What is the problem with getting married young?

Parent Cafe
1

Lately I have been hearing a lot regarding this topic (probably due to my recent engagement), and was hoping to hear an outsider’s perspective. My fiance and I are 18 and 19, respectively, and are both undergraduate students. We are both pursuing degrees in engineering, which will more than likely lead to lucrative careers and financial stability for the both of us in years to come. He is graduating next year, and has had internships at some of the nation’s leading nuclear power corporations, both of which have expressed their interest in employing him after he completes his BSE. I am in a 5 year sequential BSE/MSE program, so I will have my BSE in 2 years and MSE in 3. I also currently work in a research lab that has offered me the opportunity to return for the rest of my enrollment here at the university. We’ve known each other since my freshman year of high school, and ended up attending the same university. We attend the number 1 public university in the U.S., UofM, so it is hard to make the case that I “followed” him here. The acceptance rate for my graduating class was 25% of over 40,000 applicants. Both of us have worked hard to get where we are today, and we continue to work hard toward our future- that future just happens to be together. We have accommodated and compromised during the summers, which is when his internships take place. The first summer he worked out of state, and it was difficult for us to get through it. We evaluated some of our other options (me taking classes/finding a research position near him, him working for a company close to school), and compromised accordingly to find a scenario works best for both of us, short term and long term; he has found a position at a company he can work for both during the summer as an intern and as a full-time employee while I am still in school.

I believe the essential aspect to any relationship is compromise, which, through several different scenarios, my fiance and I have been fully capable of doing. I am fully aware of the presence of life’s adversities and have found someone who I can tackle them with. For those of you who argue young couples are simply not mature enough, I am asking, why not? What exactly constitutes as “mature”? From my perspective, my fiance and I are highly driven people with reasonable expectations for the future. We have agreed to officially be wed following my graduation, mainly due to the fact that my education is nearly paid for in full by financial aid grants. We see no problem in waiting to make a commitment to one another solely because of our age. Age is not a direct measurement of one’s experiences in life, and as successful as we are in both our relationship and careers, I can assure you that we have had our fair share of experiences to get us to where we are now. Immature people tend to lag, not persevere and excel.

2

Before this even gets started, let’s hold off on the snarky comments and tone.

3

There is nothing wrong with your plan. You are patiently waiting until you graduate to get married.

Good luck to you.

4

OP, you strike me as being very mature for someone so young.
Most 19-20 yr olds are not ready for that kind of committment.
Best wishes.

5

I really believe it depends on the people . . . the odds of success go up (I think) when you’re 25 and older. But ultimately it still comes down to the two people involved.

What is the rush? Especially if you are waiting “to officially be wed” after your graduation? Are you saying you will do some sort of unofficial religious ceremony?

6

My son and his fiancé met probably the first week of school 3 1/2 years ago. They’ve been dating for 1 1/2 years. They will both graduate in June, marry soon afterwards, and move to the city where they will both be working. (She’s accepted a position there; he’s interviewing) They will be 22. I’m thrilled, and very excited for them.

Not sure what your question is, but I don’t have a problem with young people getting married if they have gone through pre-marital counseling so as to preemptively deal with problems and issues.

7

@SouthFloridaMom9 No, I did not intend to give the indication that we will marry by any means before my graduation. I guess the word “officially” wasn’t really necessary there. The question I’m asking is, “why wait?”. We have already taken the time to evaluate our feelings for one another. As I stated, the only reasons we are waiting is 1. my financial aid and 2. we need a steady source of income before we can finance a wedding of any kind at which our friends and family can be there for

8

I do think there are more people ready to be married at 19/20 than people give them credit for. I was engaged and ready to be married at that age to my high school sweetheart. We decided to wait until after I graduated and lo and behold, we didn’t end up making it despite being together for 5 years. Ended up meeting the person that I did end up marrying at my undergrad and we wed after I graduated with my master’s.

I am a GSI at U of M and have had young, married students before. I don’t notice anything different about them from other students and you certainly wouldn’t be the only one.

I will give you this warning though: planning a wedding while you’re in school is a PAIN. It just is. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

9

Wait, so testing for clarification: you’ll be around 22ish before you marry? That’s not really that young.

Financial aid is definitely something to think about, as is potential insurance issues.

10

I am going to say that you and your fiancé will likely change quite a bit in the next 10 years. Don’t rush – if you are right for each other, he will still be by your side in 5 or 7 years anyway. I don’t think an 18 year old really has a concept of what they are committing to in marriage. Thinking now of one of D1’s HS friends. First of her friends to marry (right after college), and had a baby a few months ago. She is, honestly, miserable. She was in such a hurry to get married and start a family – she had it all planned, and now is wondering what she has done. Your odds of success go way up if you wait to tie the knot until you have done some more growing up. By all means, continue to date and have an exclusive relationship with him if you both want that. But don’t be in a rush – enjoy the now.

11

FallenChemist, Do you really hold the posters here in such low regard?

Candyschart, I got married two weeks after my 20th birthday. We will have our 30th anniversary next week. So it can be done and done happily.

May I presume to offer you some thoughts as a person who did what you are proposing and never regretted it?

First and In my opinion, most important, always remember that marriage is cyclical. There will be times when you will want to put a pillow over your husband’s face and there will be times you love him madly. Both are normal and both are temporary. Be patient through the bad stuff because it will pass.

But the flip side is that the happy will pass, as well, so don’t forget to experience and appreciate the good things.

Next, I think young marriage can be fine, but I think that parenthood by people who aren’t financially, professionally, maritally and even residentially stable is a mistake. If you marry young, you will need to get those other things in place while married (which can be wonderful to do together), so I think it’s good to put distance in time between young marriage and parenthood. Obviously, it’s different for everyone.

Finally, I think that if you always affirmatively tell yourself that the life you want includes marriage to this person, you will always act accordingly.

Good luck and congratulations on your engagement!

12

@romanigypsyeyes As of now, we are both on track to graduate a year early, so we will be 21 and 22 respectively. But, of course that is subject to change. We plan to wed post graduation regardless of how long it takes me to graduate just due to financial concerns. I don’t think its terribly young either, but most people are shocked when they here an 18 year old is engaged. Probably because they assume a short engagement and a wedding immediately to follow.
Just out of curiosity, what were the circumstances of your relationship that didn’t work out? Was it long distance or anything particularly hard to cope with, or just a realization you came to at some point?

13

@candyschart we began dating when I was 15, he was 16. Engaged at 18/19. By the time we were 20/21, we just realized that we were in different points in life. We weren’t long distance and there wasn’t anything particularly “wrong” but we realized we were just together because it was comfortable. The split was amicable and I immediately began dating someone who made me much, much happier. We became engaged senior year of college and married at 24 (this past summer). Marriage right after graduating would have been possible for financial reasons.

I think I could’ve married my ex and been OK with it but I think a part of me knew that it would have been settling.

OTOH, my partner’s parents have been married for nearly 30 years and they married as undergrads so it can certainly work.

14

I don’t think people are shocked because they assume a short engagement. I think many older people think about themselves at 18 and who they might have chosen to marry, and shudder. Not just because of the other person (although sometimes, I am sure), but because of how different they are as people many years later. The early 20s are a very formative period. Your first experience of living on your own, being completely responsible financially for yourself, dealing with all the housing and insurance and voting and numerous other types of grown up tasks, and figuring out if the career you trained for is really your cup of tea. I personally don’t think most human beings know themselves as people very well until later in their 20s – and given that, I don’t know how for sure you can know another person who is still in their formative period to know if they will be a good mate in the long run. Yes, some people get lucky and it works out. But I think, just in all other aspects of life, luck favors the prepared in marriage, and those who play the odds. You are betting against the odds, and probably for no particularly good reason other than that you like things settled. Having a plan makes you feel safer. But in reality, it isn’t safer in the long run. Take your time and grow with your partner for a while before committing. If you don’t get engaged now and get married at 21 or 22, are you worried you will break up? Because I just can’t see why you need to put the "engagement’ stamp on thing now.

15

@zoosermom, fallenchemist already deleted one snarky post - that’s why he posted the warning.

16

@candyschart, I can’t presume to understand your situation, but my story might be useful to you. H and I started dating at 18, married at 25, first child at 31, second at 34. We were very deliberate and thoughtful about every step. We lived in different cities for three years while he got a head start on grad school and figured that if we could survive through that it meant we should be together. We’ve been married over 25 years now and he is very unhappy, which, of course, makes me very unhappy. Basically, he thinks I haven’t lived up to expectations. I bailed on my PhD to follow his career, we had two kids. We both agreed it made sense for me to stay home with them for “awhile,” but he can’t forgive me for switching my focus from him and a career to our kids. I was surprised by it myself. I work full time now at a good solid meaningful job, but not anything like I could have done. I read everything I can get my hands on about parenting and relationships and balancing life and careers. He does not. I feel like I have a realistic sense of what makes a marriage. As @zoosermom says, marriage is cyclical. I think I have, and have had, the maturity to realize that and to roll with it. H has never been that sort of person, or had that sort of internal perspective, and if I had had more experience with different men when I got married, I might have realized that. You and your guy may be different, but I would strongly counsel my kids against marrying the only person they have ever seriously dated (or slept with, or lived with) unless they had strong, shared religious reasons to do so. This is just my experience of course, many people had different experiences. Please do have some pre-marital counseling (of course, H and I went through ours with flying colors–you just don’t know what you don’t know.) Good luck! I mean that sincerely!

17

If people have reservations about your marriage despite your obvious maturity (and I assume, the similar maturity of your fiance), it’s probably because we recognize that the late teens and early 20s are a time of great change for most people.

So the person who seemed like an excellent partner when you were 18 may not seem so perfect when you’re 22 – not because there’s anything wrong with him or you but because both of you have changed a lot during those four years.

People don’t change as much during similar time periods later in life – say, between 26 and 30.

18

I am another person who has no problem with getting married young. First a little background so you know from where I am coming. I met my husband freshman year of college. He was a sophomore. We became best friends and dated exclusively for 5 years before we got married. We are happily married with 2 children in college.

Okay, with that out of the way, you posted on a message board asking for feedback. I will try to approach this as if you were my daughter.

First of all, I get your strong feelings and emotional commitment to your boyfriend. However, I would question why you both feel the need to declare yourselves as “engaged”. It is uncommon for people of your age and limited life experience to fully understand what is required to make a marriage work. Perhaps you are mature beyond your years. But in my opinion, if you are both secure in your relationship, being “engaged” is unnecessary.

Now something from your original post jumped out at me.

If you were my daughter I would be concerned that you may have an unhealthy dependency on each other. Part of growing up and something parents want for their children is self actualization. Yes, a committed relationship requires compromise, but a healthy relationship will thrive when both people can fulfill their potential. Making personal sacrifices, like restricting one’s internship opportunities, to keep the another person happy will likely lead to resentment later on in the relationship. See, although you both want to be close to each other during the summers, it might be healthier to gain a sense of independence and self confidence outside the relationship. Delaying personal gratification is “mature”…especially if we’re talking about a relatively short (10 week?) internship. Encouraging yourself and your partner to grow independently is mature. And btw, independently does not have to mean apart. That is mature.

I’ll share again. One of the best things my husband and I did, without consciously knowing it at the time, was to work on ourselves outside of the relationship. How did we do it? He graduated the year before I did and went straight for his 2 yr graduate degree in another state. We survived the time apart with phone calls and visits and a common long-term vision. He was busy. I was busy. We saw each other about one weekend a month. It was difficult, (the first year we were a 6 hr drive apart, the second year it was 4), but it definitely made us stronger. When he finished his masters and I had completed my first year of teaching that was when we chose to find work in the same city and begin to put our relationship first. 23/24 is different from 18/19. We had shown our family and friends that we were trying to be the best we could be and were now ready to be together. Is it necessary to do things for ‘family and friends’? No. But in hindsight the love and support of our family over the years really strengthens what we have together.

Lastly, the time apart my senior year and first year of full-time employment, really helped us when my husband became a consultant a couple of years after getting his MBA. We knew “we” would be okay with his “leave on Sunday, return on Thursday” consulting grind. We chose to make that sacrifice because of the amount of money we could save before we started our family. Then when we decided to start our family he opted out of consulting and went for a corporate job. Fortunately, it really worked for us.

I wish you well!

19

I think it is easier to accumulate wealth by marrying late, and for that reason alone you should do so. I found it much easier to work when I was single, because I could just go wherever I wanted whenever I wanted. It’s not possible when you are married, and it will cut into your income.

I come from a family of somewhat late marriers and/or am descended from younger children. I didn’t get married until I was 36. My father didn’t get married until he was 27 and didn’t have his first child until he was 33. It’s not at all uncommon to see photos in community newspapers of five generations in a single photo, with the youngest being just a baby. Occasionally you will see a six-generation photo, which obviously means that everyone in the photo had kids before they were 20. If such a photo had somehow been made of my paternal line when I was a baby, the oldest relative would be one who was born in 1754. You will have a far better chance of generating and preserving wealth by delaying marriage.

With all of these things said, if the OP is in love, by all means get married. But it is by no means the best way to plan things. People shouldn’t get married before their 25th birthday, IMHO, but if love gets in the way, it just gets in the way.

20

Huh, that’s interesting.
To each there own but I haven’t found marriage (or the cohabitation that we did for years before that) in any way to hinder me from going wherever I want whenever I want. In fact, it’s been extremely helpful because I have a built in “dog sitter” and “house sitter.”

We have also found it way cheaper to maintain one household instead of two :wink: