I married my first wife when she was 18 and I was 20. We went through a lot of hardship. It should not have worked out: we were both poor, from broken homes, in an LDR from different worlds. She was the popular girl, I was a shy and awkward nerd. When we got married, we had only been in one another’s presence for a few weeks total. I went into the marriage not expecting a path or plan, as my parents were toxic which ended with my mother’s suicide, and my mother in law had been married 4 times before she became single for the last time. None of us had healthy marriages to draw from. At our wedding, her relatives even said, “I give it two years, tops.” We were desperately poor, and struggled most of our marriage with health and money issues.
But we made it work for 25 years. We’d still be married, but she passed away ten years ago. We became “foxhole buddies,” us against the world.
I swear some people go out of their way to judge others for the most ridiculous things. Maybe try asking yourself why you are not happy about people finding love without going through half a dozen shitty relationships.
Probably 75% of marriages like that don’t go well. OP is right.
That doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing though. Divorce doesn’t have to be traumatic, and it should be more normalized.
Wow, really? Sure is an expensive and necessarily painful thing to opt into or to normalize. I’d rather it be normalized to not get married in the first place.
I think a divorce is like $80 where I am, but if you have to go to court obvs it’s a lot more. I spent almost nothing on my wedding, granted it was just friends and was an elopement. Marriage has big tax advantages for some, and it’s the only way my spouse was getting health insurance to survive this godforsaken wasteland. It also guarantees that they get a slice of my income if the unforeseeable happens and we split so they can survive.
I think people should not see marriage as the end goal, but be pragmatic about its costs and benefits, which I think you are getting at too
It’s not that expensive, I did it for $400 amicably. We had a fun time while married and I don’t regret it. Why not just make it easier for people to do what they want and not punish young people for making decisions.
And yet it’s costed others (every day) thousands to millions of dollars
Putting arbitrary numbers on people to measure their matureness is weird to me.
There are 15 year old people who are wiser and more mature than a lot with 50.
You can’t know without knowing the person.
Well it’s not arbitrary is it. Any quantitative measure of maturity is definitely correlated with age.
Your “very mature” 15 year old is either an outlier, or an indictment on your ability to ascertain maturity.
Any quantitative measure of maturity is definitely correlated with age.
Is it? Do you have numbers on that?
The numbers are not arbitrary. They are used to measure how long a person has been alive, which is kind of statistically significant, and yes, largely correlates with maturity. I’m not 26 mature points, I’m 26 years old.
and yes, largely correlates with maturity
That’s where we disagree. You say that as if it were a proven fact. If you got studies on that, please report.
My point is, that at least from my experience there is a lot more to maturity than mere age. And you can’t really know if you just superficially look at someone and their age.
At what age are you supposed to know what you want for the rest of your life? You will never have an answer to that in any capacity, and not just in marriage. You evolve as a person, you’ll never have a fixed desire for your whole life. And that’s the great thing about marriage and relationships, they also evolve. And it’s about who you want to try doing that with
I got married at 22, (wife 21) and on the 17th of Feb we will celebrate our 32 year anniversary. Seems to have worked out ok for me.
Seems like 24 is an arbitrary number. Some folks consider themselves “ready” for marriage at 18, some at 40, and some never.
I think its very subjective and situational.
Imagine the following scenario: you meet someone in college, and when you graduate at 22 you don’t want to split up. They say sure, let’s live together, but we need to get engaged; if it doesn’t work out we can just break it off. After a year you realize your lives are much better together. You decide to get married but not to have kids until you’re 30. If it doesn’t work out you can divorce, but you sign a prenup and at least no kids would be involved.
If you both have clear and compatible career goals, that scenario saves you a lot of dating drama and gives you valuable support. I wouldn’t call someone in that scenario “weird.”
I think the main point here is people around those ages aren’t fully capable of making those kinds of decisions in the first place.
There’s a reason why most marriages end in divorce after all.
Get married before you have a clue. Get a clue after being married a couple years. Get a divorce because you realize you had no idea what you were doing.
This is 100% a data-driven fact. It can’t apply to everyone, but it’s a really great average.
Those who wait until after 25 have a 25% chance of not getting divorced.
The way you phrased it is not quite what the study says.
They’re not “25% likely of not divorcing” (which would mean there’s a 75% chance of divorce).
They’re “25% less likely of divorcing”
I married at 22 over 20 years ago did not regret a day… I think a happy marriage is just a lot of luck a lot of self reflection and effort. No matter the age it is not a self running maintenance free system
Luck is something I didn’t consider.
I met my wife in high-school, we married at 21/22, it’s going to be our 19th anniversary this year. So yeah, definitely got lucky, and I would discourage my kids from doing the same even though it worked great for us.
I doubt waiting makes people any luckier in that respect. In the end, it’s a gamble.
Two reasons to wait:
- people in their early 20s are more likely to change dramatically later, so definitely more of a gamble at that age
- because it’s a gamble, you should already be well prepared for life on your own before doing it; that gives you a solid fallback in case things don’t work out
I think overcomming obstacles growing as people together is an experience and bonding I would have never liked to miss. Going from a broke ass Teenager to now was a wild trip and my wife was there the whole time. She changed and I changed but we never changed apart because we communicated about our inner selves
But that’s where the gamble is. You changed together and it worked out. Others grow apart through no fault of their own and despite their desire to keep things working, they just don’t want the same things anymore. Your and my experience are the lucky ones.
No. Not just “no”, hard no. Part of our society’s problems stem from how people spend half (if not all) of their 20s partying. This is particularly an issue for us traditional men who want to marry earlier in adulthood but can’t find any high value women who aren’t feminists who have, let’s just say, “been around”. Furthermore, when you marry and have kids at an earlier place in your adult life, you get to spend more of your life with your children, see their successes, you get to witness your legacy unfold in real time.
That is what we need more of and I will not be convinced otherwise.
