Me (22) and my partner (23) have been having the marriage talk lately. He’s my best friend. We live together for 2 years now and our relationship has moved immensely fast (because it all felt good). We have a shared bank account, treat our savings as shared, we invest together, we have pets together, we agree on future plans on financials & and (no) kids. He’s my person and it just feels like this is the way things are suppose to be. (And I’ve been through the taking steps because its logical and ignoring red flags in a previous relationship, never doing that again. I’m pretty damn critical about my happiness). Our relationship feels more serious than most 5 year relationships around us.
Looking at how we live together and are together, it feels like we’re already a married couple. We’ve been through things, seen each others worsts, and grew so much together and are every day. We litterally grew into adulthood together and look forward to keep growing.
But then of course there’s the stigma about getting married young and it ending in divorce. The main reason I see from the people who advocate against getting married young is “you are still getting to know yourself, who knows who you are when you’re 30” and I get that argument.
However, isn’t that the same case towards your 40’s and then towards your 50’s and 60’s and 70’s? My parents are going to be married for 30 years this year. They’ve had rough patches, as any marriage has through time (that’s life). I’ve seen them work through every single one of them and come out even more connected and happier together. If I look at who they are and what their relationship entails, they are totally different people now in their 50’s then who they were in their 40’s and their 30’s.
Isn’t the whole point of a (young) marriage to go through life together? To grow together and change together?
Anothee reason I see is “being in the honeymoon phase”. I know damn sure that we’re not in the honeymoon phase. We’ve been through some stuff together.
(Just to make it clear about naivety and stuff: we’re taking on our relationship so seriously from the start. Talking about wanting kids, dividing our financials, career intentions, & views on family, the world, religion, lifestyle. We litterally formed our life in the past years)
28 comments
It is true you change when you get older, we all do and it doesnt stop. I think the people that cause a ruckus over young marriages are those who had bad experiences themselves. There are tons of high school sweethearts and young married couples on this forum and the happy ones root you on. Life is all about experiences and sharing them, if it feels good and right to you then move forward with your partner! You clearly love eachother and like being around eachother, dont let others discourage you. You may have just found your forever person earlier in life, and that means more time with them!
Started dating my husband at 19, married at 24. 20 years later, we are still married.
You both will change. You both will grow. You both will not be the same people at 40 as you are now because life will hand you both a lot of stuff that you didn’t plan for. As long as you both are committed to growing together, constantly communicating, and being respectful towards one another, your marriage will last.
Don’t let others make you feel like you’re doing your life wrong with it feels so right and you know what you’re getting yourself into.
You will change and so will your partner but that doesn’t mean you won’t evolve together and still be the one that the other wants forever.
I was married at the age of 22, very young in some eyes. I’ve been married for over 14 years now and I’m not going anywhere. I went through my 20s still loving this man and I’m over halfway through my 30s still feeling the same.
If life changes in the future, you’ll deal with it then but don’t lose out on marriage now because of what others say you should do. Do you and what’s best for you!
Best of luck.
Spot on!! I have 3 kids all early 20’s and they think they are soooo in love. I mean one sleeps with a camera on so they can see each other sleep – WTF!!!
I try and tell them take it slow, don’t be so codependent…..urghhhh. I get young love, but take time to meet other people, build a career, travel – live life.
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No one but you knows what is right for you. If you both feel this strongly about your relationship, you should absolutely get married if that’s what you both want. Is anyone in your life advising against it or are you just frustrated with the general societal view of “marrying too young?”
I was 23 when I married my wife who was 21. We are 39 and 37 now, no issues.
The secret is that people will stick their nose in your business about whether you should or shouldn’t get married regardless of age.
Everyone is different. What isn’t up for debate is human biology. If you get married too late you may not be able to have children or at high risk of pregnancy complications. If you don’t want to get pregnant I guess the clock doesn’t matter.
It also depends on your views on sex. If you believe in life long monogomy and no sex before marriage you might end up supressing your sexuality too long
Absolute statements are usually dangerous when it comes to relationships.
Married at 22 and she followed me around in the military and onward to everything else after that retirement at 44. She could have filed divorce on me at any point but here she is and the subject never came up. My bar was always low and I’ve always counted just showing up as 99% of it. I’ve seen a lot of successful marriages and a lot of divorces too. The divorces sometimes had to do with age but most were not because of age.
My wife and I have been married 22 years, together at 21, married at 25. We have both changed in ways, but have we supported and respected the changes. We are not perfect, I am certainly not, but finding a stable relationship early and dealing with the rest of life together has been really ideal for us. We feel so lucky to be in such a long term, stable relationship. You two sound solid, follow your heart.
its not an”stigma”‘about marrying young,
its statistically proven that the older you are before you marry the more likely youll stay married. but thats just a stat. You have to consider how much of a risk that stat is for you and whether its better to wait or not. its never going to be certain, but also no need to rush.
You already hit on the key points, but your twenties will have A LOT of change compared to the subsequent decades. It’s your ‘figuring it all out’ years, which IMO are a lot easier to do when you are not legally tied to another person. Committed, absolutely! But marriage can be restrictive… Almost every decision is a “we” not “me”. That’s a hard thing to do when you are also making huge life decisions that should be just about you.
You may be one of the lucky couples that figures it all out together (and I sincerely hope you are). I am just a skeptic about anyone getting married before both parties are settled into the life they want, as separate people.
Started dating my wife when we were 22/21. We dated for 8 years before getting married, cohabitating for much of that. If we had gotten married earlier in the relationship we probably would be divorced today. I know that sounds counterintuitive but it worked for us. It lowered the stakes in the relationship which took a lot of pressure off of us during the inevitable periods of conflict. Instead of fighting to keep the marriage together we had the space to figure out our dynamic and what worked for us.
Once you get married you may be more willing to put up with things you previously wouldn’t just to keep the marriage together. If you have kids there will be even more incentive to do so. Take time to figure out your boundaries and needs before the relationship has reached the point that you will sacrifice them to save the relationship.
It sounds like your parents modeled some good behaviors and that you were observant. You have every chance of making it work if your husband is the same.
Determination to make it work mixed with kindness goes a long way.
I’m 20 and my husband is 22. We eloped in May and then had a little reception with close friends and family who supports our relationship. You do certainly change as you grow older but we both got married knowing that we will both grow together and we know we will go through rough patches now and then. It’s artificial to expect no problems at all in a marriage but it’s all about growing together in a partnership. It’s two people in a marriage and if it feels natural between you both then who’s to say that it shouldn’t happen? We both have talked about going into counseling if we ever get to the point where we come across a patch that seems hard to get over. If anything since we’ve been together we’ve already seen a lot of growth out of eachother. Even though we are happy we still try to find ways to make our marriage healthier and to prevent any sort of resentment towards eachother happening in the future as resentment is what breaks a couple
It’s your life, do what you want. There are pros and cons to everything. No one knows how life works, everyone has joys and sorrows. I don’t know anyone over 30 who is living the life they thought they would be when they were 18. It doesn’t matter what other people think, you’re the one living your life.
So, I got married at 25 and we’ve been married 20 years. He was 32. So there was a young marriage and an age gap! I had a pretty intense life before I got married. I wanted to be in one spot with my person. Of course I’ve changed- I hope I’m not the same person I was at 25! We’ve grown together, had adventures together, experienced life together.
What some people don’t seem to get is that travelling the world, dating loads of other people or being single isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. You can travel with your partner (my husband is the best person to travel with bar none.)- who wouldn’t want see the world with someone they love? Sex with randoms is overrated and gets old quickly.
Are there valid reasons for not getting married young? Absolutely. But maybe those aren’t your reasons. Best of luck with your life choices.
The thing is yes, you do change. The question is, can the two of your foster each other’s changes together? I married my husband when I turned 21… I’m 41 now and could not be happier! We went through all our bullshit together and came out if it together.
My husband & i have been together since age 21 & we got married recently 28/27. I will say this the things that i wanted from a man at 21 versus 28 is different. However, i still love my partner a lot and want to grow with him. I think it’s important to know that you both will change but it’s up to you to decide if you’ll stay & love your partner at their different stages and strive to grow together . Openly communicate and be honest with each other about how you feel. This is something we struggle with but we both are actively working on. Marriage is not easy (it’s fun but hey its not always rainbows) & you both gotta want to try on the good and bad days.
Different perspective than others here… dated my college girlfriend for 5 years and changed. Dated another woman for 4 years in my late 20s/early 30s and changed again. Now I’m early 40s and w my wife for 7 years/married 5. You can have long term meaningful relationships in your 20s without committing your life to them.
Everyone’s relationship is different, but I am so glad I met my spouse when I was 30. I wouldn’t be the partner I am today without all the relationships I had in my 20s. On the other hand, my parents met at 19, married at 23 and are in their 60s and still each other’s #1.
Knew this at a young age. Got married at 36. Best choice ever.
Most people change a lot more from 20 to 30 than 40 to 50.
The main reason behind most people’s argument to not marry “young” (which is also relative cause for some people that’s teens, others early 20s, others late 20s even) is that you would not be mature enough to consider, discuss and properly handle important subjects like finances, kids, etc.
However you two seem to have covered all the bases of important topics and basically already have merged your things (living together), your finances, savings, investments, have pets, etc…all the things which a lot of people delaying marriage are hesitant to do. You two by all accounts are basically already in a marriage just without the paper part of it.
If you two want to get married I would not delay getting married if I were you, just to satisfy others. You and your partner are the ones in your relationship, not those other people and only you two know all the details of your relationship and know when you’re ready.
And you’re totally right. People continually change. No matter at what age you get married, there are no guarantees it’ll be forever. The more prepared the two people are and the more they’re willing to commit to continually working on their relationship the better the chances. It will never be perfect, both people will always have faults and make mistakes, there will always be cycles of ups and downs….it’ll be the attitude and commitment with which the mistakes and hard times are dealt with that’ll make the difference, not your ages.
My husband and I got married when I was 25 and he was 23, after only 1 year of engagement, less than half a year of dating before that, and about a year of sort of knowing each other before that. We are now just over 6 years married and though we went through some very challenging times that really tested us, we have no intention of divorcing.
What’s important in any marriage is having continual effective communication, being honest and open (don’t let things fester, suffer in silence, or wait for the other to figure it out because s/he should’ve already), and do NOT let yourselves fall into a routine of growing apart. A lot of the time the mistake couples make when they get married is that they treat it like they reached the finish line in a race. In reality you just jumped over one hurdle in the middle of a long race and have to continue to push yourself forward in a long race. You can’t slow down or stop putting in the effort or you may not even finish, let alone come in first.
Keep making those efforts to show your love on a regular basis – don’t wait for only special occasions, those small gestures to show you care matter. Don’t let the big occasions slide either as the years add up – you don’t need to do big things necessarily, just something special enough to acknowledge them in a way your partner would appreciate (anniversaries, birthdays, etc.). Continue to express/say the things you appreciate in your partner, the things you love about them, the things you find attractive etc. Continue to make time for each other cause a week turns into a month, a month into a year, and a year into a decade very fast. It’s very easy to stop doing these things and not notice the drift apart until you’re on the opposite sides of world in your relationship.
Wish you and your partner all the best and a happy life together!
Some couples marry young and stay together forever, others date young – wait to get married and divorce in a hot minute. Other’s marry young and grow to resent each other. There is no one size fits all. I got a fair bit of stick getting engaged at 19 (you can imagine how much worse it got when we welcomed our first less than a year later!) I know one couple who waited over 7years, got married and he was out the door a month later, l know another who married at 18 and 20 years later are still clearly in complete and utter love with each other and then there is another who waited until their late 20s and 30 years later live like housemates rather than husband and wife.
That is to say, there is no ‘one size fits all’ There is no right or wrong way to go about relationships and marriage. You make the decision you want to make for the two of you. As long as you are both of legal age and not being cohered into the marriage then what other people think or say doesn’t matter.
And if it all goes tits up and you end in divorce then that’s what happens. You can’t spend your days on the ‘what ifs’ otherwise you’d never achieve anything!
I got married at 18.
I think the hardest part of that is I went from living with my parents too living with him after we got married. So while I am a strong independent person that could manage my own life without him, but emotionally I don’t know who I am without him. That’s probably the only thing I caution against when marrying really young.
I’m a believer people don’t change. People may grow up, they may have life experiences that cause them to think or behave differently, but people don’t change. And even then EVERYONE grows throughout their life. At least I hope so otherwise you are a pretty boring person.
This is one of the hard things about marriage, it takes effort to grow with your partner, instead of apart from them. But you can grow apart from someone at any age. I think what makes being young is not having life experience to build on and some immaturity. But as long as you have a strong healthy relationship, you can over come that.
You need to do what is right for the two of you. You don’t not get married because someone thinks you aren’t the ideal age (and btw the person saying that probably has been divorced a few good times at an older age).
We were 18 and 21 when we got married. We are 31 and 34 now.
We are still the same crazy ass kids we were in high school when we met. In fact most days you could make the argument we haven’t grown up one bit. But we are still the same people. Again just different thoughts and behaviors based on life experiences.
You are both going to change. The question is will the people you are 5 years later be compatible? Relationship wise it feels right do it. Just get a prenup just in case don’t invest together until after you’re married