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"Frances, you are quite impulsive": How Frances Abbott's parents reacted to her snap engagement.

When Frances Abbott and Sam Loch became engaged after just two weeks of dating, everyone was a little bit shocked.

We wondered how two people could know they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together after just two weeks. We also wondered what Abbott’s dad, former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, thought about the news.

Now Abbott, 26, has opened up to Stellar about her snap engagement.

Abbott met Loch in mid-October after a friend suggested they would get along. Two weeks later, Loch proposed while Abbott was putting frozen peas in her freezer.

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“Everyone’s like, ‘Wow, this is really fast,’” Abbott told Stellar. “But it feels so natural to me. His energy, it’s so grounding. When I am around him, I am like, ‘This is what it’s meant to be like.’ Life is short, and love is special, and sometimes you just need to follow your instincts.”

Tony Abbott had met Loch shortly before the couple got engaged and apparently he hit it off with his future son-in-law.

“I think meeting Tones can be quite intimidating for anyone, but that’s what I love about Sam,” Abbott said.

“He’s so grounded, and so settled in his own skin, it felt totally natural. There was no change in [Sam’s] voice, no sitting upright. Dad liked him. Dad likes everyone, but I think he was particularly — well, Dad is a rower. He was like, straight away, ‘Let’s talk about rowing.’”

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Of course, Tony and his wife Margaret were just as shocked as the rest of us when Abbott announced her engagement, but mostly they’re just happy that their middle daughter has found someone who makes her happy.

“Mum was like, ‘Frances, you are quite impulsive,’” Abbott said. “My family just want what’s best for me, as any family would with their daughter. They are cautious because of the time, but they know me.”

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For the most part Abbott gets along well with her conservative dad, but there’s one big issue they disagree on – same sex marriage.

“Dad was going to be a priest,” Abbott told Stellar. “It’s really against what he learnt about. Dad tells a story about when he was at primary school and he got the cane for holding hands with one of his male school friends. He would have been five. When that happens when you are a child, I get why you think this way.

“I’ve been raised to love everybody, to look for the best in everybody. Which is kind of why I don’t get [his view]. I will do the eye roll at Dad, like, ‘OK, whatever.’ I love him all the same.”

Abbott says she’s forging her own path – in her career and her political views.

“Politics is such a big thing in my family [but], to be honest, I find talking about it quite draining sometimes,” she said.

Abbott says she doesn’t want to make up her own mind about any topic until she’s explored all the options.

“I am creating my own ideas and forging my own path. I will continue to disagree with [my parents] on many things, I am sure, and that’s how they have raised me to be.”

You can read the full interview with Frances Abbott over on Stellar.

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