Anyone get married at 23? Or around that age?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is the purpose of marrying so young? I'm not a fan of monogamy and I waited until my early 30s to get married. No way could I have married the guy I was dating at 23. Most people mature a lot in their tastes and preferences in their 20s.

A number of reasons:

-Why wait? I found the person I wanted to be with. The pool only gets worse and worse as time goes on
-We did not want to be having babies in our 30s, for financial reasons and for the sake of vanity. Babies hardly phased my body.

In hindsight, we never felt that we needed to keep up with the Joneses. We were 25 and had our first kid. We bought a small shit shack in Arlington (before prices were crazy) and we did not even notice that it was small and out of date, we were so happy to have a home together.

I SAH until I was the old age of 30 when I returned to work. My career never took a hit. Plus we hit the jackpot when it comes to real estate by being so serious when we were young. We are now 45 & 46, one in college, one graduating HS this June. We have friends our age with toddlers and struggling with the cost of housing and living here. We're established in our careers, have a house paid off, and our boys got scolarships which has been an enormous windfall. I feel like we have a whole life in front of us, I'd do it this way a million times over. I have ZERO and I mean ZERO desire to be running after toddlers at my age. The only thing I'm running in are in triathlons.

You're only mid 40s and you've been sleeping with the same guy for more than 20 years? Gee.

Yup. At an average of 3xs a week. I'm also bisexual and am able to express that side of my sexuality. My DH is not only a great life partner, but a great sexual partner. The wonderful thing about growing up together is that there are no secrets and no inhibitions.

Ok so you've been sleeping with him, but not exclusively him, for that long. That makes more sense.

[Anonymous]

Yes. I've been sleeping with the same GUY for that long.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh honey.

The child is a greater commitment than the marriage! Totally different ballgame...

OP here. So what are your thoughts now that you know we have a child?

NP, but my thoughts are that marriage is completely irrelevant in your situation. You are already bound to your child's father for the rest of your life (assuming he stays involved) and you are already responsible for another human being, which is life-altering. Who cares if you get married or not.

I know this won't go over well with the - I'm a 50-year old grandma and it's awesome - theme of this thread but to me getting married young is a separate issue from having kids young. Lots of people meet the person they want to be with very young. Having kids is a whole other thing. Your life changes forever and there is no going back. You will never ever again be young and carefree with no responsibilities in the world and nothing to do but explore the world, yourself, friendships, relationships, life, etc. And no, I personally don't think living the empty nest lifestyle in your 50s is the same thing in the least. But I am ready for everyone to tell me how wrong I am. Rock on 50-something Grandmas.

Honestly my early 20s was full of partying and wasted time. Time wasted sleeping all weekend and taking shitty trips because I only made 50k/yr.

I think it sounds pretty spectacular to be 45, well off and have the time and money to travel, drink nice wine, and have the luxury of a body that was not ravaged by kids in my middle age.

I have a good friend who had her first her freshman year in college. She went on to quickly have 3 more. Same dad. Still married. She managed to finish college though at George Mason over 6 years as she SAH. She's 44 and her and her husband have done really well. They take amazing trips and looking at her body you would never even think she had a baby. She has her whole life ahead of her. she is always somewhere warm and luxurious. Time and money are way better at 45 than 25.

Totally disagree. Things I did in my 20s that were not a waste of time:

Traveled internationally alone, which on some level scared the shit out of me but I did it and it was truly life changing
Moved to an entirely new city for a dream job
Formed friendships that have lasted me decades - I still am close with many of the people from that period of my life

Sure, everything is less luxurious because you're not rich. But that's the beauty of it too. You're young and up for anything. Now I'm old and I want to stay in nice hotels. I really enjoyed having a lifestyle where I had a large group of amazing friends and we all had about the same amount of money and everyone was really just up for any adventure at any time. I wouldn't trade any of that time.

How did you all "travel all over the world" in your 20s? I grew up in a pretty affluent family (went to Sidwell) and when i was in my 20s I was busting my ass 12hrs a day at a job. I was building my career so that I now, at 38 get to work a cushy barely 40hr a week job. Sure, I studied in Spain for a semester and did a few trips with family whrn I was in college and on break. And then I of course did the cheap Caribbean party vacations.

How did you fund this world travel and how did you get so much time off? did none of you work or did you have jobs at unicorn factories that gave you a teachers schedule with an executive package? I have parents that are loaded and they expected me to get a job after spending, probably 600k on my education. No way were they going to fund me running around Paris and Istanbul for years on end. the only reason why I now have 6 weeks vacation Is because of years of service and being in upper management which affords me some nice perks.

Simple, I traveled fairly cheaply (hostels, cheap eats) and I traveled between jobs and before and after graduate school. Doing this I managed to travel for several months after college, worked for a year and saved $$ the whole time, hated that job and quit, traveled for several more months, worked another job for 2 years, and then went back to grad school. Before and after grad school I traveled for several months (quit one job a few months before school started and didn't line up another job straight after school). My parents never gave me any money. I've always been a good saver and I traveled pretty frugally. If you want to do it, you do it. Amazing experiences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh honey.

The child is a greater commitment than the marriage! Totally different ballgame...

OP here. So what are your thoughts now that you know we have a child?

NP, but my thoughts are that marriage is completely irrelevant in your situation. You are already bound to your child's father for the rest of your life (assuming he stays involved) and you are already responsible for another human being, which is life-altering. Who cares if you get married or not.

I know this won't go over well with the - I'm a 50-year old grandma and it's awesome - theme of this thread but to me getting married young is a separate issue from having kids young. Lots of people meet the person they want to be with very young. Having kids is a whole other thing. Your life changes forever and there is no going back. You will never ever again be young and carefree with no responsibilities in the world and nothing to do but explore the world, yourself, friendships, relationships, life, etc. And no, I personally don't think living the empty nest lifestyle in your 50s is the same thing in the least. But I am ready for everyone to tell me how wrong I am. Rock on 50-something Grandmas.

Honestly my early 20s was full of partying and wasted time. Time wasted sleeping all weekend and taking shitty trips because I only made 50k/yr.

I think it sounds pretty spectacular to be 45, well off and have the time and money to travel, drink nice wine, and have the luxury of a body that was not ravaged by kids in my middle age.

I have a good friend who had her first her freshman year in college. She went on to quickly have 3 more. Same dad. Still married. She managed to finish college though at George Mason over 6 years as she SAH. She's 44 and her and her husband have done really well. They take amazing trips and looking at her body you would never even think she had a baby. She has her whole life ahead of her. she is always somewhere warm and luxurious. Time and money are way better at 45 than 25.

Totally disagree. Things I did in my 20s that were not a waste of time:

Traveled internationally alone, which on some level scared the shit out of me but I did it and it was truly life changing
Moved to an entirely new city for a dream job
Formed friendships that have lasted me decades - I still am close with many of the people from that period of my life

Sure, everything is less luxurious because you're not rich. But that's the beauty of it too. You're young and up for anything. Now I'm old and I want to stay in nice hotels. I really enjoyed having a lifestyle where I had a large group of amazing friends and we all had about the same amount of money and everyone was really just up for any adventure at any time. I wouldn't trade any of that time.

How did you all "travel all over the world" in your 20s? I grew up in a pretty affluent family (went to Sidwell) and when i was in my 20s I was busting my ass 12hrs a day at a job. I was building my career so that I now, at 38 get to work a cushy barely 40hr a week job. Sure, I studied in Spain for a semester and did a few trips with family whrn I was in college and on break. And then I of course did the cheap Caribbean party vacations.

How did you fund this world travel and how did you get so much time off? did none of you work or did you have jobs at unicorn factories that gave you a teachers schedule with an executive package? I have parents that are loaded and they expected me to get a job after spending, probably 600k on my education. No way were they going to fund me running around Paris and Istanbul for years on end. the only reason why I now have 6 weeks vacation Is because of years of service and being in upper management which affords me some nice perks.

Simple, I traveled fairly cheaply (hostels, cheap eats) and I traveled between jobs and before and after graduate school. Doing this I managed to travel for several months after college, worked for a year and saved $$ the whole time, hated that job and quit, traveled for several more months, worked another job for 2 years, and then went back to grad school. Before and after grad school I traveled for several months (quit one job a few months before school started and didn't line up another job straight after school). My parents never gave me any money. I've always been a good saver and I traveled pretty frugally. If you want to do it, you do it. Amazing experiences.

Also, I am now in my late 30s with a pretty cushy and family friendly job that pays well. I also get 6 weeks vacation. I really buckled down on the career front in my late 20s, I would say. Worked out great for me.