September 2008 Weddings
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s/o... "good age" to get married?
I know everyone's different, but from the first comments below about "things you wish you'd know," do you think there's a minimum age appropriate to get married?
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Re: s/o... "good age" to get married?
eh.
I know some really immature 33 yr olds, and some mature 23 yr olds. I don't think there's a good blanket answer, other than one should be old enough to have a stable job.
It really depends on the person but I was almost 26 and it was a good age for me, a lot of my college friends got married at 22 and 23 and I thought I did too but I really feel now it would have been too young, at that point JT and I just started living together.
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I don't know if there is a "good age" to get married...I just know that for me at the age of 22 I thought I knew everything and I knew I wanted to be married so that was that! after the 3 years that I was married and the amount of time we spent apart (he was in the coast guard and underway a TON) we grew apart and I grew up (he didn't) and realized that things happen for a reason. He wasn't ready to be a husband (hence the cheating) so life moved on.
I was 28 when I married Rick (he was 24 but acted MUCH older) and i felt "ready" this time...
It totally depends on the person and their place in life.
A girl I went to college with got married at 20 (I think he was 21) and she and her husband are a wonderful couple. Someone else I know was 25 (her H was 28) but I'm not sure they were ready to get married when they did. They're still married, but we'll see.
It really does vary by person and couple.
For me, I was a week shy of 29 when A and I got married. He was 35. I honestly can't imagine having gotten married any younger. I already had my career job and my MA, and he was well settled in his career as well. We have the means to live a great life and provide for this child. It was the perfect time.
A+S | Met 8/24/06 | Married 9/27/08
Started TTC 12/2008 | dx PCOS 5/2009
6 failed clomid/femara/TI cycles, 1 failed clomid/ovidrel/IUI cycle
Successful Cycle: 5/12/11 - 1000mg Metformin + 100mg Clomid(late response) + TI = BFP
? 2/13/12 - We proudly welcomed our daughter, Hadley Teresa! ?
? Lots of Luck to all of 3T/IF ?
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I don't think there is one "good age" Everyone is different it was hard for me when a lot of my friends got married at 24-26 as I just wasn't there yet. I didn't want to get married just to get married.
I know that if I had married my college boyfriend who I dated for 4 years, was convinced he was "the one" we would have ended up divorced.. Just didn't want the same things in life. But of course when I was 23 I didn't know that.
I'm so happy I dated, lived on my own, was able to be all about me for awhile with my job, life choices, money.
Yup, exactly. I can tell you we (Brian and I) were ready in our 30's. If we got married in our 20's, I think it would have been a disaster.
Having the emotional and intellectual capacity to sustain a job is different from being settled in a career (which I don't think is necessarily a sign of readiness/maturity...I know a couple of folks / good jobs who would make awful spouses, and some in grad school - which on some levels is a career in itself - who are totally ready to be married).
But, jobs/aspirations can be limiting. I'm back in NJ b/c of it (b/c here was the best option for c to grow her career in the field she prefers). We'll likely move in 10 yrs to get me a higher level job (and get out of NJ...).
For us, it was a good thing to be settled ... it takes worry about where to live, moving etc right out of the picture. DH has been with his career FD for 15 years and I've been at my job for almost 9 years. We met a little over 5 years ago, so well after we'd both been at our jobs.
Our only compromise was which of our two condos to live in, and which to sell. They were only 4 miles apart from each other. We chose to live in the larger of the two, and were fortunate to sell the smaller one before the real estate market went to the pits around here.
Also, he retires in 12 years, when he turns 50. At that point, I may apply for promotions within the agency (if I want to, but as of now, I don't have that desire) which will take us out of Michigan and to Chicago or Baltimore. BUT, we're both homebodies and family oriented, so leaving our families to move out of state might not be an option, especially with an 11-year old.
A+S | Met 8/24/06 | Married 9/27/08
Started TTC 12/2008 | dx PCOS 5/2009
6 failed clomid/femara/TI cycles, 1 failed clomid/ovidrel/IUI cycle
Successful Cycle: 5/12/11 - 1000mg Metformin + 100mg Clomid(late response) + TI = BFP
? 2/13/12 - We proudly welcomed our daughter, Hadley Teresa! ?
? Lots of Luck to all of 3T/IF ?
I had a lot of people don't get married before you are 30 because you change a lot in your late 20's because you discover so much about yourself. But I don't know if that can be a general blanket for everyone.
I realize for me, I did change a lot between 23 - 26. I partied, enjoyed being single, independent, and figuring out life (money, job, activities). Some people don't need that phase, they are more mature, maybe they got through that phase in their late teens early 20's. I just know I NEEDED that phase. I learned a lot about myself.
There's an awful lot I didn't know about growing up when DH and I started dating when I was 20 and he was 21. The career thing, job stability, ability to provide for ourselves without relying on our parents wasn't something that even entered my mind as a 20-year old college junior!
But we grew up together and our transition to being adults instead of college kids was pretty seamless. I know that if I wasn't with the right man, that wouldn't have been the case.
We made the decision to move to Colorado together when DH (then BF) was presented with the opportunity. I think the desire to see and experience new things was a big part of us getting engaged after moving and seeing how we worked together during that stressful time. But we both had careers before moving, however I don't think being settled in a career is directly correlated with readiness to get married. You can be happily settled in a career and completely unwilling to commit to another person. On the same token, you can be happily committed to another person but just don't know what you want to be when you grow up.
I do know that what works for us, doesn't necessarily work for all.
This is Jason and I. We've always said that the reason we're stronger as a couple is because we did grow up together and into adults together. I think too, because we were younger, and not "set in our ways,' we had the option to form opinions and thoughts together so we've always been pretty in tune with each other's opinions. (I suppose the retort to that is that we didn't form our own individual opinions and thoughts).
I think not being set in our ways as individuals helped us when we got married. I easily took over the finances and DH is happy to oblige when I tell him not to spend money, etc...and we have always been in the "all money is our money" camp. We've just experienced so many firsts together and learned about it together which has been a great thing to bring us closer.
We recently turned 29/30, so we've been together during our entire 20s. Just because we didn't spend our 20s taking random people home doesn't mean we didn't have fun and party! Granted, the party stops a little earlier these days and the weekends can be a little harder because hangovers are a lot rougher, but we have definitely had our fair share of having fun.
Also note, that we don't have children yet. I think that's been a main thing for us in being able to grow up at our own pace.
Being from the midwest, seeing people wait until 30 is VERY rare.
I agree, it is just done in the mid west. It is completely common place in the larger cities, or here on the East Coast to wait much longer. I know plenty of people that are mid 30's and still not ready to settle down. They are still living like they are in their early 20's, but those people just have different priorities.
Oh, I know. It's just so typical of the bible belt for girls to get married right out of high school and college. LOTS of girls I went to HS with were married soon after HS and started popping out babies right away and never went to college, or got married the summer after they graduated college.
It's also oh so common in Oklahoma that a lot of women SAH with kids because COL is so low. You can buy a nice 3-4 br house for $125K.
I'm not in touch w/ many people from college now, but literally all of the ones I am friends w/ on FB have at least 1 (usually more) kids except one roommate who is single and one couple that just got married last fall.
Only a couple of my friends from up here have kids (and most are older than me) and according to FB, I'd guess about 30% of my HS friends have babies. There's definitely a cultural difference based on region, since I'd guess most of my FB friends are in more or less the same socioeconomic group.
We were both pretty settled in our careers at the age of 19 so for us it wasn't about being settled into that. We were both in the military and planned on making it a career. This was well before 9/11 so there was no war or long deployments in sight aside from the ones we had to go on even without a war. We both just didn't know who we were, what we wanted, etc. Sure, we thought we knew but we had no clue. In fact at 31, he still doesn't. He hasn't changed.
As far as a good age, there isn't one good age that fits everyone. Each individual is different. At 19, even though I thought I had my career figured out, I wasn't as mature as I thought I was. I still wanted to party. He still wanted to party. Sure we had our bills, our apartment, all the responsibility of being "grown" but we weren't ready for it. It took me many years to "grow" up and really figure out who I was after I left him.
Honestly, I think having been divorced so young (we separated when I was 23, legally divorced at 26), having been in the military, moved out of my home state, being a single mom, working full time, going to school full time, and making time for my personal life all in such a short period of time made me who I am today. It took all that to make me realize what I wanted in life. I struggled through it all and it ended up making so much more stronger and "grown" than I ever thought possible and after all that struggle I knew what I wanted out of life and marriage.
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