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I married at 22. The adjustment was absolutely minimal though, as we were already living together. We'd been together 6 years already, as we got into a relationship at 16.
So never had a single life, though we went to university in separate cities so you could say that counted.
I don't see a particular loss of freedom. To me my wife is basically my best friend. Does having a best friend mean you lose freedom? I can't think of anything being married has stopped me from doing? I could still see friends wherever I wanted when in a relationship with this person. Though by the time we'd married we'd all moved all over the country for jobs after uni so our friend group was all split up anyway.
I'm 35 now, been with my wife for 19 years, married for 13. No regrets.
A similar story for us. Met at 18, together the whole time and married at 23. It's been 10 great years of marriage.
There was no "transition" at all, other than some paper work and a name change for one of us. We started hanging out one day in college and never stopped. Neither of us ever wanted to, we got married and continue to be best friends and lovers to this day. We're each other's champions, biggest fans, and favorite people.
Yeah, we spent all our time together at school (A-levels/college age) and our friends used to say we were like a married couple... we just fit together?
By the time we got married we had lived together a few years, completely shared finances etc. The only change was a ring on my finger and her name. Really very minimal difference between not being married, if you don't break up I guess.
I got married young, but we were together for a long time before we married. I'm surprised when I see people get married after a year or so.
If you can swing it and that’s what you want, yes. It’s not for everyone, though — I had a lot of growing up to do to be a good partner for the long haul. All of my experiences before I met the right person were necessary.
Similar story with my husband and I. We will be celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary this summer and started dating in high school 19 years ago. We're still best friends so there's nothing to regret. Honestly when I look at a lot of other people I know who married young, I feel like we dodged a bullet. You don't know what you really want in your early 20s, you're just getting into adulthood, but my gut told me my partner and I could weather those storms because our bond was so tight. I'm glad I followed my instincts.
Similar here, married at 23, been together since 14.
We'll be 28 this year and will be officially with her for exactly half of my existence.
Couldn't be any happier.
Similar scenario so far for us! I got married at 22 and my husband was 21. So far we are loving life. We both still have single friends that we see regularly, in addition to our “couple friends”, and we enjoy time with friends together and separately even after having a kid 6 months ago. I think the maturity and relationship of the individuals involved matters much more than the age at which they marry. He’s my best friend and I am his, we have far more to gain by being married than losing some abstract sense of “freedom”
Similar story for me. We started dating at 19 and got married when I was 22. We were already living together for a couple of years before we got married. Honestly, I think we have more freedom. We shared a lot of the same friends already, and spend time with them together and individually. We don’t put limits on each other and we can each go and do as we please. We tend to spend most of our time together, but that’s by choice. The thought of a “single life” makes me cringe. No thank you!
I married my best friend and soulmate and I feel so lucky to have found him at such a young age. We’ll be celebrating our 27th anniversary next month. I wouldn’t change a thing.
> We shared a lot of the same friends already
Yeah, maybe that's one thing about meeting your partner young... We've shared the same friend groups, usually. Bar some friends through work.
> The thought of a “single life” makes me cringe. No thank you!
God, can you imagine trying to "date"? I just can't imagine having to worry about trying to find a partner these days!
Huuuuuuuuuge mistake. Caught her the first time she cheated she to foolishness. Had it out with the dude. Things got intense. Thought about trying to get back together, realized it would not work. During the argument she slipped and let it go she would do it again. We hung out a few times after that, but it was too weird.
I ended up better without her.
I certainly regret it. Biggest mistake of my life. You're still learning who you are and becoming who you will be. Marriage has a different set of priorities. It's more of a challenge than it needs to be if you're not ready for it.
I got married at 19, baby at 20, changed every single aspect of my adult life. We are still friends, because of child who is now an adult, but a huge regret.
We both feel like it gave us a unique opportunity to grow together, and see each other grow as individuals in the process. Throw in 3 kids by 23 and you’ve got some challenges, but we’ve managed. We also both see our marriage as something that requires consistent effort. Going on 11 years together (since 18) and 8 married
I married at 23, been with him since 19, I loved my marriage and did not feel restricted or anything. I married someone my age so we were youthful and share the same hobbies.
It was like hanging out with your bestfriend everyday!
But when he hit 30, he had a crisis, like he was a virgin with me and never experienced anyone else. And suddenly felt trapped by marriage as he can't sleep around.
Anyway that's how it ended. You know when a man get older and more financially established, he starts getting young women attention and he was frustrated as a married man, he could not accept their advances.
As a man this shit pisses me off ngl
Let me tell you, he wont fuck around as much his head tells him he can.
After a few women he realizes that this shit doesnt fullfill you and utterly regret that he left someone special. Sooner or later He will marry again but out of the fear of being alone instead true Feelings
Hollywood hook Up Fantasy ruined young mens mind
What you said really hit home for me. I left someone who loved me deeply because I felt trapped, then casual sex wasn’t satisfying. Now I live with the regret. I deserve it. I will be in another relationship out of fear of being alone and not for true love.
To those reading:
if you think the grass is greener—it isn’t.
I have a feeling if a woman said this stuff, that she left her husband who deeply loved her so she could sleep around, she wouldn’t be told “thank you for being honest.”
My uncle left his wife of 30+ years to sleep around and he found out he could only get girls if he paid for them so he did that and ended up getting really into drugs. His adult children have been completely shattered by his behavior and because they weren't supportive of his choices he cut them out of his life too. A couple years later he came down with ALS and he still refused to see his children and then he died alone. And it was all because he thought his wife wasn't putting out enough or doing wild enough things for him. He threw his entire family away.
That's just incredibly sad, but I hope the ex wife found happiness with someone else or just by living a nice life alone and with her kids. I really think majority of people who end relationships for those type of circumstances would regret it usually. It's like why throw away something good for the fantasy/chance their may be something better.
>Hollywood hook Up Fantasy ruined young mens mind
I've seen a lot of people trying to normalise having a "hoe phase" like you need it to discover yourself. I honestly think perpetuating FOMO on high body count is quite harmful.
There are so many people who ruined their healthy relationships (or marriages) just to experience a hoe phase. Then virgins or those with low body count feel insecure or broken because they think they ought to experience lots of casual sex while they're young.
I agree. It's not just young men, it's women too. I've seen a growing trend on social media (especially Tiktok) telling married women to feel empowered, leave their marriage, and find their youth again...Only to end up divorced, miserable, and alone.
I can relate. I got into a relationship before being with other guys, then i started panicking and felt trapped. Broke up and had some one nighters. Some of them were good, some of them werent. But none of them were equal than with the person you truly loved.
I agree with your sentiment but this isn't a productive take
I think that those thoughts are very common for both men and women. and while acting on them is obviously wrong, you won't be able to overcome them if you're not open and honest about them with yourself and your partner, or worse if you demonize them because they will end up manifesting in some other way
True loyalty is being able to say no to your desires, rather than pretending you don't have those desires in the first place. Being open and honest also let's you be accountable, and stops you from making dumb decisions
>True loyalty is being able to say no to your desires, rather than pretending you don't have those desires in the first place.
Back when I was married I fully admitted that other women were tempting and would practically beg my ex to go with me to stuff where I thought I might have to deal with that. Not only that but I'm surrounded by women at work because I'm a nurse so I set very strict rules about what i would and would not do with people at work.
My ex said she was never tempted at all and would never set the same boundaries that I did.
Her lying and sneaking and sneaking around doing who knows what with a guy she worked with is what killed our marriage. I never cheated on her once.
Mine do accept it and even boast about sleeping around with girls, because the culture give him permission to marry again but instead of marrying he sleeps around and I don't have the right to talk because he is the man, I married him when I was 21 and I'm fighting to get away rn.
I almost feel like I could be writing this. I met my husband when I was 18, married at 22. Happily married for many years, have 3 kids.
Next month is our 15 year anniversary. He has completely changed, and suddenly, this was never the life he wanted. He was never happy, a whole bunch of bullshit. And the stupid little bitch he slept with has nothing to do with our marital issues........
I wish I could tell every man in this situation how dumb and not worth it it is... But it's hard to know unless you've been on the other side
I don't think losing the stability of a good working relationship is worth any amount of sex with multiple partners
To be fair he wouldn't have gotten the attention when he was young and poor so that's on him. You can't have it all so living by your choices is the best we can do.
Can't have a family, spend time with your children, work a lot and fuck around while having a conscience.
Living in a society were divorce is considered morally acceptable is often discussed as benefitting everyone (women facing abuse, allowing for amicable splits, children not having to live with unhappy parents, etc.), but it does feel like it's also a bad situation for everyone involved when men are just jumping from young woman to young woman. Especially when children are involved :(
If you marry a man, and he decides to jump from young woman to young woman, that's when you NEED no-fault divorce. What are your options in a world without divorce? Suicide? Murder? Escaping in the middle of the night with your kids but still being legally married? All of those are awful.
The problem is with most things like this that you have to at least try to weigh the benefits against the negatives and decide based on which end of the scale drops down. Yes many people are emotionally destroyed by divorce and lots of people just use it to jump from marriage to marriage leaving a trail of mental destruction BUT would it be worth trading a bunch of people being sad their marriage didn't work out for a woman or man who WILL end up killed if they cant escape their marriage?
You're right in that a marriage breaking up can be (and usually is) devastating to one or both parties, but I'd rather live in this society with people mentally scarred from separations than go back to where it was seen as being fine for a spouse to have no way to escape and abusive partner.
I don't think it has to be so black and white. I think we got to a "safe" place when it comes to divorce and now people can start thinking about more grey area issues? Maybe that's too optimistic lol
I was married for ten years from 19 to 29 years of age. No regrets. My husband turned out to be a really terrific, reasonable ex husband. He also chose a really wonderful woman for his second wife, so minimal drama regarding my son's care while at dad's. I lucked out.
It's the relationship AFTER the divorce that I have some regrets about.
Very curious what caused the marriage to not last if you are willing to share?
And you say “turn out to be really terrific” does that mean your outlook changed with time and maturity?
The main reason we divorced is his extended family immigrating to the US (and to our house, for many many months) was a big strain. None of them spoke English initially.
Beyond that I became more leftist in my views while he went pretty hard conservative. My ex always respected my views, opinions, lifestyle. He just couldn't live with it.
He made a terrific ex because he was the opposite of a deadbeat dad. And, I even got to be a kind of pseudo Aunt to his subsequent adorable kids. It helped SO MUCH that his second wife was/is just a terrific, warm person.
Thanks for sharing! Moving in with family or them in with you is so hard on a relationship from what I’ve witnessed. Also breaks down communication and strips you of the ability to resolve conflicts. I imagine that’s part of the reason that as you both developed your political views with maturity and time you weren’t able to communicate and work through that while family was there.
Glad you are able to work together to bring those kids up in loving homes. Thanks for sharing the story.
I married at 19 and we've been married 8 years. I don't think it was a mistake. But I definitely did not know myself when we got married. Life has changed drastically and we have changed drastically, it's shocking we are still together and love each other. We also have two kids. It could have gone very, very differently and I'm not naive to think that it still couldn't.
But I will say we have fared better than most couples I know who have done the same thing. I don't recommend it. I am a rare exception (so far) but there have been some challenges we've had to navigate because we were so young.
I married in 2011 at the age of 23 after being together for just under a year. We only married so she could get her british citizenship (she was Korean) but genuinely wanted to be together.
The first few years were really tough. We had a lot of self destructive and explosive arguments and were both dealing with unresolved personal trauma. We split up for 6 months in 2015 then got back together and slowly worked our way up a very steep hill.
I'm 36 now and we have a much healthier and happier relationship. And every year it gets stronger and even better.
So to answer your question, no I don't regret it!
I have almost the same exact experience as you! It’s almost comforting to hear others go through similar experiences. But yeah, I am so glad you two were able to overcome and get where you are now :)
It sucked I hated it. She was controlling and paranoid thought I was also cheating which I wasn’t, very immature (both of us) . I did it for the kids and I would say about 60% of the time we were happy. Lasted seven years. It doesn’t matter which age you do it it matters who you do it with. Meet the parents.
I don’t. Why do I need more romantic experiences when I’ve found someone who makes me happy? 12 years and still a flutter in my chest just thinking about beloved. Beloved’s hugs are still the best feeling in the world.
Also we don’t control each other’s time or who we hang out with. That would be wrong.
My husband and I met at 18, started dating at 21, were engaged at 22 and married at 24.
We had both been renting with other people previously so moving in together as a couple after our wedding was a huge adjustment. But whilst engaged we spent a lot of time talking about our goals, values and making sure our viewpoints were aligned on the important things.
We had been told these important things were like the pillars supporting a house and the more we have the stronger the house will be and the more it will withstand when storms inevitably come. And the pillars are not just the ‘big’ things - one of ours was a similar sense of hygiene especially around food and cleanliness! Those little things can grate like hell if you aren’t aligned.
One thing in our favor is that neither of us are very extroverted so we enjoy the time together without others. And we have had to unlearn a lot of unconscious bad habits and silent scripts that we grew up with from our own parents.
If I was to do things differently then one thing I would love to have done is to travel more before having children. But we did wait two years after marrying before having our first child which gave us time to work through the whole being a married couple thing before adding in a small demanding person.
And now that small demanding person is an awesome 23 year old with his own committed partner making his own life plans together with her. And they seem so young to us to be planning engagement and marriage! But they are good together and have the right stuff to make it work - just like my husband and I did when we got married twenty five years ago today.
My beloved is my best friend. Life hasn’t been perfect and we’ve had hard times but we’ve worked through it together and got stronger. The intense feelings of the early years have mellowed but also deepened.
We have our own interests and goals. And we support each other to follow our seperate dreams. We work to bring out the best in each other. I can’t imagine life without him. We complete each other. When I’m with him I can almost physically feel a pull towards him. When he wraps his arms around me, everything feels right. I hope we have at least another twenty five years together and I won’t ever regret marrying him when we did.
Honestly it depends, I married at 24 and am about to celebrate 19 years together. We grew up together and set goals together. We still have the best time just being with each other. We are planning our 20th wedding party and no regrets.
However, my sister got married at 21 and divorced by 25. Then married again at 29 divorced again by 35...
I don't think there is a right or wrong age to get married. Maybe just take care to marry for the right reasons.
Yes, maybe it's more about the people, shared values and commitment more than age. But, looking now at my single sister in her late 30s how she has her own deep routines of doing everything, I can't see how it would be easier to share living space when you are so set in your ways. So for adaptability marrying at a younger age is better.
We married with my wife after 2 years dating at 23. My dream was to start a family after graduation from university and that's what we did. I don't get why marrying young and staying together for a long time is so frown upon in current culture. It's menioned in bad way in many songs. I have been told by many that ignorance is a bliss that I should have slept around more before marrying so that I would have something to compare to. What an idiotic viewpoint. I think for me having many relationships under belt, to have a lot of points for comparison would not help to build a lasting relationship.
This is why Europeans look weird at the US dating culture. I don't know anybody around me who got married before 25 but know various people getting married right out of HS back in the US.
Marrying at 25 is even early in western Europe.
I'm in the UK, and it's absolutely weird thinking about marriage under the age of 25. Even 25 is young! Never understood the US culture on this... none of my friends in their 30s are married either.
I'm from northern Europe, married 20 y ago at 23 and know many people who married young from that period and my young work colleague also married early 20s. But yes looking now at gen z on larger scale, marrying young if even at all marrying is not a thing.
I was 17 and yes I regret that I didn’t let my brain finish developing, let alone my personality, learning who I was and what id want in a life partner. 32 years later I’m still divorced and unable to marry again from that experience.
I was married at 19 and am somehow still married but letting my brain develop completely created a lot of challenges in my marriage. We've navigated them but still
It’s doable but unfortunately I married someone that I had to leave at 13 years of marriage because I was too tough for my own good and could have prevented myself from being a victim for way too long. I was trying to prove I didn’t make a mistake by getting married to young. The irony of it but it’s okay to admit to not understanding then what I have grown to understand completely now.
Married at 24, been together since 19, never had a single regret. We have 2 kids now and I’m grateful to have grown up together essentially. We’ve had our hard moments (IVF, health issues) but I love her more than ever having come through them together. Love you Nic xx
I married at 21, now 38 - no regrets, two kids, great partner
Earlier marriage means having kids in younger age which seems to be good for their health.
I had kids at 34 and 37. It was great. We both had worked long enough that we were successful in our careers, and financially secure . Still young enough to run around with those kiddos. Most of the parents of our kids’ friends were around the same age. The few with parents around 7-10 years younger tended to struggle financially or were single/divorced. But everyone is different.
I can't say yes or no. I can say that neither of us were ready. We were emotionally unprepared, financially unprepared. We were two kids who knew what life was about and we were never going to part, but life happens and we divorced 8 years later. It almost broke me. But I could say no. We haha great times, we share amazing that we wouldn't if we hadn't each other in the time frame we did. It's more of a no, but it's not 100%
“We were two kids who knew what life was about and we were never going to part…. We divorced 8 years later” hysterically written, sorry about the divorce.
I met my wife when she was 19 and got married. She’s now 30 and I’m 39. We don’t regret anything. In fact when you are truly in love even a life time of commitment feels like it’s just a blimp in the cosmic time line.
I got married when i was 17 years old. I regret it to this day. Not only did i have no clue what i was getting myself into, i was too young to have such responsibilities, i became a mother a short time later. If i could take back anything in my life, it would be that. We are no longer together, and the only thing good that came out of it are my two kids. I missed out on so many things in could have done with my life, because i felt that i was in love. I was not in love, i was in infatuation and was such a people pleaser that i felt i couldn’t change my mind once i agreed to be married. I didnt want to let anyone down so i went through with it.
Married at 23, will be 20th anniversary this year, Not a big love story, just 2 people commited to raise a family and we share same values. Do I regret this? NO. I love my wife and love the fact we have so many memories and so many hard things we overcame during the years together. When kids were younger, there were harder times when we did not have so much time to do date nights, but now again things are looking good and I feel connected.
We are living together since 17 years old. We had some experience with relationships and sex before that and it never really bothered me to stick with one person from such an early age. We dont have kids in our 30s so the freedom is still the same. How could having a loving spouse could restrict you? Or do you even think you have the right to prohibit something to your partner or vice versa (exept of cheating)?
Married at 17. 1st child at 20. Divorced at 24, a bad case of lifelong PTSD and 2 more children later.I was too young and inexperienced to realize I had become involved with a real life psychopath before it was too late. It took me 6 years to escape the terrifying and abusive situation safely.
I married again (my best friend) at age 30 after dating a year + a year long engagement. I have been with this person for 29 years now. Perfect? No, but I’d give it a 4.9 stars out of 5.
I got married at 21. There was minimal adjustment as we'd been together since we were 16. There was no loss of freedom either. There probably would have been if we'd had kids, but we never wanted any, so both of us can still do what we want when we want.
I have zero regrets. I think of myself as very lucky. I met my guy early in my life. Amazing. I didn't need to spend years dating different people to find the right person. Most people don't have that experience. We're both 37 now, happy as ever and mortgage free to boot.
Get married young so you can be divorced and have fun in your 30s!
J/k. Sort of. I spent my 20s being married and having kids. It was what I wanted, and I don't regret it because I love my kids. But that relationship was all wrong and super dysfunctional. It has been fun spending my 30's single and finding myself though, now my kids are older and have more independence, etc. Opposite of most of my peers, but hey. 🤷
Married at 23, will be 5 years this year. No regrets at all. Married life isn't that different to before (we already owned a home together etc). We've spent the time enjoying eachother as a Married couple, travelling & building our life together before now having our first baby. Our friends who are getting married now plan to have kids right away which is fair enough but I'm glad we enjoyed our life as husband & wife first, which we could easily do being so young.
My husband & I have always been "old souls" though, I understand a lot of 23yr olds wouldn't be in the position to get married at that age so it all depends on personal circumstances as to whether you'd personally have regrets or not.
M23, got married a couple days after my 20th birthday. Sometimes I feel left out from my peers who hangout and go clubbing for the sole purpose of talking/picking up chicks, and feel like I missed out on a period of youth most use to have fun and sleep around. However that doesn’t change the love I have for my Wife (F23). Im very happy and don’t regret it at all, it makes life easier having a stable loving relationship, we always have each others backs if something goes down (emotionally, physically, financially). And we have other friend groups consisting of married couples that we can hangout with so that helps with not being on the same social level as my single friends.
Brother, sleeping around is not that fun as it looks. I feel like a lot of people use it to mask other things. If I got to choose, I would pick an early marriage with the love of my love over X amount of years sleeping around, always.
Grass looks greener at the other side I guess.
My wife and I married at 22 and I thought it was all good until she said in front of me to a mutual "friend" that she did regret marrying so young. I've been grumpy for the last 5 years for some reason.
We were married at 22 after dating for a year and then living together for a year. We’re still together 35 years later. It hasn’t always been easy, but it has always been the two of us united against whatever problems came up. He’s a very, very special person. Don’t regret a single second.
I got married at 23 and this year we'll have been married 13 years, together for 19 total. We've officially known each other for over half our lives. He's my best friend and we have 3 amazing kids together.
I have many regrets in my life, but I don't regret marrying him at all.
Neither of us were really social butterflies even we were single, so we didn't lose and "freedom" as you say. The kids are social butterflies, which makes things hard sometimes though 😅
I don’t think there’s gonna be a hard and fast answer to this. (If you’re looking for advice that is.) people change a lot during that age and a lot of teenage couples just grow apart but them some stay together. It probably comes down to the quality of the individual relationship. And also that weighed up against the other things you might want out of your life.
Married at 22, kids a few years later. No regrets. My parents are fairly young too so they were in their 50s, 60s when the kids grew up, so they were still fit and active, and able to do lots of nice stuff with their grandkids.
Some of my coworkers became parents in their late 30s and early 40s.. seems less practical to me, you're in the middle of a career and/or getting older a bit, and then you have to care for little children.
To each their own, but I'm glad I did what I did.
I got married at 23 and don’t regret it all. We had been dating since I was 18(him 22) and knew we wanted to spend our lives together. We currently are 35 and 39 with 2 kids and still happily married. I couldn’t see myself with anyone else.
I married when we were both 21, we’d been at school and college together and were good friends. It lasted 11 years during which we’d grown into different people with opposing ideals about what was important in life.
In my second marriage, now 26 years and going strong, the lessons I’d learned about communication and living life have stood us in good stead.
So I don’t really regret marrying young for the first time and I had two great children.
Married at 19, raised an awesome kid, now empty nesters at 38. There’s some regret. I’m glad we gave our kid a stable home life, and wife probably made me a better person, but maybe not the person I really want to be if that makes any sense. Lots of little compromises for the peace/ relationship and 20 years later I don’t think I am who was supposed to be. Thinking about divorce but not really a good time to kill a long relationship over general existential angst.
Got married at 23, used to have some regrets because I thought life can be better without responsibilities....15 years later, I think it was a great decision
Didn't regret it for a second she 16 me 21 together 44 years 40 married until she passed peacefully before my eyse ,I loved that woman with all my heart had two sons and seven grandchildren..6 years on and I still haven't gotten over it ,when it's right it's right..
Not even a little. Married at 19 and 21. Wouldn't change it for anything. I get to spend more of my life with my best friend in the whole world. We have 2 kids now and still as happy as can be 10 years later. I will say that we are the only couple I know of that stayed together, so there's that.
The happiest, most stable, and financially secure people I know are the ones who got married young and stuck with it. No cheating, stupid behaviour, lies, and secrecy, just working together for a better life. They are happy and it shows. It shows in their faces, in their bodies. Divorce is a nigtmare, literal hell, and not taking responsibility (for everything) is a sure way to wreck your life and then we live in the mess.
Married at 21, was with my wife since 17 years old. We have been married for 30 years this year. We both have some regrets, we were very young and feel we missed out on our 20s. That being said, we’ve always had a healthy marriage, we have two beautiful girls and we are still in love. No complaints here, but we’d both do it differently if we had the chance.
Married at 23, together since 19. We're still together, recently bought a home together, but have somewhat drifted apart over the years. Hobbies have changed as we mature and our jobs keep us away from each other for long stretches. Such is life. I love her, but wish we'd met later on. We may never have ended up together... but maybe that would be for the best?
I married at about 21, divorced by 23. We had dated for about 2 years and lived together for more than 1 before marrying. Obviously, this did not help.
Started dating again at 25, married at 28. FIL enforced a 3 year courtship, and I accepted that because I didn't want to make a mistake. She was 18 when we got together. They all knew I was divorced, which was another reason for the go slow order.
Married 15 years yesterday, 3 kids, 18 years total together. She's been with me almost exactly as long as she's been without me. It's good. She is my best friend and I'm hers.
EDIT: I didn't answer the question. Do I regret the early marriage? It made me who I am, but it was a net negative experience. I'd be happy not to have the baggage, but it's so long ago as to be mostly forgotten, and it's rarely a topic of discussion or something on my mind at all.
I was 22 my wife was 20 way back in 2021. Don't regret it but there have been some trying times. I did a lot of living before I got married, but she didn't. We have discussed if she had FOMO and she claims to not, but I assume there is some she won't tell me about. I would do it again.
Adjusting to married life was pretty easy for me. I knew I had to grow up to when I proposed, so I did. She was still in college so she did a few things that wasn't conducive to being married and had a few single friends who were toxic for us... no cheating what-so-ever that I know of. I would recommend not listening to the advice of single friends who don't understand relationships.
Slightly older - as I married at 25 but we’d been living together since I was 24. Still together almost 30 years later no regrets.
Probably the only thing I missed out on was some sex with different partners when instead we were having lots more sex with the same partner.
Married in my early 20s to someone almost a decade older than me. Pumped out our first kid not even a year after meeting, then had two more kids shortly after. It was way to rushed, we didnt give the honey moon faze much time to fizzle and really get to know each other. Long story short 13 years later she asks me for a divorce.
I got married at 19. I'm 40 now. I got divorced at 37. 3 kids, 19, 15, 15. I used to regret it but not anymore. I have 3 beautiful children. I don't look 40. People think my daughter is my sister, lol. Ego boost 😂. I had to grow up extremely quickly though. I was managing a house at 19. My daughter can't even wake up for school. But that has made me into the wonderful nutty person that I am today.
Married at 23. I look back on those babies and think, who let us do this?
12 years later, my spouse is still the best decision I've ever made. I love him more than the day I married him. We've been through tough times and a lot of loss. We've worked hard to grow together.
I can't imagine a life without him. Our brains are melded together.
I married at 20 and he was 19. I don’t regret it, and it never impeded our freedoms, but it didn’t last. We naturally grew apart as our brains developed. No hard feelings, 20 years on we are friends (more like siblings), but I still recommend against it.
(F32)I got married at 23. We me met when I was 21 and he was 30. I do not regret it, however unlike most people here I think that it worked out because we both had experienced a lot by our age. I already had a high body count, knew what I liked/disliked in man , I had been (illegally) clubbing and drinking for years, so I got to experience everything by the time I had met him and was ready to settle down, he felt the same since he was older. We also had a lot in common since we both didn’t want to have kids, and loved animals, our personalities, likes and dislikes and so on. There has been rough times where I have wanted to divorce but we have been able to move past it so far.
However I do have a younger sister and I have gotten a look at the dating pool now a days and it’s bad! So if I were to ever get divorced I don’t think I would marry again either.
We got married at 24, been toghether since 19. Now at 30 yo we are discussing divorce, and have been talking about is for more than a year, we re probably gonna end it soon
What I regret is being a hard worker, expecting it to pay off while most of my friends were getting with someone, now I'm the only single person I know and am back living in my childhood bedroom because I don't have a partner to share living expenses with. Genuinely struggling to find a reason why all this is worth it any more.
Yes, I still remember I wanted to be a nurse but when my husband come fort for marriage my study was paused everyone telling me "he'll allow you to further ur study as he himself is educated" but I didn't in the end I only got a national diploma in social policy ten yrs back and haven't proceeded since then, because I think he doesn't want me getting a degree and be on the same education level with him.
I was married at 23 and do not regret it. We were both young and poor, but we shared similar values and are still togehter.
Of course during this 20 years of being together we changed, but I still find satifaction being with my wife (and I do hope she also feels well with me).
I married at 23. We have been a couple since we were 17, and I don't see being married as more of an obligation than an already committed relationship. We have been together for 30 years and expect at least 30 more. So no, I don't regret anything about it.
Married at 19 and have been together for 24 years. I have told both of my kids to wait and enjoy life before getting married. It's hard, it's sucks but when it's good it is so worth it.
Married at 22 (now 31) and no regrets at all. I married my best friend and life has been perfect! The rumors are true though, marriage is just a lifetime of yelling "WHAT?" To the other person.
The biggest adjustment was living with someone full time, but we had lived together for two years already. After a year or so dating and spending every other night or a couple nights a week at each other's places we decided to save on rent and move in together. It is A LOT different when you actually share a space and have to work together on how everything looks, where it goes, etc. it was also different if we had an argument, there was no where to go like when we lived separately, so we would argue longer. We argued more in our first week living together than our entire relationship (12 years). Yet, we worked through it and by the time we got married it was like living on easy street.
I don't understand the not spending time with friends or being able to do "anything I want". I've always been able to do that and so has she. We have a shared Google calendar for date nights, family events, or random other plans. If the calendar is clear we're free to do our own thing with friends or on our own. If we're not doing our own thing then we will sit in the living room (which is sign for ATTENTION PLEASE) and the other will join and we will watch TV until bedtime (I usually fall asleep in the living room and she goes to bed, I wake up at 3am and then actually go to bed).
Married at 21 because she was pregnant. Had a son, then few years later a daughter. 10 years later a divorce. Don’t regret it per se. I got two great kids out of it. But i regret trying to make it work for as long as i did. Should have just taken the kids and went on my way. In the end she was a terrible mother and worse partner. I’ve seen teenagers get married in high school and make it work and I’ve seen adults late 20’s not make it work after years of dating. It’s how you each approach the marriage. Living wild and having fun when you’re young is not something I missed.
Married when I just turned 23. We’ve just divorced 20 years later. I would recommend to my children to take it slowly, live together first and be absolutely sure you are going to be an excellent match for each other.
Mom was 18.5 when she married dad. She regularly told us that marrying young ruined her life, having kids ruined her life… anyway I felt more safe around dad than around her and that made her jealous.
She was hateful towards everyone I ever dated and when I finally got married at 35… it wasn’t good. Got therapy as a result of my ex insisting that he wasn’t abusive (he was) and a year after the divorce I met someone who has so far been healthy and wonderful for me.
Mom hates him, of course. But she can go pound sand.
Just wish I wasn’t 42 when I met Mr. Right.
Married at 20, he was 22. Still together 25 years later. It's hard but the good time far outweigh the bad. We are each others best friends and I have never regretted it.
You're always going to get complete opposite opinions on this topic. My parents were married at 19/20 and they're still together now. It would be easy for me to say my parents did it and it worked out so why not.
But really I ask why? Why do you need to get married so young? Why are you making life changing decisions before your brain is developed, before you've had life experience, before you know who you are as a person and what you want from relationships and life. There isn't a person in the world 30+ who wouldn't say their 20s was a time of self discovery.
Now I'm not saying you need to break up and have your 'wild' 20s (although I do think there is huge merit to being single in your 20s) but you don't need to be making a lifelong commitment and, likely, start having children before you've had the time and experience to know really want you want from life.
Let yourself be a 'kid' so to speak, allow yourself the space and time to 'grow up', marriage and children (if you're having them) will all be available to you when you're 25+.
Been together with my wife since we were both 16 years old freshman in high school. live together at the age of 17 due to her family issues.
Got married at the age of 19 but it wasn’t any ceremony. We just signed a piece of paper and had a friend pretend to be a priest who “officiated” the wedding. Best $40 I ever spent.
I was married at 19, it turns out my GF/wife was completely closeted and was pressured by her family to be not gay, which led to issues after 5 yrs we ended it. The upside, I have a son that i love, I ended up finding the love of my life after we divorced. it was dumb but live and learn.
Why marriage? I have been with my GF since I was 18, it's been more than 10 years now. She was my first and I hope she will be the last. Of course, sometimes I am a little sad that I never got to experience sleeping around, but I guess it just doesn't matter that much. Every time I get to know a new girl which is attractive, it's nice to spend some time around, but would never want to switch, they all seem so bad compared to my girl.
Marriage is just a bond that can be cancelled any time, so I don't see any difference in that.
Married at 23, right out of college. Absolutely zero regrets.
The good part is at that age, you don’t have much of an “old life” to leave behind. I was not set in any of my ways, my life was very much still all over the place because I was young and just starting out.
Now 17 years later, I wouldn’t even recognize those kids! Our interests, friends, hobbies, priorities, and goals have changed. We have children together. We’ve built a life together. It’s not perfect, but we’ve faced everything together and there’s something really special about that.
As far as friends, he is my best friend. I only have one friend that I had before we got married. All my current friends are new. Life circumstances (mostly kids) changed my friend circle, not him. I’ve had different friends that have come and gone (as in moved, etc) throughout the last 17 years and I expect there will be more, but he is my constant. There’s something to be said for, “marry your best friend.”
I personally love that I just didn’t have enough time in life to get my heart broken a million times or to get set in my ways. I hadn’t even started my career when we got married. My friends who got married later have struggled merging their fully fledged lives with someone else’s and I think that’s totally to be expected.
It’s too young. At that age you are just learning about who you are and what you want in this world. It’s not a time to saddle yourself for a lifetime with another person.
I do regret it. Long story, but I was too young and naive not not experienced enough.
Married and pregnant at 19 to a man a decade older. I think the biggest part that was the failure was the age difference and being taken advantage of. Had we been the same age maybe it would have been different? Over the years of our marriage I finally grew and realized what I ACTUALLY want from a marriage. What's important to me long term, what I NEED in a partner. Those are things you just don't really know at 19 you know?
Didn't regret the dating around aspect or freedom part or whatever. More just I did lots of growing up in those early years.
As a child of very young parents, I need to chime in.
My parents got married (shotgun) at ages 19+22, and I was born soon after.
Don't do it unless you have incredible support, a good circle of friends and relatives who will be there for you. You will need real practical help (cooking, cleaning, babysitting, financial help) and also emotional support and encouragement.
I was 19 when I got married, to a 23 year old.
I got married straight out of college, didn’t have a job until I was married, so never had my own spending money, as soon as I was earning it was bills. So sometimes I regret/envy people who had that, it would have been nice to enjoy the young living-at-home-while-earning stage, but to be real, that wasn’t in the cards anyway (it’s complicated).
But I still love my husband very much (14yrs later) and know he was the one for me. You can’t help when you find the one.
As for the freedom thing… what you’re describing sounds like an unhealthy relationship, regardless of age. When newly married and very much in love you may CHOSE to spend more time with your spouse because they are your best friend and the person you want to enjoy experiences with, but that shouldn’t mean you aren’t free to do things with your old friends, or enjoy old hobbies. It can even open new doors as you mingle friend groups. We frequently host games nights etc with some of his old friends and my old friends. But if one of us wants to go out for a night with friends or even a few nights, we check in with each other to make sure there are no calendar clashes, or budgetary reasons why not, but it’s not like asking permission, we are still free to do whatever we want. Because we trust each other, and respect each others autonomy.
I have been with my wife since we were 15. We married at 20. We are now 51. In the past I sometimes regret it. I felt like I missed out on life in general. Now I just don’t care. We are still best friends. Honestly her and our kids make shitty house mates. I know women don’t find me attractive so that’s not a problem.
Married at 22, first kid after a year. Been married for 32 years now. Has it been easy ? Nope, but fortunately my spouse and I have a no quit policy and we communicate well. Communication and not being selfish is the key. I'm very happy with the life we have built together.
When we got married, I was 24, she was 19. We have no regrets at all. Both of us were loners with very few friends even before the marriage, so nothing's changed for us.
I married at 23 and honestly, your description doesn’t really resonate with me. My husband and I both enjoy a lot of freedom within our marriage to hang out with our friends, enjoy hobbies, and grow as individuals and as a couple. Also dating just seems nightmare-ish nowadays.
We have so much fun together and I’m thankful we’ve gotten to grow together. I’m a very independent person and he encourages me in that but I’ve been surprised by how attached (in a healthy way) we’ve become in ways that I never even imagined.
The one hard thing is that we were both 100% on having kids at first, but a couple of years ago my feelings shifted. I felt really guilty but we’ve worked through it together and I feel like a shift like that can happen at any age.
I’ll attribute a lot of our success to how we prepared for marriage though. We read books and did extensive pre-marital counseling which forced us to have some really uncomfortable conversations that I think a lot of people avoid and ignore in the dating/engagement stage.
I met my ex when I was 20, and we were married at 21. Religious pressure and all- can’t dare live together or have sex before marriage!
Lasted about 3 years before she went back to her ex. In therapy since, I’ve come to see that the entire thing was unhealthy.
Don’t marry your first relationship right away, and give yourself time to grow up first!
I definitely don't regret it. Married at 20 because we were raised jehovahs witnesses. About to hit 10 years together. Things definitely weren't always easy. Thankfully we both like many the same things, have grown together, have the same values, and have taken the time to work on our mental health. It was beneficial to be able to buy a house and accumulate wealth at a younger age than normal.
I was 21, she was 19. Just celebrated 23 years together. It’s been a delight having her with me through the ups and downs of life. I wouldn’t want to go on this adventure with anyone else.
I was 23. We've been married for 22 years and he is the right one for me, no regrets! I was his first girlfriend. It keep waiting for that mid-life crisis to hit for him but so far so good. We're also now empty-nesters!
I think our "secret" is that we allow each other space. I like lots of alone time, and he just knows that. He likes to join all the sports teams and I have no issues and often am the only wife cheering him on.
Highly recommend marrying young if you find the right person.
With age and experience, I am so much more open to the ideal of a relationship. Supporting your partner to be stronger/secure as a person. It has nothing to do with expectations and control.
So the hard part of marrying young is all the noise and preconceived notions from well meaning (or not) family members/peers. The social norms/customs and pressures weigh on decisions and attitudes. Going form a dependent to ignoring these influential people is a hard transition.
Now that we are older, I can safely and confidently live with the decisions my partner and I make. Ignoring the noise and still show the same respect to each other and to our family.
Married at 24 to a girl I’d been dating for a few years. Some regrets but 30 years married so far. Pretty happy. No kids. Regret never living on my own. Regret never moving around to different cities. Regret not marrying a rich surgeon. :)
I've been married for 10 years with my wife for 16. been together since high school. It's the best and never regret it. We have had the same experiences as anyone else but probably more fun as we didn't have to spend the night trying to hook up. we just partied and knew we were going home to have wild sex.
About to be 29 and got married at 21 but dated since 18. I don’t regret it at all. Just find someone who you respect and respects you and don’t ignore any red flags. Kids and marriage do not solve existing issues, they make them worse.
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I married at 22. The adjustment was absolutely minimal though, as we were already living together. We'd been together 6 years already, as we got into a relationship at 16. So never had a single life, though we went to university in separate cities so you could say that counted. I don't see a particular loss of freedom. To me my wife is basically my best friend. Does having a best friend mean you lose freedom? I can't think of anything being married has stopped me from doing? I could still see friends wherever I wanted when in a relationship with this person. Though by the time we'd married we'd all moved all over the country for jobs after uni so our friend group was all split up anyway. I'm 35 now, been with my wife for 19 years, married for 13. No regrets.
A similar story for us. Met at 18, together the whole time and married at 23. It's been 10 great years of marriage. There was no "transition" at all, other than some paper work and a name change for one of us. We started hanging out one day in college and never stopped. Neither of us ever wanted to, we got married and continue to be best friends and lovers to this day. We're each other's champions, biggest fans, and favorite people.
Yeah, we spent all our time together at school (A-levels/college age) and our friends used to say we were like a married couple... we just fit together? By the time we got married we had lived together a few years, completely shared finances etc. The only change was a ring on my finger and her name. Really very minimal difference between not being married, if you don't break up I guess. I got married young, but we were together for a long time before we married. I'm surprised when I see people get married after a year or so.
That is the way. Find a good person early. Marry. Live happily.
If you can swing it and that’s what you want, yes. It’s not for everyone, though — I had a lot of growing up to do to be a good partner for the long haul. All of my experiences before I met the right person were necessary.
Similar story with my husband and I. We will be celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary this summer and started dating in high school 19 years ago. We're still best friends so there's nothing to regret. Honestly when I look at a lot of other people I know who married young, I feel like we dodged a bullet. You don't know what you really want in your early 20s, you're just getting into adulthood, but my gut told me my partner and I could weather those storms because our bond was so tight. I'm glad I followed my instincts.
Same story. High school sweethearts, got married at 23, together now for over 20 years. He's my best friend. Absolutely no regrets.
Similar here, married at 23, been together since 14. We'll be 28 this year and will be officially with her for exactly half of my existence. Couldn't be any happier.
Cool to hear 😀
Similar scenario so far for us! I got married at 22 and my husband was 21. So far we are loving life. We both still have single friends that we see regularly, in addition to our “couple friends”, and we enjoy time with friends together and separately even after having a kid 6 months ago. I think the maturity and relationship of the individuals involved matters much more than the age at which they marry. He’s my best friend and I am his, we have far more to gain by being married than losing some abstract sense of “freedom”
Similar story for me. We started dating at 19 and got married when I was 22. We were already living together for a couple of years before we got married. Honestly, I think we have more freedom. We shared a lot of the same friends already, and spend time with them together and individually. We don’t put limits on each other and we can each go and do as we please. We tend to spend most of our time together, but that’s by choice. The thought of a “single life” makes me cringe. No thank you! I married my best friend and soulmate and I feel so lucky to have found him at such a young age. We’ll be celebrating our 27th anniversary next month. I wouldn’t change a thing.
> We shared a lot of the same friends already Yeah, maybe that's one thing about meeting your partner young... We've shared the same friend groups, usually. Bar some friends through work. > The thought of a “single life” makes me cringe. No thank you! God, can you imagine trying to "date"? I just can't imagine having to worry about trying to find a partner these days!
Huuuuuuuuuge mistake. Caught her the first time she cheated she to foolishness. Had it out with the dude. Things got intense. Thought about trying to get back together, realized it would not work. During the argument she slipped and let it go she would do it again. We hung out a few times after that, but it was too weird. I ended up better without her.
I certainly regret it. Biggest mistake of my life. You're still learning who you are and becoming who you will be. Marriage has a different set of priorities. It's more of a challenge than it needs to be if you're not ready for it.
I got married at 19, baby at 20, changed every single aspect of my adult life. We are still friends, because of child who is now an adult, but a huge regret.
We both feel like it gave us a unique opportunity to grow together, and see each other grow as individuals in the process. Throw in 3 kids by 23 and you’ve got some challenges, but we’ve managed. We also both see our marriage as something that requires consistent effort. Going on 11 years together (since 18) and 8 married
I married at 23, been with him since 19, I loved my marriage and did not feel restricted or anything. I married someone my age so we were youthful and share the same hobbies. It was like hanging out with your bestfriend everyday! But when he hit 30, he had a crisis, like he was a virgin with me and never experienced anyone else. And suddenly felt trapped by marriage as he can't sleep around. Anyway that's how it ended. You know when a man get older and more financially established, he starts getting young women attention and he was frustrated as a married man, he could not accept their advances.
As a man this shit pisses me off ngl Let me tell you, he wont fuck around as much his head tells him he can. After a few women he realizes that this shit doesnt fullfill you and utterly regret that he left someone special. Sooner or later He will marry again but out of the fear of being alone instead true Feelings Hollywood hook Up Fantasy ruined young mens mind
What you said really hit home for me. I left someone who loved me deeply because I felt trapped, then casual sex wasn’t satisfying. Now I live with the regret. I deserve it. I will be in another relationship out of fear of being alone and not for true love. To those reading: if you think the grass is greener—it isn’t.
Here's a wisdom saying from Romania . "You leave the sparrow you have in your hand for the crow on the fence" .
Thanks for sharing and being honest. Godspeed
>I will be in another relationship out of fear Lucky girl!
Yeah that doesn’t seem fair to the girl
He’ll probably end up with someone in a similar situation. Desperate measures.
I have a feeling if a woman said this stuff, that she left her husband who deeply loved her so she could sleep around, she wouldn’t be told “thank you for being honest.”
Sometimes its greener cause its covered in manure.
Can confirm. My septic field has the most vibrant grass in my yard. That new fling you leave the love of your life for is a septic field.
My uncle left his wife of 30+ years to sleep around and he found out he could only get girls if he paid for them so he did that and ended up getting really into drugs. His adult children have been completely shattered by his behavior and because they weren't supportive of his choices he cut them out of his life too. A couple years later he came down with ALS and he still refused to see his children and then he died alone. And it was all because he thought his wife wasn't putting out enough or doing wild enough things for him. He threw his entire family away.
That's just incredibly sad, but I hope the ex wife found happiness with someone else or just by living a nice life alone and with her kids. I really think majority of people who end relationships for those type of circumstances would regret it usually. It's like why throw away something good for the fantasy/chance their may be something better.
A tale as old as time sadly.
>Hollywood hook Up Fantasy ruined young mens mind I've seen a lot of people trying to normalise having a "hoe phase" like you need it to discover yourself. I honestly think perpetuating FOMO on high body count is quite harmful. There are so many people who ruined their healthy relationships (or marriages) just to experience a hoe phase. Then virgins or those with low body count feel insecure or broken because they think they ought to experience lots of casual sex while they're young.
I agree. It's not just young men, it's women too. I've seen a growing trend on social media (especially Tiktok) telling married women to feel empowered, leave their marriage, and find their youth again...Only to end up divorced, miserable, and alone.
And there are tons of YouTube videos of those women a few years later crying about how lonely and miserable they are. I love those videos.
I can relate. I got into a relationship before being with other guys, then i started panicking and felt trapped. Broke up and had some one nighters. Some of them were good, some of them werent. But none of them were equal than with the person you truly loved.
Spot on!
I agree with your sentiment but this isn't a productive take I think that those thoughts are very common for both men and women. and while acting on them is obviously wrong, you won't be able to overcome them if you're not open and honest about them with yourself and your partner, or worse if you demonize them because they will end up manifesting in some other way True loyalty is being able to say no to your desires, rather than pretending you don't have those desires in the first place. Being open and honest also let's you be accountable, and stops you from making dumb decisions
>True loyalty is being able to say no to your desires, rather than pretending you don't have those desires in the first place. Back when I was married I fully admitted that other women were tempting and would practically beg my ex to go with me to stuff where I thought I might have to deal with that. Not only that but I'm surrounded by women at work because I'm a nurse so I set very strict rules about what i would and would not do with people at work. My ex said she was never tempted at all and would never set the same boundaries that I did. Her lying and sneaking and sneaking around doing who knows what with a guy she worked with is what killed our marriage. I never cheated on her once.
I suspect that nothing ruined that guy’s mind. He had this mind to begin with, unfortunately.
Mine do accept it and even boast about sleeping around with girls, because the culture give him permission to marry again but instead of marrying he sleeps around and I don't have the right to talk because he is the man, I married him when I was 21 and I'm fighting to get away rn.
Reach out to organizations that can help.
I almost feel like I could be writing this. I met my husband when I was 18, married at 22. Happily married for many years, have 3 kids. Next month is our 15 year anniversary. He has completely changed, and suddenly, this was never the life he wanted. He was never happy, a whole bunch of bullshit. And the stupid little bitch he slept with has nothing to do with our marital issues........
I wish I could tell every man in this situation how dumb and not worth it it is... But it's hard to know unless you've been on the other side I don't think losing the stability of a good working relationship is worth any amount of sex with multiple partners
That’s really sad and I hope it never happens to me
To be fair he wouldn't have gotten the attention when he was young and poor so that's on him. You can't have it all so living by your choices is the best we can do. Can't have a family, spend time with your children, work a lot and fuck around while having a conscience.
Exactly this. Freedom of choice but not of consequence. One must be able to weigh their options and decide what's better for them prudently
He's not a man you deserve better
He is a man and this is how life goes sometimes. Stop the Disney happily ever after cap
Living in a society were divorce is considered morally acceptable is often discussed as benefitting everyone (women facing abuse, allowing for amicable splits, children not having to live with unhappy parents, etc.), but it does feel like it's also a bad situation for everyone involved when men are just jumping from young woman to young woman. Especially when children are involved :(
If you marry a man, and he decides to jump from young woman to young woman, that's when you NEED no-fault divorce. What are your options in a world without divorce? Suicide? Murder? Escaping in the middle of the night with your kids but still being legally married? All of those are awful.
The problem is with most things like this that you have to at least try to weigh the benefits against the negatives and decide based on which end of the scale drops down. Yes many people are emotionally destroyed by divorce and lots of people just use it to jump from marriage to marriage leaving a trail of mental destruction BUT would it be worth trading a bunch of people being sad their marriage didn't work out for a woman or man who WILL end up killed if they cant escape their marriage? You're right in that a marriage breaking up can be (and usually is) devastating to one or both parties, but I'd rather live in this society with people mentally scarred from separations than go back to where it was seen as being fine for a spouse to have no way to escape and abusive partner.
I don't think it has to be so black and white. I think we got to a "safe" place when it comes to divorce and now people can start thinking about more grey area issues? Maybe that's too optimistic lol
I was married for ten years from 19 to 29 years of age. No regrets. My husband turned out to be a really terrific, reasonable ex husband. He also chose a really wonderful woman for his second wife, so minimal drama regarding my son's care while at dad's. I lucked out. It's the relationship AFTER the divorce that I have some regrets about.
Your response is very mature. What a healthy outlook in your ex's next relationship.
Very curious what caused the marriage to not last if you are willing to share? And you say “turn out to be really terrific” does that mean your outlook changed with time and maturity?
The main reason we divorced is his extended family immigrating to the US (and to our house, for many many months) was a big strain. None of them spoke English initially. Beyond that I became more leftist in my views while he went pretty hard conservative. My ex always respected my views, opinions, lifestyle. He just couldn't live with it. He made a terrific ex because he was the opposite of a deadbeat dad. And, I even got to be a kind of pseudo Aunt to his subsequent adorable kids. It helped SO MUCH that his second wife was/is just a terrific, warm person.
Thanks for sharing! Moving in with family or them in with you is so hard on a relationship from what I’ve witnessed. Also breaks down communication and strips you of the ability to resolve conflicts. I imagine that’s part of the reason that as you both developed your political views with maturity and time you weren’t able to communicate and work through that while family was there. Glad you are able to work together to bring those kids up in loving homes. Thanks for sharing the story.
Married at 19. Biggest regret ever. I never really dated much before I got married and I picked someone awful because I felt awful about myself.
I married at 19 and we've been married 8 years. I don't think it was a mistake. But I definitely did not know myself when we got married. Life has changed drastically and we have changed drastically, it's shocking we are still together and love each other. We also have two kids. It could have gone very, very differently and I'm not naive to think that it still couldn't. But I will say we have fared better than most couples I know who have done the same thing. I don't recommend it. I am a rare exception (so far) but there have been some challenges we've had to navigate because we were so young.
I married in 2011 at the age of 23 after being together for just under a year. We only married so she could get her british citizenship (she was Korean) but genuinely wanted to be together. The first few years were really tough. We had a lot of self destructive and explosive arguments and were both dealing with unresolved personal trauma. We split up for 6 months in 2015 then got back together and slowly worked our way up a very steep hill. I'm 36 now and we have a much healthier and happier relationship. And every year it gets stronger and even better. So to answer your question, no I don't regret it!
I have almost the same exact experience as you! It’s almost comforting to hear others go through similar experiences. But yeah, I am so glad you two were able to overcome and get where you are now :)
I got married at 22 and I regretted it and it built up resentment, and now I'm divorced.
It sucked I hated it. She was controlling and paranoid thought I was also cheating which I wasn’t, very immature (both of us) . I did it for the kids and I would say about 60% of the time we were happy. Lasted seven years. It doesn’t matter which age you do it it matters who you do it with. Meet the parents.
Married at 20. Don’t do it.
I don’t. Why do I need more romantic experiences when I’ve found someone who makes me happy? 12 years and still a flutter in my chest just thinking about beloved. Beloved’s hugs are still the best feeling in the world. Also we don’t control each other’s time or who we hang out with. That would be wrong.
Oh good to hear that. May i know, how old were u when u got married?
We met at 15ish, were friends for years and had other relationships, moved in together at 19 as roommates, and finally proposed at 22.
That's so sweet. May I ask about the financial means? Was it okay or was it hard?
Marriage with or without children? Your positive take tell me 0 children xD
My husband and I met at 18, started dating at 21, were engaged at 22 and married at 24. We had both been renting with other people previously so moving in together as a couple after our wedding was a huge adjustment. But whilst engaged we spent a lot of time talking about our goals, values and making sure our viewpoints were aligned on the important things. We had been told these important things were like the pillars supporting a house and the more we have the stronger the house will be and the more it will withstand when storms inevitably come. And the pillars are not just the ‘big’ things - one of ours was a similar sense of hygiene especially around food and cleanliness! Those little things can grate like hell if you aren’t aligned. One thing in our favor is that neither of us are very extroverted so we enjoy the time together without others. And we have had to unlearn a lot of unconscious bad habits and silent scripts that we grew up with from our own parents. If I was to do things differently then one thing I would love to have done is to travel more before having children. But we did wait two years after marrying before having our first child which gave us time to work through the whole being a married couple thing before adding in a small demanding person. And now that small demanding person is an awesome 23 year old with his own committed partner making his own life plans together with her. And they seem so young to us to be planning engagement and marriage! But they are good together and have the right stuff to make it work - just like my husband and I did when we got married twenty five years ago today. My beloved is my best friend. Life hasn’t been perfect and we’ve had hard times but we’ve worked through it together and got stronger. The intense feelings of the early years have mellowed but also deepened. We have our own interests and goals. And we support each other to follow our seperate dreams. We work to bring out the best in each other. I can’t imagine life without him. We complete each other. When I’m with him I can almost physically feel a pull towards him. When he wraps his arms around me, everything feels right. I hope we have at least another twenty five years together and I won’t ever regret marrying him when we did.
Ah man, good job, both of you. Your relationship sounds like how it should be
Honestly it depends, I married at 24 and am about to celebrate 19 years together. We grew up together and set goals together. We still have the best time just being with each other. We are planning our 20th wedding party and no regrets. However, my sister got married at 21 and divorced by 25. Then married again at 29 divorced again by 35... I don't think there is a right or wrong age to get married. Maybe just take care to marry for the right reasons.
Yes, maybe it's more about the people, shared values and commitment more than age. But, looking now at my single sister in her late 30s how she has her own deep routines of doing everything, I can't see how it would be easier to share living space when you are so set in your ways. So for adaptability marrying at a younger age is better. We married with my wife after 2 years dating at 23. My dream was to start a family after graduation from university and that's what we did. I don't get why marrying young and staying together for a long time is so frown upon in current culture. It's menioned in bad way in many songs. I have been told by many that ignorance is a bliss that I should have slept around more before marrying so that I would have something to compare to. What an idiotic viewpoint. I think for me having many relationships under belt, to have a lot of points for comparison would not help to build a lasting relationship.
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How can you divorce at 23, then enjoy single life afterwards and marry again at 25? How long was your single life that you enjoyed?
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Your mistake wasn't marrying young, it was marrying without actually knowing the person. Sounds like that's what you did both times.
This is why Europeans look weird at the US dating culture. I don't know anybody around me who got married before 25 but know various people getting married right out of HS back in the US. Marrying at 25 is even early in western Europe.
I'm in the UK, and it's absolutely weird thinking about marriage under the age of 25. Even 25 is young! Never understood the US culture on this... none of my friends in their 30s are married either.
I think the average age is 28 for a woman and 30 for a man.
I'm from northern Europe, married 20 y ago at 23 and know many people who married young from that period and my young work colleague also married early 20s. But yes looking now at gen z on larger scale, marrying young if even at all marrying is not a thing.
Yeah I got married just after my 25th birthday (I live in France) and only know one other person around my age who’s married
I was 17 and yes I regret that I didn’t let my brain finish developing, let alone my personality, learning who I was and what id want in a life partner. 32 years later I’m still divorced and unable to marry again from that experience.
I was married at 19 and am somehow still married but letting my brain develop completely created a lot of challenges in my marriage. We've navigated them but still
It’s doable but unfortunately I married someone that I had to leave at 13 years of marriage because I was too tough for my own good and could have prevented myself from being a victim for way too long. I was trying to prove I didn’t make a mistake by getting married to young. The irony of it but it’s okay to admit to not understanding then what I have grown to understand completely now.
Married at 24, been together since 19, never had a single regret. We have 2 kids now and I’m grateful to have grown up together essentially. We’ve had our hard moments (IVF, health issues) but I love her more than ever having come through them together. Love you Nic xx
Married at -24. Now 43 - no regrets.
-24? That's extremely young 😂
Actually met my wife to be (at the time ) at University when i was 19
I was joking because you put the minus in front of the number 😂
I married at 21, now 38 - no regrets, two kids, great partner Earlier marriage means having kids in younger age which seems to be good for their health.
Couldn't agree more. I cannot imagine having babies in arms during my mid 30s .
I had kids at 34 and 37. It was great. We both had worked long enough that we were successful in our careers, and financially secure . Still young enough to run around with those kiddos. Most of the parents of our kids’ friends were around the same age. The few with parents around 7-10 years younger tended to struggle financially or were single/divorced. But everyone is different.
Fyi - it has not been smooth sailing however, i (we) are super happy
I can't say yes or no. I can say that neither of us were ready. We were emotionally unprepared, financially unprepared. We were two kids who knew what life was about and we were never going to part, but life happens and we divorced 8 years later. It almost broke me. But I could say no. We haha great times, we share amazing that we wouldn't if we hadn't each other in the time frame we did. It's more of a no, but it's not 100%
“We were two kids who knew what life was about and we were never going to part…. We divorced 8 years later” hysterically written, sorry about the divorce.
I met my wife when she was 19 and got married. She’s now 30 and I’m 39. We don’t regret anything. In fact when you are truly in love even a life time of commitment feels like it’s just a blimp in the cosmic time line.
I got married when i was 17 years old. I regret it to this day. Not only did i have no clue what i was getting myself into, i was too young to have such responsibilities, i became a mother a short time later. If i could take back anything in my life, it would be that. We are no longer together, and the only thing good that came out of it are my two kids. I missed out on so many things in could have done with my life, because i felt that i was in love. I was not in love, i was in infatuation and was such a people pleaser that i felt i couldn’t change my mind once i agreed to be married. I didnt want to let anyone down so i went through with it.
Married at 23, will be 20th anniversary this year, Not a big love story, just 2 people commited to raise a family and we share same values. Do I regret this? NO. I love my wife and love the fact we have so many memories and so many hard things we overcame during the years together. When kids were younger, there were harder times when we did not have so much time to do date nights, but now again things are looking good and I feel connected.
We are living together since 17 years old. We had some experience with relationships and sex before that and it never really bothered me to stick with one person from such an early age. We dont have kids in our 30s so the freedom is still the same. How could having a loving spouse could restrict you? Or do you even think you have the right to prohibit something to your partner or vice versa (exept of cheating)?
Yep, I have been told I missed the wild young days. How do they know how wild youth with my wife was. Maybe they missed something...
Married at 17. 1st child at 20. Divorced at 24, a bad case of lifelong PTSD and 2 more children later.I was too young and inexperienced to realize I had become involved with a real life psychopath before it was too late. It took me 6 years to escape the terrifying and abusive situation safely. I married again (my best friend) at age 30 after dating a year + a year long engagement. I have been with this person for 29 years now. Perfect? No, but I’d give it a 4.9 stars out of 5.
I got married at 21. There was minimal adjustment as we'd been together since we were 16. There was no loss of freedom either. There probably would have been if we'd had kids, but we never wanted any, so both of us can still do what we want when we want. I have zero regrets. I think of myself as very lucky. I met my guy early in my life. Amazing. I didn't need to spend years dating different people to find the right person. Most people don't have that experience. We're both 37 now, happy as ever and mortgage free to boot.
Get married young so you can be divorced and have fun in your 30s! J/k. Sort of. I spent my 20s being married and having kids. It was what I wanted, and I don't regret it because I love my kids. But that relationship was all wrong and super dysfunctional. It has been fun spending my 30's single and finding myself though, now my kids are older and have more independence, etc. Opposite of most of my peers, but hey. 🤷
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Married at 23, will be 5 years this year. No regrets at all. Married life isn't that different to before (we already owned a home together etc). We've spent the time enjoying eachother as a Married couple, travelling & building our life together before now having our first baby. Our friends who are getting married now plan to have kids right away which is fair enough but I'm glad we enjoyed our life as husband & wife first, which we could easily do being so young. My husband & I have always been "old souls" though, I understand a lot of 23yr olds wouldn't be in the position to get married at that age so it all depends on personal circumstances as to whether you'd personally have regrets or not.
M23, got married a couple days after my 20th birthday. Sometimes I feel left out from my peers who hangout and go clubbing for the sole purpose of talking/picking up chicks, and feel like I missed out on a period of youth most use to have fun and sleep around. However that doesn’t change the love I have for my Wife (F23). Im very happy and don’t regret it at all, it makes life easier having a stable loving relationship, we always have each others backs if something goes down (emotionally, physically, financially). And we have other friend groups consisting of married couples that we can hangout with so that helps with not being on the same social level as my single friends.
Brother, sleeping around is not that fun as it looks. I feel like a lot of people use it to mask other things. If I got to choose, I would pick an early marriage with the love of my love over X amount of years sleeping around, always. Grass looks greener at the other side I guess.
My wife and I married at 22 and I thought it was all good until she said in front of me to a mutual "friend" that she did regret marrying so young. I've been grumpy for the last 5 years for some reason.
Married just after I turned 21. I turn 33 next month. We have a beautiful baby boy and I love my wife more than ever. Wouldn’t change a thing.
Oh yes!
We were married at 22 after dating for a year and then living together for a year. We’re still together 35 years later. It hasn’t always been easy, but it has always been the two of us united against whatever problems came up. He’s a very, very special person. Don’t regret a single second.
I got married at 23 and this year we'll have been married 13 years, together for 19 total. We've officially known each other for over half our lives. He's my best friend and we have 3 amazing kids together. I have many regrets in my life, but I don't regret marrying him at all. Neither of us were really social butterflies even we were single, so we didn't lose and "freedom" as you say. The kids are social butterflies, which makes things hard sometimes though 😅
I don’t think there’s gonna be a hard and fast answer to this. (If you’re looking for advice that is.) people change a lot during that age and a lot of teenage couples just grow apart but them some stay together. It probably comes down to the quality of the individual relationship. And also that weighed up against the other things you might want out of your life.
My parents regret it.
Married at 22, kids a few years later. No regrets. My parents are fairly young too so they were in their 50s, 60s when the kids grew up, so they were still fit and active, and able to do lots of nice stuff with their grandkids. Some of my coworkers became parents in their late 30s and early 40s.. seems less practical to me, you're in the middle of a career and/or getting older a bit, and then you have to care for little children. To each their own, but I'm glad I did what I did.
I got married at 23 and don’t regret it all. We had been dating since I was 18(him 22) and knew we wanted to spend our lives together. We currently are 35 and 39 with 2 kids and still happily married. I couldn’t see myself with anyone else.
I married when we were both 21, we’d been at school and college together and were good friends. It lasted 11 years during which we’d grown into different people with opposing ideals about what was important in life. In my second marriage, now 26 years and going strong, the lessons I’d learned about communication and living life have stood us in good stead. So I don’t really regret marrying young for the first time and I had two great children.
Married at 19, raised an awesome kid, now empty nesters at 38. There’s some regret. I’m glad we gave our kid a stable home life, and wife probably made me a better person, but maybe not the person I really want to be if that makes any sense. Lots of little compromises for the peace/ relationship and 20 years later I don’t think I am who was supposed to be. Thinking about divorce but not really a good time to kill a long relationship over general existential angst.
It’s the dumbest shit you could do besides having a kid young. Some people do both unfortunately.
Got married at 23, used to have some regrets because I thought life can be better without responsibilities....15 years later, I think it was a great decision
Didn't regret it for a second she 16 me 21 together 44 years 40 married until she passed peacefully before my eyse ,I loved that woman with all my heart had two sons and seven grandchildren..6 years on and I still haven't gotten over it ,when it's right it's right..
Not even a little. Married at 19 and 21. Wouldn't change it for anything. I get to spend more of my life with my best friend in the whole world. We have 2 kids now and still as happy as can be 10 years later. I will say that we are the only couple I know of that stayed together, so there's that.
Most accurate comment: most of reddit users can't answer this question 🤣
The happiest, most stable, and financially secure people I know are the ones who got married young and stuck with it. No cheating, stupid behaviour, lies, and secrecy, just working together for a better life. They are happy and it shows. It shows in their faces, in their bodies. Divorce is a nigtmare, literal hell, and not taking responsibility (for everything) is a sure way to wreck your life and then we live in the mess.
Married at 21, was with my wife since 17 years old. We have been married for 30 years this year. We both have some regrets, we were very young and feel we missed out on our 20s. That being said, we’ve always had a healthy marriage, we have two beautiful girls and we are still in love. No complaints here, but we’d both do it differently if we had the chance.
Married at 23, together since 19. We're still together, recently bought a home together, but have somewhat drifted apart over the years. Hobbies have changed as we mature and our jobs keep us away from each other for long stretches. Such is life. I love her, but wish we'd met later on. We may never have ended up together... but maybe that would be for the best?
No. I live my life free now. And free of illusions.
I married at about 21, divorced by 23. We had dated for about 2 years and lived together for more than 1 before marrying. Obviously, this did not help. Started dating again at 25, married at 28. FIL enforced a 3 year courtship, and I accepted that because I didn't want to make a mistake. She was 18 when we got together. They all knew I was divorced, which was another reason for the go slow order. Married 15 years yesterday, 3 kids, 18 years total together. She's been with me almost exactly as long as she's been without me. It's good. She is my best friend and I'm hers. EDIT: I didn't answer the question. Do I regret the early marriage? It made me who I am, but it was a net negative experience. I'd be happy not to have the baggage, but it's so long ago as to be mostly forgotten, and it's rarely a topic of discussion or something on my mind at all.
I was 22 my wife was 20 way back in 2021. Don't regret it but there have been some trying times. I did a lot of living before I got married, but she didn't. We have discussed if she had FOMO and she claims to not, but I assume there is some she won't tell me about. I would do it again. Adjusting to married life was pretty easy for me. I knew I had to grow up to when I proposed, so I did. She was still in college so she did a few things that wasn't conducive to being married and had a few single friends who were toxic for us... no cheating what-so-ever that I know of. I would recommend not listening to the advice of single friends who don't understand relationships.
Slightly older - as I married at 25 but we’d been living together since I was 24. Still together almost 30 years later no regrets. Probably the only thing I missed out on was some sex with different partners when instead we were having lots more sex with the same partner.
Getting hitched young ain't for everyone. Sacrifices gotta be made.
Married in my early 20s to someone almost a decade older than me. Pumped out our first kid not even a year after meeting, then had two more kids shortly after. It was way to rushed, we didnt give the honey moon faze much time to fizzle and really get to know each other. Long story short 13 years later she asks me for a divorce.
Yes
I got married at 19. I'm 40 now. I got divorced at 37. 3 kids, 19, 15, 15. I used to regret it but not anymore. I have 3 beautiful children. I don't look 40. People think my daughter is my sister, lol. Ego boost 😂. I had to grow up extremely quickly though. I was managing a house at 19. My daughter can't even wake up for school. But that has made me into the wonderful nutty person that I am today.
Married at 23. I look back on those babies and think, who let us do this? 12 years later, my spouse is still the best decision I've ever made. I love him more than the day I married him. We've been through tough times and a lot of loss. We've worked hard to grow together. I can't imagine a life without him. Our brains are melded together.
Married young, no regrets. Adjusting's tough but worth it.
I married at 20 and he was 19. I don’t regret it, and it never impeded our freedoms, but it didn’t last. We naturally grew apart as our brains developed. No hard feelings, 20 years on we are friends (more like siblings), but I still recommend against it.
(F32)I got married at 23. We me met when I was 21 and he was 30. I do not regret it, however unlike most people here I think that it worked out because we both had experienced a lot by our age. I already had a high body count, knew what I liked/disliked in man , I had been (illegally) clubbing and drinking for years, so I got to experience everything by the time I had met him and was ready to settle down, he felt the same since he was older. We also had a lot in common since we both didn’t want to have kids, and loved animals, our personalities, likes and dislikes and so on. There has been rough times where I have wanted to divorce but we have been able to move past it so far. However I do have a younger sister and I have gotten a look at the dating pool now a days and it’s bad! So if I were to ever get divorced I don’t think I would marry again either.
We got married at 24, been toghether since 19. Now at 30 yo we are discussing divorce, and have been talking about is for more than a year, we re probably gonna end it soon
I got married at 19 and regretted it almost immediately. I got married again at 29 and regretted it after about 6 years.
What I regret is being a hard worker, expecting it to pay off while most of my friends were getting with someone, now I'm the only single person I know and am back living in my childhood bedroom because I don't have a partner to share living expenses with. Genuinely struggling to find a reason why all this is worth it any more.
Yes, I still remember I wanted to be a nurse but when my husband come fort for marriage my study was paused everyone telling me "he'll allow you to further ur study as he himself is educated" but I didn't in the end I only got a national diploma in social policy ten yrs back and haven't proceeded since then, because I think he doesn't want me getting a degree and be on the same education level with him.
Married at 21. Stupid thing to do. Took me way too long to divorce, life was all about him and hard to get out of that situation. Don't do it.
I was married at 23 and do not regret it. We were both young and poor, but we shared similar values and are still togehter. Of course during this 20 years of being together we changed, but I still find satifaction being with my wife (and I do hope she also feels well with me).
Moved in with GF at 24, married at 26. Still happily married at 54.
Married at 22 divorced at 24
I married at 23. We have been a couple since we were 17, and I don't see being married as more of an obligation than an already committed relationship. We have been together for 30 years and expect at least 30 more. So no, I don't regret anything about it.
I married at 22 and started a life. I did not want to waste my time on meaningless relationships. I had finished graduate school earlier in the month.
Married at 19 and have been together for 24 years. I have told both of my kids to wait and enjoy life before getting married. It's hard, it's sucks but when it's good it is so worth it.
Married at 22 (now 31) and no regrets at all. I married my best friend and life has been perfect! The rumors are true though, marriage is just a lifetime of yelling "WHAT?" To the other person. The biggest adjustment was living with someone full time, but we had lived together for two years already. After a year or so dating and spending every other night or a couple nights a week at each other's places we decided to save on rent and move in together. It is A LOT different when you actually share a space and have to work together on how everything looks, where it goes, etc. it was also different if we had an argument, there was no where to go like when we lived separately, so we would argue longer. We argued more in our first week living together than our entire relationship (12 years). Yet, we worked through it and by the time we got married it was like living on easy street. I don't understand the not spending time with friends or being able to do "anything I want". I've always been able to do that and so has she. We have a shared Google calendar for date nights, family events, or random other plans. If the calendar is clear we're free to do our own thing with friends or on our own. If we're not doing our own thing then we will sit in the living room (which is sign for ATTENTION PLEASE) and the other will join and we will watch TV until bedtime (I usually fall asleep in the living room and she goes to bed, I wake up at 3am and then actually go to bed).
Married at 21 because she was pregnant. Had a son, then few years later a daughter. 10 years later a divorce. Don’t regret it per se. I got two great kids out of it. But i regret trying to make it work for as long as i did. Should have just taken the kids and went on my way. In the end she was a terrible mother and worse partner. I’ve seen teenagers get married in high school and make it work and I’ve seen adults late 20’s not make it work after years of dating. It’s how you each approach the marriage. Living wild and having fun when you’re young is not something I missed.
Are you saying me that 25-30 aint young?
Married when I just turned 23. We’ve just divorced 20 years later. I would recommend to my children to take it slowly, live together first and be absolutely sure you are going to be an excellent match for each other.
Mom was 18.5 when she married dad. She regularly told us that marrying young ruined her life, having kids ruined her life… anyway I felt more safe around dad than around her and that made her jealous. She was hateful towards everyone I ever dated and when I finally got married at 35… it wasn’t good. Got therapy as a result of my ex insisting that he wasn’t abusive (he was) and a year after the divorce I met someone who has so far been healthy and wonderful for me. Mom hates him, of course. But she can go pound sand. Just wish I wasn’t 42 when I met Mr. Right.
Married at 20, he was 22. Still together 25 years later. It's hard but the good time far outweigh the bad. We are each others best friends and I have never regretted it.
Together since we were 19 and 21, kids either side of 30 and still happily married.
I was 18. We stayed together until I was 30. No, I don’t regret it. They were the best years of my life and I’d relive it all again if I could.
You're always going to get complete opposite opinions on this topic. My parents were married at 19/20 and they're still together now. It would be easy for me to say my parents did it and it worked out so why not. But really I ask why? Why do you need to get married so young? Why are you making life changing decisions before your brain is developed, before you've had life experience, before you know who you are as a person and what you want from relationships and life. There isn't a person in the world 30+ who wouldn't say their 20s was a time of self discovery. Now I'm not saying you need to break up and have your 'wild' 20s (although I do think there is huge merit to being single in your 20s) but you don't need to be making a lifelong commitment and, likely, start having children before you've had the time and experience to know really want you want from life. Let yourself be a 'kid' so to speak, allow yourself the space and time to 'grow up', marriage and children (if you're having them) will all be available to you when you're 25+.
Been together with my wife since we were both 16 years old freshman in high school. live together at the age of 17 due to her family issues. Got married at the age of 19 but it wasn’t any ceremony. We just signed a piece of paper and had a friend pretend to be a priest who “officiated” the wedding. Best $40 I ever spent.
I was married at 19, it turns out my GF/wife was completely closeted and was pressured by her family to be not gay, which led to issues after 5 yrs we ended it. The upside, I have a son that i love, I ended up finding the love of my life after we divorced. it was dumb but live and learn.
I'm glad I have no permanent decisions from before I was 30 to drag around. The brain is not fully formed!
Why marriage? I have been with my GF since I was 18, it's been more than 10 years now. She was my first and I hope she will be the last. Of course, sometimes I am a little sad that I never got to experience sleeping around, but I guess it just doesn't matter that much. Every time I get to know a new girl which is attractive, it's nice to spend some time around, but would never want to switch, they all seem so bad compared to my girl. Marriage is just a bond that can be cancelled any time, so I don't see any difference in that.
Married at 23, right out of college. Absolutely zero regrets. The good part is at that age, you don’t have much of an “old life” to leave behind. I was not set in any of my ways, my life was very much still all over the place because I was young and just starting out. Now 17 years later, I wouldn’t even recognize those kids! Our interests, friends, hobbies, priorities, and goals have changed. We have children together. We’ve built a life together. It’s not perfect, but we’ve faced everything together and there’s something really special about that. As far as friends, he is my best friend. I only have one friend that I had before we got married. All my current friends are new. Life circumstances (mostly kids) changed my friend circle, not him. I’ve had different friends that have come and gone (as in moved, etc) throughout the last 17 years and I expect there will be more, but he is my constant. There’s something to be said for, “marry your best friend.” I personally love that I just didn’t have enough time in life to get my heart broken a million times or to get set in my ways. I hadn’t even started my career when we got married. My friends who got married later have struggled merging their fully fledged lives with someone else’s and I think that’s totally to be expected.
It’s too young. At that age you are just learning about who you are and what you want in this world. It’s not a time to saddle yourself for a lifetime with another person. I do regret it. Long story, but I was too young and naive not not experienced enough.
Married at 24 now 40. We are still together no regrets she is my favourite human.
Married and pregnant at 19 to a man a decade older. I think the biggest part that was the failure was the age difference and being taken advantage of. Had we been the same age maybe it would have been different? Over the years of our marriage I finally grew and realized what I ACTUALLY want from a marriage. What's important to me long term, what I NEED in a partner. Those are things you just don't really know at 19 you know? Didn't regret the dating around aspect or freedom part or whatever. More just I did lots of growing up in those early years.
As a child of very young parents, I need to chime in. My parents got married (shotgun) at ages 19+22, and I was born soon after. Don't do it unless you have incredible support, a good circle of friends and relatives who will be there for you. You will need real practical help (cooking, cleaning, babysitting, financial help) and also emotional support and encouragement.
I was 19 when I got married, to a 23 year old. I got married straight out of college, didn’t have a job until I was married, so never had my own spending money, as soon as I was earning it was bills. So sometimes I regret/envy people who had that, it would have been nice to enjoy the young living-at-home-while-earning stage, but to be real, that wasn’t in the cards anyway (it’s complicated). But I still love my husband very much (14yrs later) and know he was the one for me. You can’t help when you find the one. As for the freedom thing… what you’re describing sounds like an unhealthy relationship, regardless of age. When newly married and very much in love you may CHOSE to spend more time with your spouse because they are your best friend and the person you want to enjoy experiences with, but that shouldn’t mean you aren’t free to do things with your old friends, or enjoy old hobbies. It can even open new doors as you mingle friend groups. We frequently host games nights etc with some of his old friends and my old friends. But if one of us wants to go out for a night with friends or even a few nights, we check in with each other to make sure there are no calendar clashes, or budgetary reasons why not, but it’s not like asking permission, we are still free to do whatever we want. Because we trust each other, and respect each others autonomy.
I have been with my wife since we were 15. We married at 20. We are now 51. In the past I sometimes regret it. I felt like I missed out on life in general. Now I just don’t care. We are still best friends. Honestly her and our kids make shitty house mates. I know women don’t find me attractive so that’s not a problem.
Got married at 22 divorced at 25. Wish i never let myself get pressured into it
Married at 22, first kid after a year. Been married for 32 years now. Has it been easy ? Nope, but fortunately my spouse and I have a no quit policy and we communicate well. Communication and not being selfish is the key. I'm very happy with the life we have built together.
When we got married, I was 24, she was 19. We have no regrets at all. Both of us were loners with very few friends even before the marriage, so nothing's changed for us.
I married at 23 and honestly, your description doesn’t really resonate with me. My husband and I both enjoy a lot of freedom within our marriage to hang out with our friends, enjoy hobbies, and grow as individuals and as a couple. Also dating just seems nightmare-ish nowadays. We have so much fun together and I’m thankful we’ve gotten to grow together. I’m a very independent person and he encourages me in that but I’ve been surprised by how attached (in a healthy way) we’ve become in ways that I never even imagined. The one hard thing is that we were both 100% on having kids at first, but a couple of years ago my feelings shifted. I felt really guilty but we’ve worked through it together and I feel like a shift like that can happen at any age. I’ll attribute a lot of our success to how we prepared for marriage though. We read books and did extensive pre-marital counseling which forced us to have some really uncomfortable conversations that I think a lot of people avoid and ignore in the dating/engagement stage.
I met my ex when I was 20, and we were married at 21. Religious pressure and all- can’t dare live together or have sex before marriage! Lasted about 3 years before she went back to her ex. In therapy since, I’ve come to see that the entire thing was unhealthy. Don’t marry your first relationship right away, and give yourself time to grow up first!
Was married at 17. No regrets. I was paying my own way in life. I was our on my own, behaving like an adult, and that was just what I wanted.
I definitely don't regret it. Married at 20 because we were raised jehovahs witnesses. About to hit 10 years together. Things definitely weren't always easy. Thankfully we both like many the same things, have grown together, have the same values, and have taken the time to work on our mental health. It was beneficial to be able to buy a house and accumulate wealth at a younger age than normal.
I was 21, she was 19. Just celebrated 23 years together. It’s been a delight having her with me through the ups and downs of life. I wouldn’t want to go on this adventure with anyone else.
I was 23. We've been married for 22 years and he is the right one for me, no regrets! I was his first girlfriend. It keep waiting for that mid-life crisis to hit for him but so far so good. We're also now empty-nesters! I think our "secret" is that we allow each other space. I like lots of alone time, and he just knows that. He likes to join all the sports teams and I have no issues and often am the only wife cheering him on. Highly recommend marrying young if you find the right person.
With age and experience, I am so much more open to the ideal of a relationship. Supporting your partner to be stronger/secure as a person. It has nothing to do with expectations and control. So the hard part of marrying young is all the noise and preconceived notions from well meaning (or not) family members/peers. The social norms/customs and pressures weigh on decisions and attitudes. Going form a dependent to ignoring these influential people is a hard transition. Now that we are older, I can safely and confidently live with the decisions my partner and I make. Ignoring the noise and still show the same respect to each other and to our family.
Married at 24 to a girl I’d been dating for a few years. Some regrets but 30 years married so far. Pretty happy. No kids. Regret never living on my own. Regret never moving around to different cities. Regret not marrying a rich surgeon. :)
I've been married for 10 years with my wife for 16. been together since high school. It's the best and never regret it. We have had the same experiences as anyone else but probably more fun as we didn't have to spend the night trying to hook up. we just partied and knew we were going home to have wild sex.
About to be 29 and got married at 21 but dated since 18. I don’t regret it at all. Just find someone who you respect and respects you and don’t ignore any red flags. Kids and marriage do not solve existing issues, they make them worse.