My wedding dayNext month I’ll celebrate my tenth wedding anniversary. I’m 29. Yup, I was a teenage bride, and before you ask, no, I was not knocked up. It’s a cultural anomaly to get married so young these days, forgoing the wild ‘discover yourself at the end of a beer bong while wearing a wet T-shirt to show off your still perky breasts’ years, but it’s a decision I’ve never regretted.
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There’s an article out in the Huffington Post by Jennifer Nagy highlighting her failed marriage and the failed marriages of her friends as the basis for raising the legal age for entering matrimony to 25. She writes:
People under the age of 25 are still discovering themselves; they are figuring out what is most important in their lives. They are discovering the joys (and heartache) of being in a relationship, and then the partying that often characterizes life between relationships.
24-year-old Steven Crowder (who’s marrying his lovely-on-the-inside-and-out fiancée in August, by the way) hit the nail on the head with his response to Nagy’s narcissistic ramblings:
Let me see. Today I am somebody who seeks to be the best believer, husband, father, businessman and man of integrity that I can be. Looking back, when I was fourteen, I aspired to… be the best believer, husband, father, businessman and man of integrity that I can be.
What is this obsession with discovering yourself and finding out what is important in life? Where are the core values of integrity, honesty, responsibility, and kindness? Ms. Nagy thinks it’s impossible to know at 21 what you’ll want when you’re 29, and in part, she’s right. When I was 21, I didn’t know how many kids I’d eventually want, where I’d be living, or exactly what I’d be doing professionally. But those are all peripheral circumstances, not who I am.
Probability of divorce has less to do with what age a person gets married than their reasons for getting married in the first place. Ms. Nagy says that she got married after dating her boyfriend for five years because it was just the thing to do. When the excitement of the wedding was over, she and her new husband had no idea where to go from there.
Getting married because it’s the thing to do is not a good reason to tie the knot. A wedding is a day; a marriage should be a lifetime. It doesn’t matter if you’re 18 or 85, understanding that marriage is ultimately about sharing your life with another person through all the highs and the lows is a much better place to start than because your relationship has reached a plateau and it seems like the next logical step.
Ms. Nagy doubts that people that get married young can make it long-term because puppy love doesn’t last forever. Of course it doesn’t. Over the years the butterflies melt into something different, something better, something more. When I think back to my wedding day almost ten years ago, I realize I barely knew my husband. But I knew what marriage was, and he and I made a commitment to love, honor, and cherish one another until death parts us.
I have grown up this past decade. I’ve done it with my best friend and life partner right by my side. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, let alone for a decade of self-discovery through partying.
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Comments 156
I am actually agreeing with you here. I also got married at 19 (my hubby was 21). 6 1/2 years later, 2 kids, several moves across the world and back, 3 deployments, and we are still very much in love and happy. I would say we are even more in love than we were the day we married. We are friends with other couples who married at the same time and are still going strong as well. And we know couples who got married young like us and have since divorced. It all depends on the couple, not how many years they have been on this earth.
I think the world just stopped spinning, lol, because this is actually something I agree with you on, having gotten married at 20 myself and getting ready to celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary in two weeks.
HomebirthFTW - You're early 20's should be about your growth, education and career not marriage.
If that's what works for some, then that's great. Who's to say you can't work on those AND be married though? I have done things "out of order" - marriage, kids, and now I'm starting my own business - and we have a comfortable happy life. We are finding ourselves, growing, and enjoying life...we just happen to have a partner to take the journey with. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Surprisingly, I actually agree with you! I was a 20 year old bride... we had been engaged and lived together for two years prior. There was no pressing reason for us to get married, except that we wanted to take that plunge. There were plenty of naysayers around, but 14 years later we are still married... our marriage has outlasted several friends and relatives who got married much older than we did. To think you are done 'changing' at a certain age is silly- we change all our lives. I'm certainly not the person at 34 that I was at 20. And he's certainly not the same person at 36 that he was at 22. But we've respected one another's growth, we've made sure to stay connected, and we've worked hard at staying together, even during difficult times. Our marriage isn't always easy, but it very real, and our commitment to one another is as strong as it was when we tied the knot over a decade ago.
I got married when I was 18 and my husband was 20. It's been fourteen years and we couldn't be happier. Sometimes I think that when someone blames a failed marriage on their age it's because it's easier then admitting that they failed at something.
I finally agree with you Jenny!