The only one in your friend group "moving too fast"

My friends also said wow you are a real adult once I moved out lol. I was very ready to leave my moms house. We still have a very good relationship with our parents.

I've always been that one friend in my group that's like that aha.

i graduated a year earlier than everyone and that already set the stage. i got my masters before everyone. i got married before everyone, bought a house before everyone. they knew it wasn't because i moved fast but that's just how my life progressed.

i am definitely that person my friends tell me that they come to for "real world adult experience advice" aha

Everyone's home life is completely different. What you think is healthy could in fact be incredibly unhealthy. I moved out of my house at 16 because of the relationship I had with my father. I've lived completely on my own since I was 18, and left my home state and moved 1500 miles away and have been self-supported since.

It doesn't matter that your job right now is a "fast food" job, it's a job. And many Fast Food companies offer longevity and management courses.

There comes a time in life when you do what you have to do, not always what you want to do. I wouldn't feel bad because your friends are jealous or envious of your current living situation. It sounds like you and your FH are working towards a life together. And that is admirable. My friends were always amazed that I actually left home and survived when I did.

Be proud of your accomplishments, you don't have to have all the answers to your life / path at twenty something. Sometimes it takes a few years. For me, many many years.

Don't feel guilty!! you should be proud of where you are!! it takes maturity and responsibility to focus and graduate, to keep a job and pay bills, and cook food, or pay for food out... yes that is part of adulting along with getting married.

everyone's situation is different ....but it seems like the one friend isn't ready to grow up yet.. "Being that she still lived with her parents, and hasn't had the drive to go back to school or find a job." ... you have drive... she doesn't.

I saved up and moved out of my parents house when i was 29, i had been struggling to get a job that would pay bills when i DID move out... i am a high school grad, but worked ever since high school, never college, there are times i have to be careful of what i spend where, but i am doing well. it comes down to what you want out of the life you make.... you want a husband and a place of your own, you want to be mature, nothing wrong with that.... your friends want the college life yet, no worries.... that's where they are though. lol... but BE PROUD of where you are!

My husband and I are 27 and 24 respectively, we were also the first to move out and get married out of our group of friends. I do feel a bit more mature than some people my age, but there's also people my age who have kids and own homes - I'm not there yet. Everyone's on their own path. It's good that you don't feel "above" them, or anymore of an adult. I think you're just not putting yourself on a pedestal, like they seem to be putting you on. Which is totally fine! I don't think they're undermining what they have/haven't done, they're just acknowledging what you've done and seem proud of you, which is what a good friend does!

View Quoted Comment

This exactly, life will mature you at different times. You will decide what is right for you and when. Be proud of what you have done and who you have become.

Three months after graduating high school my high school sweetheart and I moved In together. We dated 3 years and didn’t even think twice about it. It was definitely a struggle, especially trying to navigate college as well. We’ve been together 10 years, getting married in 2 months, moved all over the state, own dogs, bought cars together, joint bank accounts, and looking for our first house. We are both 25 but this is the normal among our friend group. We just moved back to our hometown a few months ago and are staying in our parents guest house until we find the right home for us. I feel incredibly embarrassed living with my parents again at my age. My family drives me insane but we are trying to save up. It took my fiancé over a year to find a job after graduation. COVID helped drag it out of course. So many applications and interviews.

OP I can relate to this SO much! I am 23 and finished university last year and now work full time as a lawyer. My fiancée and I have been together 5+ years and at the end of last year we got engaged and moved out shortly thereafter (I cried for months, lol I have such a great relationship with my family that I never wanted to leave the family home!). My friends are exactly the same – they all still live at home, work casually or attend university, and have essentially classified me as a ‘suburban mother of 3’ because of how grown up and domesticated I am compared to them and how much I have my life together.

I think it is almost unavoidable to compare our lives to that of others and I think your friends have a lot of admiration of you and are proud that you’ve made that transition to ‘real adulthood’ as you yourself put it. Life is not planned out for anyone and so everyone will have different phases at which they do this and that, including establish a career and move out of the family home, and your friends are in different circumstances to you and perhaps on a different timeline. If you feel that they are undermining their own value, I am sure there will be no harm in reassuring them that they have their own achievements and will too one day move out of home and do X, Y, Z.

If you ever need someone to talk to (including ranting about the difficulties of navigating ‘real adulthood’ haha!) who is in the same boat, feel free to reach out 😊

Everyone moves at a different pace, because everyone is different.

I had to move out of my parents' house early, because my career needed me to be elsewhere. (I started renting rooms at 20, during college breaks). On the flip side, DH didn't move out of his parents' place until he was 25, because he grew up in NYC, and the sheer cost of moving out remains ridiculous. (And we'd been dating over 2 years by then.)

It's totally ok to grow at a different rate than your friends, and even to outgrow/grow away from them (...don't get me started on a lot of my college friends).

You do what is right for you, and don't let your friends tell you what is appropriate.

I just turned 25. For me, there was no day or moment when I "decided" to "move out". I went far away to college - almost 1,000 miles - and lived on campus, then did a year of grad school in an off-campus apartment. At that point, I found a job about an hour away from school and moved into a "grown up apartment" by myself. I had just turned 22. I visited home that summer and it was emotional at points because I didn't know if I would ever move home again. Now my fiance and I live about a half hour away from my family/my hometown in New England. We will do this for a few years and eventually move back to the South (where we met in college). I have my complaints about living up here but I have no doubt it will be very emotional to leave when we finally do.

As for my/our friends.......having lived in two distinct regional cultures, I find that it varies. Among my friends in the South who are my age, almost none of them with their parents (some alone, some with roommates), a few of them are married (the rest are 100% single), and most of them have careers. Among people I tangentially know (friends of friends), many are married, some with kids (24-26 age range).

Among people I know in New England, almost all live with their parents, some are still in school, others are working in jobs but not really careers, a few have steady jobs. A few acquaintances have started getting engaged to their high school sweethearts recently (26-29 age range). We are helping a friend of ours move out next weekend, into an apartment by himself.

As for me, as I said I'm 25, engaged at 23, live with FH, have a career. I think some people definitely feel like I have it together more than they do, though I don't always feel like an adult, tbh.

OMG this story was meant for me to find today!

My now fiance and I met in high school PE class when I had just moved across the country to Texas from Idaho. I was a sophomore, him a junior. We became best friends and then eventually started dating at the end of that school year. A very VERY long story short, my parents have always hated him and we spent almost 2 years long distance. I went to college for a semester but due to my life kinda crashing down on me I packed up my stuff and moved to texas in with him and his parents right before Christmas 2018. I had only $300 in my pocket and had 4 suitcases packed as full as I could with necessities with the rest of my stuff getting shipped by fedEx. Somehow I found myself a job and we got ourselves a car and finally an apartment where we have been happily living for the last 2 years despite the major struggles we've faced. We got engaged the day after my 19th birthday in 2019, and have 99 days to go until we are Mr. and Mrs! Our friends are in the same boat as yours, still in college and living in dorms or with parents, and they have said similar things about us. We joke that we are the "old married couple" who parents the other friends out of their bad decisions lmao. We are also getting married quite young (I'm 20, he'll be 22 in a couple weeks) I don't think you friend was trying to make you feel bad, she probably is just super impressed and respects you guys for being able to be on your own! You DEFINITELY shouldn't feel bad about your accomplishments!

Look, your life is what it is. It only matters that you are happy. If you and your FH feel the time is right to get married, then that's between you and him. You are not responsible for your friends, no more than they are responsible for you. If your life path lead you to move out of your parents house and in with your FH, then that's YOUR path. If your friends are still living at home and/or still in school or whatever...that's THEIR path. There is no law that says everyone in the same peer group has to move at the same pace. There is also no law that says the peer group you have today, will be the peer group you have tomorrow. You cannot compare your life to others' -- that can never lead to anything good. Maybe your friends are scared to "grow up" or may their circumstances are just...different. But whatever the case is, if YOU are happy with where your life is, then so be it. If your friends are not happy with their lives, it's up to them to make the necessary changes to GET happy. You are NOT responsible if they feel some type of way about how your life is. Oh...and you did NOT "run away from home". Leaving your parents home is just a logical progression of growing up. It's the next step. Now, it's time to make your life, your home, your career and your way in this world. As the parent of an adult child (who is actually older than you, LOL), that's what parents want for their children -- to grow and mature and lead a good life. So, go...do...be.

I have an amazing relationship with both my parents (my mom & stepdad, and my dad) and I can't imagine living with them. I'd feel like I was a child again and dependent on them, when I'm a full grown adult able to make my own money and depend on myself. I moved out when I went to college when I was 18, and haven't lived with them since. Same for my husband. It's pretty normal to become an adult once you get a full time job & want to get married, that you not live with your parents. I'm sure after awhile, your friends will mature & move on with their lives and become adults. I just wouldn't worry about it for now. We bought a house together when I was 24, but had lived together for 3 years prior (also on our own, just renting houses instead of owning). All our friends are pretty similar, and very few lived with their parents beyond the age of 21. I think if you are on your own financially and able to live independently, you're old enough to make the decision to be married as well.