In my demographic (urban, northeastern or western, highly educated professional women), people don’t get married before they’re 30. It’s common knowledge that you need to take your 20’s to just learn to be yourself - build your career, live on your own, develop your own personality. Only after you have fully sowed your wild oats and established yourself in the world do you start to search in earnest for a mate.
I believed in this school of thought. I wanted a career, and independence. I knew that marriages that began when the participants were too young wouldn’t last. My anecdotal evidence supported this: my mother had married at 22, divorced after 6 years of marriage, and remarried at 30 (and she and my dad have been married for almost 30 years). Similar stories applied to my mothers’ friends from college and my aunts. In my young head, I always thought I would date for a few years, skip the starter marriage that plagued my mother’s generation, meet my future spouse in my late 20’s, and eventually get married and settle down.
As I approach my 29th birthday, I realize that yeah, that plan didn’t work so well. Plans like that are all very well and good, but what do you do when you meet your future spouse at age 19?
Don’t get me wrong - I wasn’t looking for marriage at 19. I had had my share of flings and one night stands during my first two years of college, and frankly, they weren’t that great. I was hoping for a boyfriend, and when I met my husband, he seemed like ripe boyfriend material - he was smart, interested in the arts, not gay (a big one at my college), good looking, etc. So we started dating, and we just never broke up - there was no reason to, we were happy together.
He proposed right before college graduation. He, having a more rural, Midwestern background, hadn’t heard about the rules for my demographic. He didn’t know about the all-important career-building, oats-sowing, wild and crazy independent 20’s. I was pretty certain after almost 2 years that I wanted to keep him around, so I said yes. Not being entirely sure about flipping the bird to my entire demographic, we had a long, nearly 3 year engagement. And there I was, married at 24.
It’s four and a half years later (nine years after we met) and I’d marry him again today. Or tomorrow. Or maybe in six months, since wedding planning was kind of fun. Did I miss out on things? Of course. I never had a roommate in a crappy apartment in New York (who I wasn’t sleeping with - we did do the crappy apartment in New York part). I never lived entirely on my own (though my fiancé was working 70-100 hour weeks for a while during our engagement - it was practically like living alone). I never went through that whole 20’s post-collegiate dating and mating ritual. I probably missed some of my prime time for building an urban tribe of single girlfriends, Sex and the City style. And we didn’t get to test out a lot of our major relationship mistakes on someone else.
But there are definite tradeoffs. When I was studying for law school exams or putting in long and tiring hours building my career during my first year practicing, we never ran out of milk for morning coffee, and our life didn’t fall to pieces - there was someone else there to make me mugs of tea and buy groceries and run errands (and I did it for him, too). I had someone to bounce ideas off of, talk to, and keep me company. I met a great group of married women who became my urban tribe. And most importantly, I learned to live with my husband.
We didn’t develop entirely independently, but because of that, we didn’t have the struggle of integrating lives that some couples who marry later had. We never had to integrate his Danish modern furniture with my Chippendales - we bought all our stuff together. All the money we’ve earned we’ve earned together, while supporting each other, and so it’s easier to share. We never got set in our habits and routines in such a way that makes it harder to let another person in. We learned to fight and communicate with each other. And we aren’t bringing baggage from past romantic relationships to the table - we deal with each other, not our ghosts.
Should everyone get married at 24? Heck no. Some people aren’t right for each other, or ready to make that kind of choice that lasts for the rest of your life. But don’t dismiss a “young” marriage outright either. There are strengths in a relationship that started young that an older couple will never have. When fate dumps a good one in your lap, maybe he really is the one, even if you are only 19.
AmuseBouche
Great article! I really enjoyed reading about your experiences. I think everyone should be so lucky to meet their mate at 19. I met DH a little later in life and there is so much neither of us got to share with each other.