Question about marriage?

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Ok, so here is my situation. I have known the guy I am dating for two and a half years. We will have been dating for two years in November. We are planning to be engaged some time this year (I have no idea when, but I understand that he has made plans…it isn’t any suprise, just waiting…). So anyway, we have been talking about when we would like to/be able to get married. I am not in school, but he is. He is also in the corps, as well as on scholarships. So the basic situation is this: we could get married, and be able to support ourselves in two years. He would still have one year of school left, but basically is being paid to go to school, so we could do it. I would be 21, and he would be almost 21.
So my question is this, when were you married, and would you agree or disagree that being married at a young age can be a good thing? I’m just curious. My parents think it is wonderful that I’ve found “my man” so young, and they think he is the greatest thing since…ever. His parents are a bit stricter, and aren’t all that crazy about him growing up, but still support us. Thanks for your answers!
 
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ewee:
Ok, so here is my situation. I have known the guy I am dating for two and a half years. We will have been dating for two years in November. We are planning to be engaged some time this year (I have no idea when, but I understand that he has made plans…it isn’t any suprise, just waiting…). So anyway, we have been talking about when we would like to/be able to get married. I am not in school, but he is. He is also in the corps, as well as on scholarships. So the basic situation is this: we could get married, and be able to support ourselves in two years. He would still have one year of school left, but basically is being paid to go to school, so we could do it. I would be 21, and he would be almost 21.
So my question is this, when were you married, and would you agree or disagree that being married at a young age can be a good thing? I’m just curious. My parents think it is wonderful that I’ve found “my man” so young, and they think he is the greatest thing since…ever. His parents are a bit stricter, and aren’t all that crazy about him growing up, but still support us. Thanks for your answers!
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If you truly love this man, you will truly love him in a few years too. In fact, you will probably love him more.

So, what’s the big fat hurry?

True love means wanting to give him a marriage that will work. One way you might discover whether or not yours will work is by going on an Engagement Encounter (see your priest about this).

During Engagement Encounter, you’re given a series of questions to answer. The two of you separate, answer the questions, then get back together to compare answers. Topics include sex, children, career, in-laws, goals in life. It can be a very eye-opening experience. Every one of the topics is something that comes up in marriage. Know what the two of you are getting into before you get into it! Agree on what your marriage will be before you say, “I do!”

Obviously, it takes more than love to make a marriage. I doubt couples are getting married because they’re *not *in love, but look how many marriages end up in divorce.
 
I was married when i was 21 and DH was 23. We got engaged when i was 20. my parents were very happy for us as were his, however they had their concerns about us being married so young. now we DID struggle a lot in the beginning. its hard. marriage in itself is hard, especially when you are young, and just barely able to support yourselves. you think two incomes will make life SO Much easier, but it just becomes double the groceries, double the gasoline etc… HOWEVER, im not gonna rain on your parade honey. i am SO despereately in love with my husband. we are now 22 and 24 been married 7 months to the day! DOH! todays the twelveth. okay seven months and one day. now we struggle financially and that effects us emotionally, on top of that everything else life hurls at you. but i couldnt see myself crawling into bed every night without his arms around me, or waking up to a playful kiss on the nose. its tough, you have to be willing to fight, but it can be so worth it if you make it worth it. i wouldnt suggest getting married at 19. i would wait a while. believe it or not, the person you are when you are 19 is completley different than the person you will be at 21 with a couple years of either college or the real world under your belt. God Bless!

TarAshly
 
My recommendation would be to wait until after school is finished. If you love each other, then you’ll be able to wait that long. Basically, my parents told me growing up that school is a time for studying, and marriage is something that can really get in the way of your schooling. However, if you feel that it is right for you, then it is your decision.

Eamon
 
Kay Cee:
Obviously, it takes more than love to make a marriage. I doubt couples are getting married because they’re *not *in love, but look how many marriages end up in divorce.
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I think that many people don’t realize that the fuzzy, lovey-dove feeling can wear off. It is important to think in the long run when choosing a spouse, and I don’t think that everyone does that.

Eamon
 
I was 19 and DH 23 when we married. We were married 4 years to the day that we started “dating”. 🙂 We were young when we met, but I knew he was the one. We have been married 15 years making our grand total 19 years. There are peaks and valleys, but I am married to my best friend and one of the best people I have ever known. We have grown and matured and are not the same people we were 15 years ago or 19 years ago. Obviously, I think it can be a good thing. I do recognize that we do not represent the norm.

Best of luck to you and God Bless…
Autumn
 
As for choosing an age to get married, I don’t see a problem at all with 21.

Sure there’s a risk that you could make a foolish decision. But 21 years is certainly enough time to have matured enough to make such decisions.

There’s a lot of folks who view marriage as a goal rather than a beginning. You get all your ducks in a row first, THEN you get married. Stupidly, they even think you gotta make sure you’re sexually compatible first too.:rolleyes:
 
I met my husband when I was 16; he was 17. We knew shortly after starting dating that we loved each other. And we knew that we had met our future spouse. But we also realized that we had some growing up to do. And we wanted to get our lives set up so that we’d have our educations completed and obtained jobs. This would take 5 years until we both finished highschool and college.

We believed that a lot could happen in 5 years. But if we were still together, it was meant to be. As it turned out he graduated college a year before me. Then when I graduated from college, we got married. He was 22; I was 21. Recently we celebrated our 26th anniversary.

Looking back on it now, I realize that 21 is young. But we had 5 years to get to know each other as well as set up our future together (educationally and financially).

Also I want to note that everyone matures at their own rate. I was more mature at 21 than my sister who was almost 30 when she got married.

True love can wait.until the proper time for marriage.

Mary
 
I think there are pros and cons to marrying early as opposed to late. I married young, both of us were 19, and we’ve been married 20 yrs.

I think one advantage to marrying young is that you grow up together, and are willing to adjust to sharing life with another because you haven’t had years of indulging in yourself and creating your own way. You depend on each other, there isn’t always that sense of “I did this better on my own, I dont’ need him/her”

There is not a sense of giving up “my own” life to be with another person, instead it is truly creating a life together, starting out together and all that.

But since you are already “together”, waiting could be convenient, if you stay a couple anyway,then you are still working together toward a common goal, just not yet fully joined.

I think that encouraging young people to date tons of people and wait till they are in late 20’s to marry is a recipe for disaster. People get in the habit of searching for the “best” mate, and out of the habit of working on a relationship. They get into the mind set that the world is a cafeteria of partner options and they deserve the opportunity to taste before they purchase. It can be way hard to get out of that midset after practicing it for 10 yrs of so.

Love is important, but committment just as much so. People who are committed to their faith, and to making a marriage work, have a great chance of doing so. Be committed to each other, but also to the marriage. They are two complementary things.

cheddar
 
Thanks everyone for the thoughts. It is amazing how many people actually do get married at 20/21, and yet still seem to tell people of my generation to wait until we are 25/30 ish. I think the biggest reason I would want to get married young is because I know that that is what I want to do with my life. I know that I want to raise a huge family so that I can raise more soldiers of the faith. I just feel like if that is what we know our calling is, and if we can do it, then why wait? I dunno…it is still in God’s hands, I’m just throwing around ideas.
 
I have known many couples who married young and had a long marriage. My wife was 21 when we married 16 years ago.

Age will not be your real stumbling block. The hard part will be being in the Corps. You will be EXPECTED to support your husband’s career reguardless of how you feel about his long deployments and late nights. You will be EXPECTED to pack up the house at a moments notice and travel around the world, by yourself (with kids in tow) because he just came down on orders. You will be EXPECTED to accept the fact that the only thing that matters is your husbands career and your career and plans don’t really matter. You will be EXPECTED to handle family emergencies and posibably drive yourself to the delivery room because he is in the field or out of the country.
I’m not saying these things to be mean, but it’s a fact of military life. I retired from the military a couple of years ago.

Not all is lost. There are many good Catholic and Christian groups in and round the bases. You are not alone in these struggles. Promise yourself you will be strong and fight for your marriage but don’t hate him for what the country asks of him.

The Military is not a job, it’s a way of life. If you have any more questions, please ask. There are a lot of Active Duty members, spouses and Vets hanging out here.
 
Yeah, I know the military is going to be tough. He is only going into the reserves, but still, it is tough. It was a big thing I had to come to grips with before we started dating, because I knew what his plans were. For example, right now he is at airbourn school for all of this month. It is very tough to know that right now, the army has complete control of “my man”, but I do support everything he does.
Thanks for your words of wisdom. What exactly were you doing in the military and how many kids do you and your wife have? I am always interested to hear other military guys share their experiences since I know I’ll be having to live that pretty soon.
 
Oh, I do love this thread! I also knew what I wanted to do, marry and have kids, but people kept telling me to wait until I “knew” myself. Well, I married at 19, and had number one at 21, and never looked back!

People think it is “wonderful” when a high school grad knows what they want to major in in college, but think it is nonsense when a young person knows they want to raise a family. I got soooo much flak from even my devout family about how I was throwing my life down the toilet!

They even said, “if you are just marrying so you can have sex, we’d rather you had sex and didn’t marry” I was mortified!

Also…as to military life…we weren’t military, but many of the things you mentioned describe my life as well. We opted for me to stay home with kiddies, so I followed his schooling and teaching career all over. Once we moved 5 times in 3 1/2 yrs.
We have also had our share of seperations due to school and career (not as long as military though), but you do what you need to do.

It is so nice to chat with others who know the meaning and joys of committment.

cheddar
 
Amen! Wow. What you said about how they are so excited if you know what you will major in but not if you want to get married, that is so true! If you start school without knowing what you want to major in, people are mortified because they think you don’t have any direction in your life. But then when it comes to knowing you want to get married, his parents have even gone so far as to say “You are not old enough to be serious about anything with her”. He can be in the military and die for his country, but have a serious relationship with me, no way! Riiiight.
It just seems to me that if you have the maturity and support of people, it shouldn’t make that big of a difference what age you are. My sister is two years older than I am, but I don’t see her getting married because she can’t even take care of herself.
Wow. Thanks for your posts. I agree it is fun to talk with people who realize that God’s plan isn’t the same for everyone, and that there is such a thing as someone who is mature enough to marry at a young age.
 
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cheddarsox:
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I think one advantage to marrying young is that you grow up together, and are willing to adjust to sharing life with another because you haven’t had years of indulging in yourself and creating your own way. You depend on each other, there isn’t always that sense of “I did this better on my own, I dont’ need him/her”

There is not a sense of giving up “my own” life to be with another person, instead it is truly creating a life together, starting out together and all that.
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I completely agree. I married just shy of my 19th b-day and my hubby was 19 (in the Navy). I am sometimes amazed at the conversations that I have had with some married women that waited until they were older to marry. Yours, mine and ours -basically. Everything we have is “ours” there is no yours and mine.

Getting married young does mean that most likely there is still some growing to do. At 19 or 21 you may have different ideas about what you want than when your 25 or 28. You’re also likely to make a few more mistakes than you would if you were older just from lack of life experience.

And keep in mind what marriage is not. It does not magically change your spouse into your vision of what a perfect husband (or wife) should be. Any issue you may have now will not be cured with an “I do”.

That being said it’ll be 15 years this Feb. that hubby and I said I do. Best decision I could have made -even with all the difficult times. I love having memories from our younger days. And we know each other so well it’s kind of scary. He’s my best friend.:love:
 
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ewee:
Yeah, I know the military is going to be tough. He is only going into the reserves, but still, it is tough. It was a big thing I had to come to grips with before we started dating, because I knew what his plans were. For example, right now he is at airbourn school for all of this month. It is very tough to know that right now, the army has complete control of “my man”, but I do support everything he does.
Thanks for your words of wisdom. What exactly were you doing in the military and how many kids do you and your wife have? I am always interested to hear other military guys share their experiences since I know I’ll be having to live that pretty soon.
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Right now he is at Fort Stewart, GA. He will be jumping out of an airplane (C-130)
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

5 times to get his wings
http://www.qmfound.com/parachute_wings_med.gif

I did 22 years. Married 14 of that. I was 26 and she was 21. We met and married in Washington, DC and had child #1, moved to North Carlonia and Child #2, moved to Chicago Hello child #3. Wife said we had to stop moving… After 6 months in Chicago, we celebrated the longest we had ever been continiously together without a deployment or Temporary Duty (TDY) somewhere.
He is only going into the reserves, but still, it is tough.
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the reserves is getting more and more time in the field. Be strong at home and in your faith.
 
Blessings to all you military types, vets and families of the same!
I appreciate and benefit from the sacrafices you make on all our behalfs. I hope you are blessed in return.

cheddar
 
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dhgray:
Right now he is at Fort Stewart, GA. He will be jumping out of an airplane (C-130)
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

5 times to get his wings
http://www.qmfound.com/parachute_wings_med.gif

I did 22 years. Married 14 of that. I was 26 and she was 21. We met and married in Washington, DC and had child #1, moved to North Carlonia and Child #2, moved to Chicago Hello child #3. Wife said we had to stop moving… After 6 months in Chicago, we celebrated the longest we had ever been continiously together without a deployment or Temporary Duty (TDY) somewhere.
the reserves is getting more and more time in the field. Be strong at home and in your faith.
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Is he at airbourn there? That sounds like what my b/f is doing. He has to jump five times to get his pin too.
 
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cheddarsox:
I think one advantage to marrying young is that you grow up together, and are willing to adjust to sharing life with another because you haven’t had years of indulging in yourself and creating your own way. You depend on each other, there isn’t always that sense of “I did this better on my own, I dont’ need him/her”

There is not a sense of giving up “my own” life to be with another person, instead it is truly creating a life together, starting out together and all that.
cheddar
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I agree 👍 with the above quote.

I was 21, and my husband was 20. We’ve been happily married for ten years.
 
Yeah, that is how old we will be if we get married when we are planning. I think it is going to be funny because i will be able to have wine or something, but he won’t. Anyway, it is very cool to hear everyone who got married young and is still happy and in love.
 
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