Anonymous wrote:I got married at 24. Still happily married 16 years later.

At the time, I remember feeling like an adult. My H is 3.5 years older than me (we met when I was a freshman and he was a senior in college). By the time we married 5 years later, we both had masters degrees, I had a job offer, he had a good paying job, and he had 100k in savings to put down on our first house. This early start in real estate got us on a solid financial path as we climbed the property ladder in DC, so there is that side benefit.

However, it seems today that people mature much slower than they used to and most people are not ready to marry, buy a house, or have kids until at least their early thirties, if not later.

You make it sound like meeting early led directly to buying your first house at a young age, but how many people have 100k at 24/27? Am I crazy for thinking this is not common? Did he get the down payment from his parents?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I got married at 24. Still happily married 16 years later.

At the time, I remember feeling like an adult. My H is 3.5 years older than me (we met when I was a freshman and he was a senior in college). By the time we married 5 years later, we both had masters degrees, I had a job offer, he had a good paying job, and he had 100k in savings to put down on our first house. This early start in real estate got us on a solid financial path as we climbed the property ladder in DC, so there is that side benefit.

However, it seems today that people mature much slower than they used to and most people are not ready to marry, buy a house, or have kids until at least their early thirties, if not later.

I don’t think it has anything do with “ maturing slower”. Many people realize they would rather enjoy their twenties, focus on their career, or wait for the right one. There is nothing wrong with waiting until your thirties to get married, buy a house, or have kids. It has nothing to do with maturity. Some people want to explore their carefree and childfree twenties.

I just meant that at the time, I saw myself as an adult and so did the people around me. Social media didn't exist yet so that probably factored in as well. Nowadays, most people still see 24 year olds as kids. Events like the Recession and the Pandemic, in which many young twenty somethings had to move back in with their parents and live in their childhood bedrooms again, have a lot to do with that.

There is nothing wrong with waiting to get married, especially not if you haven't met the right one yet! But if you have, there is nothing wrong with acknowledging it by getting married either. 24 really is adulthood and people like the OP's daughter is old enough to make important decisions on her own now.

We are leading our best lives as retired grandparents in our 50’s. As did our parents. This has only occurred because of successive generations of college-sweetheart marrying. To quote RHONJ, it’s all about fambly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I got married at 24. Still happily married 16 years later.

At the time, I remember feeling like an adult. My H is 3.5 years older than me (we met when I was a freshman and he was a senior in college). By the time we married 5 years later, we both had masters degrees, I had a job offer, he had a good paying job, and he had 100k in savings to put down on our first house. This early start in real estate got us on a solid financial path as we climbed the property ladder in DC, so there is that side benefit.

However, it seems today that people mature much slower than they used to and most people are not ready to marry, buy a house, or have kids until at least their early thirties, if not later.

I don’t think it has anything do with “ maturing slower”. Many people realize they would rather enjoy their twenties, focus on their career, or wait for the right one. There is nothing wrong with waiting until your thirties to get married, buy a house, or have kids. It has nothing to do with maturity. Some people want to explore their carefree and childfree twenties.

How’d it take you eight pages to show up?

Is your marriage miserable? I enjoyed my twenties while married and childfree. Enjoyed my life with my kids when they arrived too.

Anonymous wrote:I got married at 24. Still happily married 16 years later.

At the time, I remember feeling like an adult. My H is 3.5 years older than me (we met when I was a freshman and he was a senior in college). By the time we married 5 years later, we both had masters degrees, I had a job offer, he had a good paying job, and he had 100k in savings to put down on our first house. This early start in real estate got us on a solid financial path as we climbed the property ladder in DC, so there is that side benefit.

However, it seems today that people mature much slower than they used to and most people are not ready to marry, buy a house, or have kids until at least their early thirties, if not later.

I don’t think it has anything do with “ maturing slower”. Many people realize they would rather enjoy their twenties, focus on their career, or wait for the right one. There is nothing wrong with waiting until your thirties to get married, buy a house, or have kids. It has nothing to do with maturity. Some people want to explore their carefree and childfree twenties.

We met as freshmen dated for 7 years and then got engaged around. Three years later we are truly the best of friends and really felt like we grew up with one another, my husband even mentioned this to me last week. My mother mentioned to me in high school that a great catch in college is probably a great catch for life, so far so good.

While it’s ‘only’ been three years of marriage we are really having a good time. Would I want my kid engaged at 23, no, we made up a rule that we needed to get to 25. We moved in around then too, and started those second post college jobs with jumps in pay. The age of 25 was pulled out of thin air but made us feel like we weren’t babies anymore.

It will all work out if it’s meant to be. Try and keep your opinions to yourself, they are adults.

Funny after my mom saw where this was going, after her previous advice, she mentioned sowing my wild oats. That just leads to disease these days.

I was struck by the thunderbolt in tenth grade, I didn’t seal the deal until we were 21; we just celebrated 20 years together, sometimes you just know.

I will mention that between 10th grade and 22 (yes there was an overlap between sealing the deal and sleeping with other people) we each had rich full ranges of experience so when we got together we already knew that we were compatible.

Times are slightly different now than they were 20 years ago and I feel like there is more sexual freedom, I’m sure she’s a great girl and if she’s happy you should be happy, nothing you can say or do will change the course she’s on so just be a good mom and answer when I asked but don’t volunteer any extra information.

Anonymous wrote:Where are all of the posters from who married their HS and College sweethearts? I'm genuinely curious. I live in DC proper (have for over 20 years) and I know no one who married their HS sweetheart (not even from my HS days!) and I know no one who married their college sweetheart. I know one friend who married at 24 and her husband is a loser. Everyone else married late 20s, but mostly early 30s. And a good handful in late 30s/early 40s!!

Met at 16, married at 22. That was 40 years ago. We've been very lucky.

Anonymous wrote:Just support her OP.. If you talk her out of it and 10 years from now she's still single or with a loser she'll blame you.


It's not what I did, but I know several people who married their college SO and are still doing well and having amazing and interesting lives.

It's her life, not yours.

+ 1, you can't control what your grown kids do. Not even a little bit.

We met in college at 20, married at 25 and just celebrated our 10th anniversary. Best decision of my life. He's my best friend. There's no adjusting to his life, her life, money views, careers, etc because we basically grew up together. Also, there's no serious relationship baggage that we had to deal with. There's certainly nothing wrong with meeting someone later and adjusting your lives to fit together. I just feel that people only see the pitfalls of meeting your spouse young. There's a lot of opportunities for good stuff, too.

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Anonymous wrote:I married my boyfriend I met freshmen year at Yale and I know 12ish couples personally from just my graduating class (and there are plenty more I don’t know personally). That was almost 25 years ago and there has not been one divorce. We got married somewhere between 25-30.

Haha. Had to work Yale into your response.

Yeah, I did that on purpose to counter the idea that only people who aren’t serious professionals marry people they met in college. We all have advanced degrees and interesting jobs. We were not foregoing career ambition in our 20s because we married each other. It was just a great place to meet a life partner.

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Anonymous wrote:I think everyone should work for a few years before getting married. This is the only time in your life when you can spend YOUR money the way YOU want. If she persists with the engagement track, I would push her to be independent and move out on her own. Don’t baby her through this time. I guess you should also fill us in —does she have a job, health benefits, a car, etc.

+100. All couples I know who married college or high school ended up divorced or in passionless marriages. I’m older, and they al seemed to have perfect marriages for the first 10 years. Most of them changed when the kids started getting older (late elementary school). I think that’s when things got stale. There were no more new milestones. The ones who didn’t divorce stayed together (I think) because they had never been on their own — ever.

You need to branch out more. There are plenty of us who married young and are still happy 20 years later. The last kid leaves the house in a couple years and we have a laundry list of plans, both together and independent of each other.

My experience is my experience. Everyone is offering anecdotal info here. You don’t like my post, that’s fine.

It’s great it worked out for you, but it doesn’t for a lot of people. The biggest risk is if OP’s daughter never establishes confidence that she can live on her own. That leads to people getting stuck.

If I were OP, I’d tel the daughter to live on her own a couple of years. No rush. She doesn’t have to break up with the BF.

+1 This thread is slanted heavily toward happy outcomes, which are great, but not the case for a lot of people. OP, just encourage your daughter to establish herself professionally, financially, and socially as an independent person for at least a few years before she gets married. It won't hurt a healthy relationship and it would put her on more solid footing to make her own decisions, choices, mistakes before she starts sharing her life with someone else.

Multiple relationships with great guys who dd loves and who love her and who want to be with her long term may or may not happen. Lots of people would happily take one

No one is saying she should break up with the guy, some people are saying not to rush into marriage. No one is talking about multiple relationships.

I’m another happily married HS sweetheart poster. Met at 17, married at 25 and now well over 50. Boy, are we different people now than we were back then. I think we just got lucky because I’m not sure a teenager understands what lies ahead. And one thing we always shared was high tolerance and acceptance of the other person. Another was chemistry...that helps a ton. I’m fine if my kids meet and marry young; I manage a lot of people in their 20s and 30s and it seems hard for some of them to meet people once they leave school.

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Anonymous wrote:I think everyone should work for a few years before getting married. This is the only time in your life when you can spend YOUR money the way YOU want. If she persists with the engagement track, I would push her to be independent and move out on her own. Don’t baby her through this time. I guess you should also fill us in —does she have a job, health benefits, a car, etc.

+100. All couples I know who married college or high school ended up divorced or in passionless marriages. I’m older, and they al seemed to have perfect marriages for the first 10 years. Most of them changed when the kids started getting older (late elementary school). I think that’s when things got stale. There were no more new milestones. The ones who didn’t divorce stayed together (I think) because they had never been on their own — ever.

You need to branch out more. There are plenty of us who married young and are still happy 20 years later. The last kid leaves the house in a couple years and we have a laundry list of plans, both together and independent of each other.

Couples who meet in HS, College or Grad School have a 40% lower divorce rate. Also those who marry between 22-28 have the lowest divorce rates.

Anonymous wrote:My best friends both married their prom dates. 25 years in and one has been saying for years she wants a do-over. Her oldest is finally graduating HS. At this point she may just hold out until her loaded MIL dies so she can get half in the eventual divorce.

The other couple are the exact image of Ray’s parents in everyone loves Raymond. I can’t stand to be around them together. Ugh the bickering never ends.

I’d be concerned my DD would fall into one of these categories.

Uh. Inheritance is not a marital asset, and it may even be in trust which will make that harder. Unless he commingled the assets, she will get none of his family money.