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Do you think getting married young stunts you?
I know this topic can get heated on here but here's a question.
Do you think that the majority of those who get married really young (21 and younger) have their maturity stunted because they don't get that time to develop who they are as an individual and they have to tailor their maturity level and dreams to those of their spouses in order to stay synched with them?
What about adding a baby or two to the mix? Since they're forced to accept such responsibility so young do you think they're more prone to trying to hold on to their youth and acting immature and more drama prone?
Re: Do you think getting married young stunts you?
I feel as if really can...I have known a few different people who have gotten married young and they have a lot of trouble now. They haven't learned how to seperate being a child to being a spouse, in my experience.
I have known some people who have gotten married young and turn out fine but most I know say they wish they waited. I just feel as if you can never get being young and truely learning who you are and about yourself, back and once you let it pass you by its gone.
I'm not sure it necessarily stunts one's maturity, but marrying young can certainly limit one's options.
SIL and BIL got married at 21 and 23, respectively. SIL did finish undergrad (a condition her parents set to giving the marriage their blessing), but she never worked in her field. She odd-jobbed it for a couple of years, was planning on going back to grad school, got pregnant at 23, and that was it for both the continuing education and the career. BIL had also considered grad work, but they had a house they'd bought with plans to be DINKs for a while and they couldn't afford school and a mortgage and a baby.
I firmly believe if they'd waited two or three years to get married, they'd one or both have advanced degrees, they wouldn't have the financial problems they've dealt with, and they would have had a little more maturity and ability to handle some family wackiness on his side that's caused no end of stress in their lives. They would have gotten to do some of the things they said and say they want to do, like traveling.
They're not immature drama llamas, though, and they're in their early/mid-thirties.
I'm a youngin' and I don't know that I'd say it has stunted me. (I guess I'll be able to answer that better in about 15 years) I do know that I wish I had waited. I have 2 bio children and 1 SD and some days it is rough when you hear about your friends going out and having a good time but I wouldn't trade them for the world.
I didn't give up on school or my dreams just because I'm married and have children, I have learned some serious multi-tasking skills and am working toward my dreams and almost have my degree. For some people it really is hard to seperate the childish behaviors from your life just because you're married.
I don't want to sound beebee but I've been told a lot that I'm mature for my age but life wasn't always that kind and humbled me a lot. I'm pretty old school about certain values which I think helps. My H is also 7 years older than me so I don't have to deal with any beebee-ness from him.
I wish I had waited and anyone who was married young who says they never had the feeling is lying.
My first marriage was at 20 and I was too young. The marriage definately limited me and in retrospect I should have left much sooner. It wasn't until we seperated, and eventually divorced, that I finished college, started a serious career and learned who I was. He was a poor choice, which had a lot to do with it, but part of it was being a wife and mother. That being said, I do not regret anything in my past. I like who I am and all my trials and tribulations and successes and failures made who I am. In most cases I think having much more responsibility at a young age matures you rather than the opposite.
I think that getting married, at any age, changes your priorities and focus. Married people no longer have the ability to think of themselves first, to change careers just because, to spend their money as they want without considering another persons input, to have the bed all to themselves, to let the dishes pile up for a week if they want, etc. I love being married, and I don't mind having to consider my H in all the aforementioned aspects, and many more.
However, I think that your early 20s are a rare time in that there are generally speaking so many opportunities available. In my early 20s I randomly decided to go to graduate school. I accepted a great (sounding) job right when I finished, and when it didn't end up being as great as it sounded I went on a national job search and found another job. I moved to WI and then 16 months later to Chicago. These decisions were all made totally independently based only on what I wanted.
Today I'm married. My H is a full time PhD student who also has a job. We have new financial goals, and plans of children. If I decided to look for a new job I'd have to consider his restraints when I thought about where I could apply or how much I have to make. It is totally worth it, but still, it takes away my ability to make selfishly based decision.
The problem with marrying young is that you miss the opportunity to make such decisions. I don't think the desire to make selfish decisions goes away as much as is suppressed. So, you marry young, you never have a chance in your early 20s to make decisions based only on your wants and needs, and at a certain point 5, 10 or 15 years down the road you start to resent that. Throw into that that you had children early, and you've now been considering the needs and wants of other people since you were old enough to make your own decisions. Yeah, I can see how that is a huge obstacle to over come and can cause a major strain on a relationship.
I don't think that you're automatically "stunted" but I do think that you've missed out on what should be a really exciting time of your life that you'll never get back. You can get married at any time, but you'll never get back those few years of total independence if you do it too soon. KWIM?
My husband and I got married at 19, bought our house at 20, and had our first child at 21. We are now almost 26 and I am pregnant with our 4th baby. I wish we had waited to do all of those things. I did not finish nursing school and he never finished his degree. Our finances are very tight. It adds stress to the marriage. My husband is going back to school (and still working full time) in the spring. I am going back next fall. We do feel like we have missed out on being young sometimes, but the biggest regret we have is not finishing college.
Don't get me wrong, I love my husband and my kids. I just wish we had made different choices.
Maybe not "stunt" you, but I think it's a bad idea. I started dating my husband when we were 15, and we waited til 26 to get married (which I think is young) and 31 to have our first child. I can't even imagine doing any of it earlier. The years I spent living alone while he was in law school (different cities), first job, my own apartment - were totally priceless as far as living my life and gaining life experience, and I feel sorry for people who don't have that experience.
And don't get me started on having kids young
Age is part of it, but emotional maturity and how long you've been tkaing care of yourself has a huge role to play as well.
If you're 22 and you've been living on your own and supporting yourself for the last four years, you're done with college, you know how to run a household and make sure your bills get paid on time, and you've dated plenty of people and finally want to settle down with one -- good on ya.
If you're 22 and you've been living with your parents all your life, never had a bill to pay on your own, still in school (or never went), and have only dated a few people -- recipe for disaster.
Of course, this is just the opinion of a yet-unmarried girl who has watched people in both situations and drawn conclusions from a limited amount of date ;P
i think it depends on the individual and what level of being on their own they're up to. if they live iwth their parents and have no career and have no responsibility-then yes-absolutely!
if they're put themselves through college, lived on their own, been responsible iwth no assistance than no.
but i do think that mid-20s are such a HUGE time of personal growth (perhaps from being in the real world-not school world) that often people change a lot during that time and their priorities are different than at 20. they mature for the most part. of course people do grow and change at any age but at that time it's going from kid stuff to adult stuff, later in life it's adult changes which aren't generally as drastic since the adult has already formed.
i do think it's a silly idea to get married at any age under 28 generally.
I can say I am very glad DH and I waited until he was 27 and I was 26 to get married. And sometimes I wonder how waiting even a year or two more would've changed us for the better. My parents have been married for 32 years. They got married after dating for 8 months. She was 19, and he was 20. My mother is still in love with my father and vice versa, however she will be the first to tell you (and told me several hundred times) to wait.
On the other hand, it does work out for the best sometimes. My brother and his wife got married right out of college, both 22. They had their kids right away, one right after the other. Well, they are now in their early 30s, and SIL has breast cancer and will have to have a historectomy. Even though their child-bearing days were over a few years ago, they are very thankful that it did work out that way since if they wanted to have more kids, they won't be able to.
I think it depends on the couple. It's an age where your life experiences play a big role in your personality development. We got married when we were 22/23. I went to a baking school so I was done with school at 19, and moved out of my parents house. After highschool I was expected to pay my own medical, car, food, etc. bills. I've always been expected to help keep a clean house and I've cooked most of my own meals since I was 11.? I had the "my car is broken down and I can't afford to fix it so I can drive to work so I can afford to pay my medical bills" crisis when I was still living at my parents house.
If you contrast that with someone who's still been living with their parents or in a dorm and hasn't had to pay their own bills, provide their own food, clean their own house, budget or work then of course you'll get a different level of maturity and readiness for marriage. If you add kids to the mix then that further complicates things.?
We've been married for two years and together for 8. Several of our single friends have commented that we have the relationship that they want. We almost feel like we're too happy. We both feel like we got married at the right time for us, but if we had gotten married straight out of our parents houses we would probably feel differently.?
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I think it depends entirely on the people and their relationship.
Some people can get married at 18 and live happily ever after. Some people should mature before committing. Other people should never get married. The important thing is knowing 100% for sure which category you fall into before making a huge mistake.
But the question wasn't "would they be happy", it was "does it stunt you". I think it usually does. Of course, this is my observances, but it's tough to find a couple that truly grows together, and not simply one growing into the other.
My DH and I are both 22 and got married in July. I am finishing up a double degree and own my own business (different than the Etsy shop in my sig). He is a full time PhD student. We both have our own goals as well as mutual goals. I don't think that getting married at 22 has "stunted" us at all. We have both always had many of the same goals (education, travel, etc.) and I think that having each other for support has helped us to grow and succeed in our own fields.
I think that the motivation that we give each other has helped us to do so much more than we would have alone. Also, I don't feel as if either one of us has compromised our own identity for the other as PPs have mentioned. I am an artist and he is an engineer. We are at almost completely different ends of the spectrum career wise, and yet we still have many things in common (we wouldn't be together if we didn't).
Neither of us has lived at home since we graduated high school, and we are completely on our own financially. I think that helped a lot in maturing quickly and learning to handle responsibilities.
I have met two couples that got married before the time frame you're talking about.
One couple I know is the couple that you seem to be describing in your last paragraph. They have two kids, and it just seems like they still think they're in high school. Whenever we get together it seems to be nothing but drama.
In college, I knew a couple that got married right out of high school. They are now in their late 20s and still only have a dog. They have very similar interests and I think they hang out together all of the time, but they are very happy together.
My parents got married when one was 22 and one was 21. My mom talks all the time about how much more she wished she had done. She wishes she was more independent and had traveled more. She loves my brothers and me, but she lost herself getting married so young.
I have never heard people say they wish they got married earlier. It is always they wish they had waited longer.
I think it does to a degree. H and I got married at 21 and 23 respectively. We've been married for 9 years now. There are times I think we should have waited longer, but now that it's all said and done I wouldn't change it.
I think we're doing pretty well. I have a masters, about halfway done with a 2nd, and in the process of applying for an Ed.D program. He is thinking about going back to school here soon. He's certified in all kinds of computer things. We have three awesome children.
I do think that saying "we've been married a few months and it worked for us" doesn't really prove anything. It's going to be 5, 10, 15 years down the line that will really determine that one.
After reading more replies, it seems like there are people who are stunted by being married young (probably a majority) and others that are not.
Therefore, I think that you could turn the question around and perhaps ask if those who are inherently more immature/clingy/unmotivated tend to get married at a younger age?
There are so many cause and effect relationships like this in our society, and I think that people don't take enough time to really think about the real cause behind a phenomenon. The classic example of this in social psychology is the direct proven correlation between eating ice cream and an increase in homicides. Of course it is crazy to think that people who eat ice cream are more likely to commit a murder, so you have to look further into the situation. The root cause is actually hot weather. People tend to eat more ice cream when it is hot out, the also tend to be much more irritated/angry/irrational.
I just thought it would be interesting to reverse the equation, because it really does make sense that those who are more unmotivated and immature would also tend to get married straight out of high school. They my not have done well enough in high school to go on to college and never had any goals for personal growth. Therefore, getting married and having children right away was much more plausible for them than for someone who did go on to higher education.
Food for thought...
A lot of doors shut when you marry. The earlier you marry, the more doors shut. They don't open again. Not necessarily bad; but certainly not all good.
I'm a big fan of not limiting your opportunities unnecessarily.
Dh and I got married a couple days before my 22nd birthday and Dh was 28. I don't think it has stunted me, but that being said we've only been married for a couple months. I had a couple long term relationships and several shorter ones before I met DH when I was 18.
I moved out with him when I was 18 and we rented a place together with him and his brother and his best friend, we lived there for a year and a half and then we moved in to our own apartment when I was 19. We had a one year lease, and learned a lot during that year. We got a cat, I had just finished my post secondary education at that point. Dh already had a business degree when I met him. after 9 or 10 months we started talking about buying a place.
We closed on our first home right before my 21st birthday, a couple days after we closed on our house DH asked me to marry him. I said yes and we spent the next year or so planning our wedding.
A couple months before the wedding my company decided to wind down our travel department, and so I was re-trained and moved in to an insurance agent position.
We had a smaller wedding, with about 50 guests and then went on a great 2 week honeymoon to the Mayan. (This where me being a travel agent really helped.)
We obviously have had a happy marriage thus far, similar to our relationship prior to the wedding, but with a little more consideration for each other. We are planning on having children soon, and are currently TTC, but I recently found out that I have PCOS, so it may take awhile. I am happy we did not wait especially considering my condition.
So to answer, I don't think I've been stunted, but I do think that for some people it's not the right choice.
For example my BIL is engaged and he is 23 and his fiance is 20... and I am scared for them. BIL lives in our basement and MIL and FIL still support him. Future SIL lives in an apartment paid for by her parents. BIL is currently 'youtube famous' and makes good money and future SIL is in school. I hope it works for them because I love them both..but I am scared for them.