Getting Married Young
In short, this is a post about my experience of how people view 'getting married young'.
Now, I'm only 24 and have only been married for 4 years, I realize that I'm not the dalai lama of marriage. I have a lot left to learn (but so does everyone). However I am young, and I am married so I feel like I'm at least a little qualified to talk about how people feel about getting married young. Because a lot of people have told me how they feel about it. So now you know my credentials, or lack thereof, to take on this topic.
Jonathan and I have been married for four years, and like I said, I'm 24. If you can do complicated math equations in your head then you know that I was 20 when I got married. I tell more about our story in this post. In my experience so far, most people seem to think that getting married at 20 is WAY too young. When I ask them why, the only reason they can come up with is "well you don't even know who you are at that age". And I'm over here like..... "Okaaaay, even if that was true, why couldn't I find out and be married at the same time?"
I understand that as you get older, and gain more life experience, that you inevitably change. But I believe you can maintain your relationships while doing that. Marriage included. Marriage can be much more complicated a relationship than friendship, but for the sake of my point I'm going to focus on their similarities. Marriage, like friendship, is a relationship between two people (I'm not gonna tackle the whole polygamy issue... not in this piece anyways). And some people have friendships that have lasted their whole lives. Even though both of the people involved have changed, gotten older, and have discovered who they are. Some people even maintain their friendships through job changes, moves, income changes, having kids... all kinds of stuff. Call me crazy, but I think you might be able to do the same thing in a marriage type situation.
I'm THANKFUL that I got married young. Yeah. Not just that I got married. I'm happy that I got married at a young age. I'm not trying to tell anybody how to live their life, but for me, getting married at 20 was the best decision ever. I got a partner at 20, I got to start living with and doing life my best friend at 20, I got someone who always has my back, and supports me at 20, which means that I get to spend that much less of my life without those things. And I gotta say - it's pretty freakin' great. For my belief system, and my core values gaining all of the above could only happen through a marriage covenant.
One other point I want to make, just because I got married young, doesn't mean I think getting married young is like the magic spell that makes your marriage perfect and your life a dream. Relationships are one of the most varied things on the planet. Every relationship is different. So how can we really give each other 'blanket advice' on them? It's all got to be on a case by case basis. So I'm just saying maybe we shouldn't be telling each other that we're gonna fail at something, when in reality, we have no idea what the outcome will be!
So maybe you got married young too, maybe you hate marriage and will never participate in one, maybe you're still waiting to get married, maybe you've been married forever and ever, maybe you've been married multiple times, maybe you got married at 100 years old for the first time, maybe you're a 14 year old girl thinking about your 'dream guy' with little sparkle stars in your eyes and I'd just like to say to you all - good luck with that and I wish you well! Please do the same for everyone and their life. We're all just trying to be good at the stuff we do just the same as everyone else.
