Did anyone get married young?

fiery

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Hey all,
did anyone get married young? Did it work out?

I'm trying to figure out if it's just young MARRIAGES that have a tendency toward failing or even relationships that began when you were young. ^_^

Any stories would be helpful!
 

brandi

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My husband and I started dating(09/20/2002) when we were 15(me) and 17(DH) We got married on 07/09/2006. We have been together 6 years this year and we are still going strong!!! I love being married its absolutley wonderful....he wanted to add that he loves it as well. We got married when I was 19 and he was 20.
 

natalie_ca

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I think it all depends on the people involved. Marriage takes a great deal of work and honest communication is a huge key to a successful relationship. People tend to want to spend more time and effort working things out when they are older rather than younger.

Also, people change over time and when you're young you often don't really know what you want to do in your life and are still really growing into the person you will eventually become. And when you're in your late teens and early to mid 20's you are often trying to establish and education and/or a career. So it's not uncommon for people to grow apart not only with interests, but also maturity-wise too.

Having said that, no matter what their age, if they are committed to making the marriage work and not packing it in at the first sign that the honeymoon phase is over, they can weather the bumps.
 

arlyn

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I was 16 when I married my 18 year old husband.
There are a lot of really ugly details I won't go into, suffice to say that I have been divorced since I was 18 and he is the only person on the face of the Earth that I have ever seriously wished dead.
 

sarahp

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I just turned 21 when I met DH and we got married when I was 24 (turning 25). I didn't think I was young (I graduated high school when I was 16, I'd been out in the real world for a while), but I had some weird man tell me I was too young to be getting married, and he asked why I was wasting my youth.

It was very odd.

Anyway, it's great. I wouldn't have wanted to get married much younger, what I wanted at 24 was very different to when I was 21.
 

catsallover

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Dh and I dated in highschool on/off from when we were 16, got married at 21, and have been married for 16 years now
. However, we had both been through a wringer or two at a young age, and were pretty much "old farts" (lol) in our thinking/maturity by age 21... Premarital counselling with our pastor was a great thing for us- we still use the advice we got about arguments, etc. to stay on track with our relationship, and it made us more confident in the decision we made to get married.
 

*pepper*

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Got Married when I was 17 and Dh was 20. We have been married 10 years and very happy. We renewed our vows in 2006
 

strange_wings

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I met my DH when I was 17 and he was 20. We married Dec. 2004 - I was 21, he was 24.
We're very alike in personalities, interests, beliefs, and morals/values. Our only disagreements tend to be how we want to do something and when. I prefer to take my time and thoroughly think all possibilities out - he just wants to get stuff done. We also have a few issues on conversations... I tend to get a little theoretical and he gets bored and zones out. The minute I say "what if" his eyes glaze over.



I have one aunt who married very young many years ago - she was only 15. Her husband was 18? I believe. He died a few years later when he was 22 from a massive heart attack. Sometimes people aren't given the chance to grow apart and have to take what time life gives them.
 

owenj

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My wife and I met when we were freshmen in high school, started dating about six weeks after graduation, and got married two years later, when we were 20. We've been married for 16 months now. It gets rough sometimes, but we make it work
 

tara g

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The husband and I started dating when I was 17 and he was 19 (2005). We got married twelve days before I turned 21, and he was 22. Granted we've only been married 7 months, but I think it is the people involved who make it work, not the age.
 

wildfire203

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My DH and I only dated for 5 months before we married he just turned 20 and I was two months from 21. We've only been married for close to two years but we have been very happy together and managed to make it throw a 15 month deployment together and that was not easy but we are both still happy and going strong.
 

fwan

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It just depends on the person, I look at people around my age which is 21/22/23 around here and think they are acting like 14 year olds, mainly because i did that stuff back then. I get along with my 30+ colleagues because we have more interests and more things in common and i have made my experiences as they have.
Fh and I love each other very much, we will get married in two months. So far we are going strong and I am sure it will many more years
 

emrldsky

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Nuh uh...might give me away!
My parents were 19 and 20 when they married, and they now have almost 32 years under their belt (not including the years they dated before...they started dating when they were 13).

My brothers had a double wedding because they were marrying young and wanted my parents to pay for it. John was 20 and his wife was 18, and Lee was 18 and his wife was 19. John's wife died in 2005, after about 8 years together and Lee and his wife celebrated their 11th wedding anniversary this year.

I will say that John's married was no winning match. They were very close to divorce and trying to work it out when she died. And no, my brother didn't have anything to do with her death.

I was the "old maid" in the family.
We didn't get engaged until my DH and I graduated college (neither of my brothers went), and I was 24 when we got married.
 

fastnoc

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I agree with Fwan, it just depends on the person. It's the goals and desires of the person that determines when they are ready for marriage. Not biological age.

One big problem is mis-reading that desire, or ignoring it flat-out due to personal/confidence/co-dependant issues.

I also think marriage is held in much less importance now than it was 30 years ago. This makes it much more susceptible to divorce.
 

mrblanche

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I was 20, turned 21 the next month. Dottie is about a year and half older than I. And we've been happily married for 35 years, now.

Statistics say you don't have a 50/50 chance of a successful marriage until age 25. If you don't like flipping quarters for keeps, don't get married before then.

But times and cultures change. We heard in Sweden this summer that it is one of the few western countries with a rising marriage rate; until fairly recently, many Swedes didn't get married at all, since about WWII. Why? Because marriage has no effect on your benefits, health care, etc.
 

ninacaliente

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I was 18 when I got married; Dh was 27, and had been through one marriage and divorce before we started dating. We will celebrate our 10th anniversary this year. I think my DH being 9 years older than me certainly helped our chances. I also think that my attitude and experiences at 18 were different from most 18 year olds.

My parents started dating at 14 and 16, got married when they were 19 and 21, and have been married for 30+ years. As the story goes, after finishing LPN school my mom decided not to go for her RN because my dad refused to get married until after they were both done with college!

However, my two best friends during high school got married at 16 & 17 after getting pregnant, and neither of those marriages lasted long. I think many people at that age just are not ready to settle down and work on a marriage, no matter how much they love each other.
 

yosemite

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I personally think it depends on the people involved and how mature they are for their age. I was married at 19 for 4 years. I had been on my own since I was 16 and fully supporting myself so I was fairly mature. Our issue was that we both were still maturing and growing and instead of growing together we were growing apart. I don't think either of us was wholly at fault or a bad person, we just didn't see things the same way anymore.

Often what we think we want at age 18-22 is completely different than what we want at 30+. If both of you have reached that point and still like the same things and feel the same about most issues I think you have a good chance of a good marriage.
 

jessy

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I'm 28, I got married last year, when my husband and I had been together for about 3 & 1/2 years. We're struggling at the moment, it's tough
 

goldenkitty45

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DH did - he got married at 18 cause she was pregnant. They wound up with 3 kids (4 yrs apart) and the marriage lasted 20 yrs. Mainly adultry was the reason for the divorce (she cheated on him). There was other things involved too.

I got married when 25, marriage lasted 17 yrs (divorce due to abuse to me).

IMO unless the marriage is for good reasons and not stupid ones, its better to wait till about mid 20's to get married. We've seen too many failed marriages when the "kids" are younger then 22/23 yrs old.
 

katiemae1277

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I got married at 24 which I think was too young


I agree with Linda in that people change an awful lot in their 20s, taking this from personal experience. sometimes people grow together, sometimes they grow apart
 
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