When is the wisest time to get married?

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Hello,
I’m a 19 year old female Catholic college student. I’m in a relationship with a 20 year old male Catholic college student. (He’s on the phone with me, discussing this post as I type it.) We met at the beginning of high school, but weren’t even close friends until 11th grade. We began talking a lot, writing so many letters to each other we filled notebooks, and grew to be good friends. During the summer after 11th grade we tried to discern the purpose of dating, and came to the conclusion that the purpose of dating is to determine whether both people would want to marry. This seemed pretty serious to us both, so we decided to stay close friends. As we got to know each other even more, we realized we were considering each other for marriage even though we hadn’t formally talked about it. Our physical relationship at the point consisted of a rare hug. We graduated from our high school, and kissed for the first time about a week before going off to colleges 400 miles apart. We chose our respective colleges, though they were far from each other, since they are both among the best in our different fields of study. With colleges the way they are these days, it’s difficult to find support for leading a chaste life and we feared we may be unable to deal with the temptation; this was another reason we choose schools farther away from each other.

We made it through our first year of college, and in that year we’ve grown even closer. We talk about our future, our careers, and even having children together. We want to get married, and we’re certainly going to wait until we finish our undergraduate degrees, but we wonder whether it’s a poor choice to try to get married before having a stable job or finishing graduate school. We want to be together and to start a life together, we’re committed to making our relationship fruitful, productive, and holy. We would like to get married right after we graduate, but neither of us will necessarily have a steady income, we both have massive debts, and we probably would not be able to financially support children right away. What is the best way we can deal with our situation?

Thank you.
 
I don’t think there’s a set right answer for everyone in your situation. I know people who’ve married young and poor it’s worked for them, I know others who simply couldn’t handle it so well and the marriage went sour. 🤷
 
Hello,
Well, I too am 19 and my girlfriend is turning 20, and we are pretty much in the same situation.

I completely understand how it feels to have all the right elements for a marriage, and to feel so prepared, but have to wait for money or stability.

The conclusion we made was that we only get married when there was some descent income. By this I mean enough money to survive and a bit more in case a child comes. You see with me, I am studying to become a professor, which takes forever. Do you think I am going to wait that long until I get married? No.

Even before Master’s degree I will try to get a job as a TA, and my girlfriend will be working payed co-op in fourth year. This way by fourth year we have an income. If that is sufficient, we will get engaged and go from there, and if it isn’t what choice do we have? If I depend on her to bring in the income (which is perfectly fine) then there still arises the situation where she gets pregnant and can’t work.

Thus I will need some sort of financial stability alone just in case of this situation. Every couple is different. I would suggest praying over it always. I would also suggest sitting down and going through what would happen if you got married before you got stable jobs, and had a child. Would you be prepared for that? If the answer is no, then it might be wiser to wait a year more and gain that stability. Again by stability I don’t mean a rich life. I mean just enough to survive on a constant basis.

I know how frustrating the situation seems, but for me I just offer it up with Christ’s sufferings as a sacrifice for the two of us and others. Hang in there. If he really is the one, God will provide the graces to be patient, and eventually the resources to get married. Trust in God. God bless.👍
 
What LilyM said was right - there’s no “set” right time to marry. It really depends on the couple, what they can handle, what they see as priority, and such.

DH and I got married right after we graduated with our undergrad degrees. Neither of us had jobs until the month we got married. I got a job two days before our wedding. DH’s long-term plan is to eventually get his phD and teach at the college level (he’s a teacher), but we decided to hold off and get married first. We both came in with an insane amount of student loan debt which is still nearly wiping out our income. We have one son and one baby on the way and we’re “poor” by a lot of standards today (one car, we don’t own a home, we don’t really have extra money to do extra things). However, we are very happy and know that it’s not in the money and material possessions that we’d be any happier. We are working towards getting out of debt because we know it’d be nice to be able to contribute what we can to our children’s college educations and not be STILL paying off our own student debt, but it’s not the primary goal of our lives.

My SIL, on the other hand, is getting married after her fiance is finished with grad school and that works for them. Her fiance just couldn’t see himself being married while being in school - it would just add unnecessary stress to the marriage in his opinion. That has worked great for them :). Each couple is different.
 
An important question to ask yourself (and your significant other) is “How much am I willing to sacrifice?”
It was integral in my engagement (which sadly didn’t end in marriage, but not for mismanagement of the relationship). We became engaged as students, I was making money and he wasn’t. We were still facing a situation of having nearly zero bank accounts when we graduated.
So the question was, really, “How much are you willing to sacrifice in order to make talk become reality?” For me, it was nights of sleep longer than 4 hours. For him, it was nothing. It was a good indicator of whether or not we were on the same page. Perhaps consider discussing it.
 
If you can’t “make it” married with a kid, then don’t get married. And by make it I don’t mean be established or rich. Just basic food, housing and medical.

Have you sat down together and created an entire financial picture?

Right now you’re thinking you’ve got tons of debt (probably floating around in several different forms of school loans) but how much, exactly? Is any of it interest-paid? What are the terms for repayment?

Does your current job offer short term disability, family leave and maternity insurance? Will you be covered, possibly with a small income, while pregnant and/or caring for a newborn? Have you guys talked about who will stay home, or about both working and who will care for any children that come along?

Are you interested in breastfeeding, or bottlefeeding? Do you have an idea of housing and how much it will cost?

DH and I married at 21 and 22 because we hashed it out and saw that it would work. But saying “it will work” means our current lifestyle will meet our needs and expectations. Those needs and desires will be different from person to person, even within a relationship.

For example, it was important to me to breastfeed and to stay home as a mom. So we had to make sure that we could live on DH’s single, current income. We could. But you might not mind being a working mother, or DH might be interested in staying at home. See what I mean?

The one thing that flopped for us was housing. The oncampus housing was touted to us as “married housing” but after we signed the contracts, put down the deposit, moved in and attended their school, we found out they don’t support/promote actual families living there. (Besides it turning out to be disgusting living conditions…long story). So we had to take on the extra expense of an apartment found in short time without shopping around.
 
Get out of school, find a job and settle in and I do suggest y’all find work in the same town, to have access to each other.

But I’ll be honest, that is 3 years away, a lot can happen, when y’all reunite, you’re gonna have to learn each other all over again. Being apart most of 4 years will take a toll on your relationship. It has been my experience in the real world a long distance romance fades out better than half the time. And the younger, the more likely the distance will win out.

But lets say at the end of 4 years you are still together. DON’T rush and get married. Find jobs in the same city, settle into your jobs and routine, and see experience your potential life partner not just on his good days. See how work affects him, the kind of friends he picks, and experience all the ups and downs of relationships. Finding that stuff out in the midst of a marriage might not be the best thing.

This would be different advice from the couple who schooled together and had been in each othes company f4 years. They can probably make marriage plans as soon as they graduate, becaue they KNOW each other.

But I’d still suggest they wait to until they have jobs and a means.

Just my :twocents:
 
The right time is when you are ready and you have someone who is ready as well and you’re both ready for each other. It may come early, it may come late, it may also go.
 
I think it’s best to wait until after college when one has his or her career lined up to actively seek someone. It’s pointless to make it a point to have a boyfriend or girlfriend in high school or the early college years, and I think many do because our society is critical of people who aren’t in relationships and people are in relationships for the sake of being in one.
 
Larowyn said:
I think it’s best to wait until after college when one has his or her career lined up to actively seek someone. It’s pointless to make it a point to have a boyfriend or girlfriend in high school or the early college years, and I think many do because our society is critical of people who aren’t in relationships and people are in relationships for the sake of being in one.
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I disagree with this perspective that one should wait until after University to even start dating. By dating I mean doing everything the Catholic way (no physical stuff, etc). Actually I think society has pushed the opposite. The average age of marriage is 30. The reason being that everyone is either waiting for their careers to start, or their just cohabitating, or having premarital sex. But if one actually abstains during college, and is still expected to marry or date late, well I think its un-natural. Not a hundred years ago, people would get married very early, and everything worked out. Now society has made it very difficult for a young person to support themselves early.

I believe in younger marriage, around 22 or 23 maybe. Couples are more fertile during this time, so they can have kids right away, and they also are not set in their own lifestyles, so living together won’t be as drastic a change. There was even a saint who said that people should get married as soon as possible, and stop worrying about careers as much, but rather their future spouses before their careers.

Personally, if one has found a very nice person to be with and wants to get to know them before or during University, whats wrong with that? This is assuming the couple is mature enough to control themselves, and be completely chaste. The wait does become difficult, but that’s not something they created, but society. I think it is perfectly natural for young people to start to look around early, so long as they don’t get too serious.

Having said that, the majority of couples that I have seen are too imature to describe. They clearly can’t handle a relationship. This is why it is a subjective matter. Just my thoughts. God bless.
 
If you figure out the answer, let me know. 😛 I’m in pretty much same situation as you. I would talk to a wise priest that knows at least one of you fairly well, or who has lots of experience in matters of marriage and courtship. That’s what my boyfriend is doing at the moment. I don’t think there is any ‘right and wisest’ way when it comes to marriage. Marriage is pretty illogical, when you think about it. Spend a year or 2, or more, getting to know a person, and try to decide if you want to spend the next 60 years+ with that person. :rotfl: Pray, pray, pray, and listen to God. He’s the only one with the answer to your situation.
 
Not much advice here, just sympathy. I’m 18 and my boyfriend is 19 (we’re both going into sophomore year) and if we had our way we’d marry about 3 seconds after graduation. 🙂

I don’t think you’d necessarily need to finish grad school or get established in your career before marrying. It depends on the career, though. Obviously if you’re planning on being a doctor you’re not going to be making a living wage with just a bachelor’s, but some fields pay decent money to people who have just 4 years of school. My mom and I have sat down and calculated roughly whether my boyfriend and I would be able to live off what he’d be making in his field. (He and I are both of the opinion that the mommy–me–should stay home with the babies.) If all goes well and the economy doesn’t collapse, we should be able to live comfortably (albeit very simply) but I’m sure we’ll sit down together closer to graduation and put down precisely how much he’d be making and where the money would be going before we actually got married.

Boy, that was long. Anyway, I’ll say a prayer for you and everyone else who’s in a similar situation.
 
Larowyn said:
Funny how people only respond to my posts when they feel the need to tell me why I’m wrong.
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It happens to all of us, dear! :rolleyes: At least you know you exist. Sometimes I’ll post a reply and it seems to disappear into the void and never seems to be noticed or read.

For me, I’m waiting. I kind of wish I didn’t have to, but that’s the way it’s got to be for us. At least when we eventually get married, we know we won’t have to try to avoid pregnancy on our honeymoon. 👍 And since we’re waiting for my boyfriend’s life to get sorted out before we get married, I’ll have the chance to save quite a bit of money, God willing, for a future business or whatever else we decide we might need.
 
Larowyn said:
Funny how people only respond to my posts when they feel the need to tell me why I’m wrong.
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Well I’m sorry to make you feel that way. I was just trying to say my opinion. However, after thinking about it more, I actually agree with some of your points.

I agree that in general, most young people are not mature enough to date in high school or beginning University. That is simply because society has created a later maturing period for people. I believe there are also exceptions.

However, if two people do decide to date, I agree that they should be mature, and have the right mind set. I belive that they should then only get married if they are ready for children immediately.

Sorry for seeming like I was shredding your opinion:)
 
Just a different take on it here: I waited until I was 35, which has severely impacted our raising a family. It also has meant less time together as a family.

The only tip I can give you is this: your maturity level (meaning your native ability to make the decision) is not going to be any different at 32 than at 22.

You’re not going to make a magic leap in your comprehension of the world; your judgment is pretty much what it is.
 
From your post, it sounds like both you and your boyfriend are very mature, which I think is a good sign.

I was in a similar situation. My husband and I met and started dating as 18-year-old college freshman. We got engaged our senior year and got married about one year after graduation, when we were 23. For us, waiting just that one year after graduation made a big difference. We were able to make sure we both had jobs. I would have been quite nervous about planning a wedding for immediately after graduation not knowing if we had jobs or not. (It’s also very important to have health insurance if you’re going to have kids, and health insurance usually requires a job). My husband lived at home during that year and was able to save almost 100% of his income, most of which we used towards a down payment on a townhouse. By waiting a year, we had more stability than if we had married right away, but we did not feel like we had to put off the wedding for years and years.

As for grad school, my husband started grad school after we had been married a couple years and had a child. He went in the evenings while working full-time, and his company paid for it. BTW, having your company pay for grad school is a great option, if at all possible. Being married while in grad school can be difficult, but we got through it. I think it’s often a good idea not to go to grad school immediately after undergrad. That way, you can save up some money first, make sure you’re certain what you want to go to grad school for, and possibly have your company pay for it.

I think our society makes it very difficult to marry young, but mature young people can certainly have successful marriages. It sounds like you guys are very mature and would probably have a successful marriage from a young age. As for the exact time you marry – whether it’s immediately after graduation, a year later like we did, or after grad school – that really depends on the couple and the situation. A year after graduation was a good time for us, neither to soon nor too late. But other couples may think it’s best to marry sooner or later. I would be praying about it a lot with your boyfriend and maybe consulting with a priest in addition to considering practical concerns.
 
I can’t tell you a thing about what it’s like to be married. But from data gleaned from this forum and from US-Gov’t-accepted data on women’s health and what I learned in college about fertility and longevity, I can tell you most women are happiest and healthiest if they have their first child at about 23. Fertility peaks at that age, so marrying at 22 should add up to giving birth somewhere around 23. Getting formally engaged at least a year ahead and involving both your families and all your friends in checking each other out, and getting thorough STD checks and showing them to each other before the wedding date is set can help prevent problems some people run into.
But everyone seems to agree that knowing each other well and being sure you want to marry each other is more important than timing.
 
Larowyn said:
Funny how people only respond to my posts when they feel the need to tell me why I’m wrong.
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That might be why it’s called a “forum”. Y’know, the ancient Roman’s discussions were held in a “forum”…

But for the record, I agree with Mr. Larowyn. I am fully aware that it is physically easiest to have kids when you are 21, but the modern economy/society does NOT always make that the most prudent step to take.
 
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