Am I too young to get married?

[namechangejac]

Name changed so it's not linked to my other threads. Not looking for any nasty comments.

I'm 19, DP is 21. We have a toddler together and have been together for 3.5 years (a bit rocky until we had DS but we (he) completely grew up).
I just love our little family. Each to their own and some people see it as such a negative to settle down so young or say you're 'missing out' on stuff like travelling etc, but I couldn't imagine my life any better than it is.

I'd love to get married. Maybe not right now but I'm thinking in about a year! We have an incredibly strong relationship and good communication, a child together, a home, the only factor that makes it 'not the right time' is our age, I suppose. I'm not interested in a big, fancy wedding do (so we wouldn't be forking out a ton of money!)
DM looks at me like I'm crazy every time I bring up the concept of marriage. We openly discuss careers, running a home, plans in getting a mortgage, other children, but when marriage gets brought up with her, I feel like she looks at me like I'm a 14 year old saying I want to get married to a boyfriend of 3 weeks!

Am I too young? Is everyone going to look at us like we are crazy if we consider it - and should that even matter to us?

My mum was 20 when she married my dad in 1985. They are still together and still happy.

I was 25 when I got married. We don't want kids though so if anything goes wrong with us it will be a hell of a lot easier to unpick our lives than it would be for a couple with a child. Children are a much bigger commitment than marriage.

How does DP feel about it?

"48% of those who marry before the age of 18 are likely to divorce within 10 years, compared to 25% of those who marry after the age of 25."

"60% of couples married between the age of 20 -25 will end in divorce. Those who wait to marry until they are over 25 years old are 24% less likely to get divorced."

Just to reinforce the chances of divorce I mentioned upthread. You'll get lots of people saying they got married young and are still together but the statistics are against you. It's not to put you off, just so that you understand that marrying young is usually discouraged because you change so much as you mature and you often grow in opposite directions.

*these stats are from the US but I doubt there's much difference in the UK, I just couldn't find UK stats.

You are essentially married already, in that you're living as a married couple with a child. Actually getting married won't make any difference to that, it just changes your legal status (and if you're not working or have taken a career hit to have your child you would probably be better off married, unless you have a private income or safety net of your own).

However, as pp said you are both very likely to change as you get older, and start to grow into different people and want different things from life. That is a natural progression, but it means very few people nowadays stay with the person they're with in their late teens. Of course, very few people are married with children at that age so it's relatively easy to leave. You need to consider whether you want the relative security of marriage now, vs the hassle and cost of divorce in the future. Personally I would leave it a couple more years at least - 3.5 isn't that long in the grande scheme of things (although it will feel like it now because you're so young), and if you had a rocky start even more reason to be cautious.

I married my XH at 22. We had a mortgage, we’re taking first steps in our careers (rather than jobs). As we grew up (though I felt grown up at the time so maybe not the right term?) things changed. I continued to aim for a career, XH gave up and settled for minimum wage jobs. He felt he needed to go on nights out all the time and spent his money on that rather than bills etc. I earn twice what he did and paid all food bills, plus 95% of bills/mortgage and when we had a child I paid all childcare costs and bought all clothes/toys etc. It turns out that what I thought were shared priorities weren’t- he’d just echoed my plans. He started waiting until I’d gone to bed, taking my money and going out, leaving me with the dc. We stopped spending time together. He’d always been a gamer, and in the first years had played less to spend more time with me. As things got more familiar he stopped spending time with me and just parties or played computer games. I guess we just grew up at different rates and after a 3 year honeymoon period things changed. Your situation is different though, as you have a child. I’d just caution that you need to be sure you’re on the same page, have lived together for a while first etc. I certainly don’t think you’re too young, but sometimes the honeymoon period is longer than you’d think. Sometimes people change.

I married at 21 after having dc1, for me it was too early but I kind of felt like I had too because we had a child. I’m now 37 and divorced, kids are teenagers and I’m hoping to do all the things I missed out on when I was younger. I don’t really regret getting married as I ended up with 2 amazing dc’s but I didn’t find married life easy.

sorry you said up post he's on board. In that case as you're both happy and you have a child you need to listen to each other and no-one else.

Congratulations now let him have a chance to propose

Only you know what's right for you. More young marriages last than people give credit for. Honestly, I don't understand your Mum's concerns when you already have a child. The legality of marriage will give both of you securities that you don't have as cohabitees.

You are old enough to be raising a child without your mum's say so and approval so you and your partner just need to get on with what you want to do. There was a thread a few days ago from a distraught woman who has never married her partner of 20 years because of sniping relatives and she regrets it bitterly.

I would suggest though that you tell your poor partner that you'll back off a bit so that he can get on with his 'surprising and romantic' proposal. :-)

Good luck to the pair of you. x

As others say, that ship sailed when you had a child together. If you have a child you're often slightly more financially secure in terms of joint assets or career/ work taking a back seat due to childrearing if married. Other than that meh. You have a child together, the freedom of youth is no longer available to you.

Don't get into debt for a wedding though.

Do what feels right for you. You already have a child and home together.

It looks like your mum is not the person to discuss this with, so choose other friends to plan your wedding with.

"he's on board and wants to, but he's also getting irritated because he's always wanted to propose in a surprising and romantic way and with me bringing up marriage every other week, there's not going to be an element of surprise!"

That's up to him to create the romantic setting. Or you could ask him! 2020 is a leap year (not that you need it!)

If he wants to ask you and keeps on saying he hasn't got the right setting and you are talking about a wedding, then is he really keen or stalling? Why not say, let's not talk about it for 6 months and see what happens. If he doesn't ask you, I'd wonder if he is serious about it.

I think the boat has sailed on surprise, you are together, have a child and a home, what surprise is he expecting? To me surprise is overrated. I loved shopping for the ring together, if dh had had a ring, I would have missed out on the shopping!

You've already had a child together so I don't see how you'd be doing all those typical 20s things like travelling and partying anyway.

This. We got together at 16, living together by 20, married at 22. Baby now on the way at 25. People always raise an eyebrow at 'young' marriages but don't care about children, for some reason. Personally, I think having a child together is a bigger commitment than marriage, because there's a child involved/to think about.

If you aren't interested in all of the generic 'in your 20s' stuff (we certainly weren't. By this I basically mean playing the field, which is why so many people were shocked that we wanted to get married at 22) and don't feel like you will be missing out on things you'd like to do through being married, then I don't see an issue at all. Although being in a committed, serious relationship and being married are very similar things, minus the legal bits, so you probably do not feel you are missing out on anything.

You will probably get comments from other people in your lives. We did. But the same people think nothing of people that barely know each other marrying after a year at age 30, and divorcing a couple of years later down the line.

Oh, and we got engaged at 20, so the same age as you (almost).

I met DH when I was 19, got engaged at 22, married at 25, now 34 with a baby. By that timeline's logic it has made no difference whether I married him at 19 or 33; the reason we didn't do it earlier was that we bought a house first.

I know of 4 couples just off the top of my head that married in either their teens or very early 20's and they're all still together. One of those couples is my brother and his wife. They had a child at 15, married at 18, in their late 50s now and still together! I know plenty of couples who married older and are divorced. Go for it!

Having a child with someone is a much bigger commitment than marriage. You can leave a marriage, you have to deal with the other parent of your child for at least 18 years.

I don’t see how it would make much difference, just legally makes you more secure.

Honestly? I’d say yes. DH and I had DS when I was 19 but we only recently married (I’m 29), we saved up money, went travelling (with DS!) and I went to uni. I don’t think we could have done that if we’d spent time and money on a wedding.

I loved shopping for the ring together, if dh had had a ring, I would have missed out on the shopping!

I really enjoyed this too! Also, I know a lot of people that really dislike their engagement rings, but can't tell their OHs. They obviously love that their OHs chose them, but as rings they think they are ugly and wouldn't have picked them themselves.

We went out together to have a look at rings (with me understanding that a proposal would happen sometime in the next 12 months), I chose 3 rings that I liked, and he bought the one he wanted to give to me. He kept an eye on my face though and chose my favourite - luckily for him, that one was also the cheapest (good old January sales).

I got married at 24. People thought I was very young.. but to be honest, I was ready to marry him at 18, but felt we should wait until we were older.. in the end, I'm glad we waited, but I still think we would have had the exact same outcome had we married when we were ready! Sometimes I'm a bit annoyed we didn't just do it earlier, but everything's worked out regardless, so I've made my peace

So I say, go for it!!

Go for it!!

pandechocolate that's lovely.

OP with your dp wanting to surprise you etc, maybe it is good to talk about what you would like from a proposal. Do you want him to have the ring ready, maybe this is adding to pressure.

My friend got his mum to pack a bag for his partner and arranged for mum to have the kids overnight. He took her to dinner and then proposed, produced the bag of overnight stuff and said we are staying in a hotel.

I am a bit of a control freak so would hate that! But I think friend liked it!

"he's on board and wants to, but he's also getting irritated because he's always wanted to propose in a surprising and romantic way and with me bringing up marriage every other week, there's not going to be an element of surprise!"

call me cynical, but there's no end of "why has he still not proposed to me?" threads on here where the guy is giving this (v weak) excuse years down the line and the truth is that they just don't want to - because why should they? They've got the woman in the wife role, the home and the DC, the romantic moment to marry has passed and all it represents is making it harder to leave and giving up 50% of what you own if it ends in divorce.

Not saying your DP is anywhere near that stage yet OP, but if marriage matters to you, I'd insist on it sooner rather than later and don't be fobbed off in the role of naive woman waiting for a swoony proposal. You've already moved in and had a kid so I'd be more practical about it. (Well, I'd never have settled down at that age, but seeing as you have, you might as well get married to protect you and your DC in future)

I'm 35 and my parents are in their 60s, just for context. My mum often says how it was the done thing for people to leave school at 16, get married and have kids when she was growing up and that's how it was. Yet just one generation later she would've been horrified if I said I was leaving school and getting married at 16. Travelling, sleeping around, etc are all relatively new things for young people to do. Generations before us had successful, loving, lasting teenage marriages. Saying that, I am so glad I didn't marry my boyfriend and at the time love of my 19 year old life!
The way I see it is that you can become unmarried. It's not easy or pleasant, but it is possible. You can't unhave a child together so I think you've already made the biggest of commitments to each other.

Why do you want to get married?

Do either of you have any assets?

Are you a SAHM or do you work?

@Iloveautumnleaves no, and I work.