How old were you when you got married?

[Rose71]

I will be 42!

I fully endorse the advice to go for it and get married if you find the right person. I would have married from 19 years old onwards had the right man come along…but he didn’t. Once you get on the 'career ladder; (which is an awful term) as a woman, you are in an awful dliemma and in the UK at least, firmly stuck between 2 cultures if you are single.

On one hand, I did really want to get married, but on the other, I knew that getting married for the sake of it - just because I ‘could’ would be a huge mistake, not to mention an insult to the poor bloke. There is also the fact that you have to support yourself, because no decent self-respecting man is going to want a wife who just waits around sponging off mum and dad, or frittering her wages on nights out and clothes because she is so convinced Prince Charming will come riding along and save her.

I don’t actually know any single ‘career-women’ who ‘deliberately’ ignore their decreasing fertility and put material gain above finding a spouse. I do know a few married women whose behaviour I personally find very selfish, who were lucky enough to marry in their early to mid 20s, but deliberately avoided starting a family by contracepting (even the odd termination ) because they did want to make more money and enjoy more perks of their high flying jobs. Now, in their late 30s / early 40s, they blog incessantly about their ‘fertility journeys’ and their struggles with IVF and unsympathetic doctors who dare to suggest they might have left it a bit late. These are the women (not the single ones who have no choice, if the rules of the Church are obeyed) who give women a bad name. They seem to have an overwhelming sense of entitlement, because they are wealthy and well educated. Once they start the ;journey’ they seem to get so caught up in a relentless quest for conception that it really does become an obsession and an unhealthy one at that.

I even saw one post about a lady who had overheard a young girl in her early 20s saying she was pregnant and ‘we weren’t really trying - it just happened’ and posted, “I wanted to punch her!” and so many women responded with '“so would I!” I never, ever want to end up so bitter and desperate.

I’m getting fed up of well meaning suggestions about what I might do to ‘start a family’ I’ve been told to ‘start trying’ before the wedding!

When I say my strategy is to have lots of sex, pray a lot and accept whatever gifts God chooses to give me, I get some very odd looks

 

[ela2]

i was 27 and my husband 26

 

[emy123]

we were young 19

 

[Rau]

Does anyone know how the age distribution for a larger population (eg. The US) would look. I was surprised by the extent of weighting at the younger end.

 

[MJJean]

Since this thread was resurrected i thought it’d be fun to answer.

I was married twice. One marriage is in the process of annulment. I was 19 and he was 21. I answered the poll with my current marriage age. We were both 28. What’s really sad is that it was 10 years ago and I had to actually think about it for a second and do the math!

 

[Minenedanielito]

I will turn 37 in November and still single. Any available Catholic man out there? LOL

 

[moon1234]

I was 21 and my wife was 20. We started dating when she was 16. We have been married for 14 years and have eight children. Would not change a thing. Having our kids when we were younger is/was a LOT easier.

The only thing that bothers me is that I want to give my wife a larger house and some of the nicer things in life. That is hard with a larger house. The kids don’t complain though and I would not trade any of them for anything material.

Most of my friends married in their early to mid twenties. I am from the mid-west. Also curious to know if the average age is weighted towards different parts of the country/world.

It is also a little frightening to think my daughter is 13 and is only three years younger than when I met my wife. I am not ready to start thinking about that.

 

[Conny73]

18 yrs old first marriage -

39 yrs old second marriage

 

[Phil_Marinus]

18 yrs old first marriage -

39 yrs old second marriage

Gee…your going through some old threads ?

 

[Sabine87]

I was 25 and my Husband 39

 

[AnniesNotOkay]

I can’t vote in the poll, but I was 26!

 

[jnjinnc]

I was 21, wife 20. We had known each other 11 months when wed. I was Catholic, she Southern Baptist. I was a Yankee soldier, she a Southern Belle college student. No money and I was on orders for a combat tour of Vietnam. Doomed to fail?

Fast forward 46 wonderful years. She’s still my wife, best friend, mother of our 2 daughters, grandmother to 6 beautiful grandchildren. We’re both retired, living our dream in the mountains of NC. We attend daily Mass, travel frequently and enjoy our life together.

A convert, she is my anchor and helps me keep our faith strong and vibrant. God is so good and I am so fortunate.

 

[ShanaA1984]

29 even though I turned 30 13 days later husband is 28

 

[HerCrazierHalf]

1. I’m rather surprised i married at all. Even if the right woman had come along years earlier i don’t think I’d be in the right frame of mind for marriage. Though I have found it interesting that among the unmarried 27+ women back then, most were previously engaged.

It does seem to be an odd thing that the best child bearing years are also the years a great number of us are ill suited for marriage.

 

[MomMareike]

I was 18 and he was 25.

 

[AllSeasons]

I got married 2 months ago! I was 33; she was 28.