Help. 20 year old son.

[Anonymous]

Christmas break, proposal but years until marriage
Spring break, she’s pregnant and he’s leaving college at the end of the academic term, looking for a job and a small apartment for the two soon to be three.

This is ridiculous. Brother married at 19, both he and his wife graduated college. He graduated law school. They postponed having children for 10 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP I agree with you in an ideal world, it's too young to get married and someone at that age doesn't really have enough life experience to even know what is important in a partner and co-parent.

All that said, just smile and support. Plenty of people do what they're doing and succeed. My sister was engaged at 20, married at 22, first kid at 26. They're still married 25+ years later. My parents made a HUGE stink about it when she got engaged and it ruined their relationship with her and honestly, they never recovered. My parents thought she was going to listen to them. She didn't. My parents thought the marriage wouldn't work out. They were wrong.

Your parents are assholes.

[Anonymous]

DH proposed when we we juniors in college. We weren't religious. Just very much in love. Both our parents were horrified. I went to law school. He went to grad school. We didn't have kids until our mid-30s. If it is meant to work it will. Stay out of it.

[Anonymous]

Getting married is good for FAFSA purposes. It really makes a difference as your parents income is not considered.
I suppose only worry would be if one spouse takes a student loan and that somehow becomes both of theirs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And to be clear (I’m 9:01), I was paying my own rent, phone bill, buying groceries, etc. as soon as I graduated. Got off my parents insurance when my sister graduated (since keeping me on was no more expensive as long as she was on it). I just don’t understand the people in this thread and would like to.

This is OP. My concern isn't entirely focused on finances. That's part of it, because I do fear that this "long planned engagement" will turn into actually getting married once the ring is on and the bridal magazines come out. Its fun to plan a wedding and tempting to not wait.

But my bigger concern is about the age they are at. The brain is not fully developed until age 25. At age 20, a kid has way too much growing to do to not entirely focus on themselves and developing who they are. Its a big step to consider "two" rather than "one" when going through all of that development. It is a very, very long life, and the selfish period is incredibly and preciously short.

And without any extenuating circumstances (ie a pregnancy or something)...I don't understand the rush.

This is the PP you’re replying to. And frankly, what you mention here is why I think getting married young is GOOD. I wasn’t fully grown up at 21, obviously. I wasn’t even fully grown at 24 when my first baby was born, and neither was my husband. But because we were together and committed to each other, the rest of our growing was done together, with each other to lean on and grow towards. I would be a different person today if I hadn’t spent those formative years forming myself to him (and vice versa). And I think that’s a good thing! He’s made me a better person. Spending my early twenties learning to live with my husband, form a family, etc was a great use of my time.

Then again we may just have very different views of life and marriage — your idea that wedding planning is fun made me LOL because DH sand I eloped to avoid it. (Seriously, we hit the two years engaged mark and I emailed him from work on friday afternoon going “you know what, let’s just go get married” and we went to the court house on Monday before work.)

I understand your concern for your son — it is very nice and freeing to not have to take anyone else into consideration in your life — but he Wants to be married to the woman he loves. You’re not going to talk him out of it, but you might just talk yourself out of his life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a compliment to you, OP, and your DH that your son is excited about the concept of marriage.

Uh no. Concept of unlimited sex.

You have to be married to have sex?

Some couples feel very uncomfortable living together unless they're engaged.

[Anonymous]

I have a cousin who followed basically the same path. They both have successful careers, her especially, and a pack of lovely kids and as far as I know their marriage is going strong now after more than a decade.