everyone makes mistakes and people learn from the mistakes that they’ve made,” Molnar said.

Molnar and Morgan’s plans to stay together through college are not impossible –Caryn Ditsch and Alex Hartmann, ’09 graduates, are both in their sophomore year of college now, and are approaching their five-year anniversary. Ditsch said several factors influenced their ability to stay together, one of which was the people around them.

“We were part of a really good youth group, so we had a lot of older leaders and mentors to kind of steer us in the right direction, [telling us] to make careful thoughts and not do anything we would regret,” Ditsch said.

While having a strong support group is very important, even more important to preserving a relationship, Ditsch said, is what goes on between the two people in the relationship. Ditsch said communication, understanding, and finding herself were all very important aspects in her relationship with Hartmann.

“If you’re with somebody, you kind of lose your identity in them a lot of the time, and it took us awhile to kind of understand that. It’s really important to push each other to find yourselves. Your relationship is part of your life, it is not your life,” Ditsch said.

To all current high school couples, Ditsch gives the advice to be respectful of each other, invest time and effort in the relationship, and to not allow the opinions of others to get in the way of how long the relationship lasts.

“You can’t let people tell you what your relationship is about because it doesn’t matter what everybody else thinks, it matters what you two think because you’re the two in the relationship,” Ditsch said. “A lot of [relationships] don’t last, but some of them do last, so it is what you make it.”

While Ditsch and Hartmann’s relationship survived the jump to college, they have yet to face the ultimate test of a couple’s commitment: the ‘I do’s.’ And though marriage may seem to be far off to high school students, there are still high school couples in today’s society that end up tying the knot, such as junior Ryan Buzzelli’s parents.

Cindy Buzzelli and her husband Jeff began dating in high school 26 years ago and have now been married for 21 years. She said one of the most important aspects of maintaining their relationship was an understanding that they may not end up married.

“We didn’t always plan to get married right away, we knew our education had to come first, and we kind of just took it one year at a time,” Cindy Buzzelli said.

Buzzelli also agrees with Distch’s idea about making sure neither half of a couple becomes glued to the other and loses part of their own personality.

“We went to different schools after high school and he had his friends, I had mine. We didn’t have to spend every waking moment together, he had his own social life and I had mine,” Buzzelli said.

For current high school couples, Buzzelli advises they keep in mind the same things she and her husband did: respect and taking life one step at a time.

“Don’t plan on getting married, you never know what life’s going to throw your way,” Buzzelli said. “I would just take it one year at a time, [remember] education comes first, and respect each other.”