Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

do you know anyone who got married very young nowadays

272 replies

lostintranslation12 · 02/03/2022 16:33

I recently found out a distant relative (who is now dead) got married when she was just 18 and her DH was also 18. This was a very long time ago and I know times were different but when I look at my DS who is 17 and although he’s a lovely lad the idea of him getting married next year seems beyond ridiculous. So I wondered does anyone know anyone who got married at a very young age (18/19/20) recently as in since 2010. How did it work out? Did they stay together? How did they manage finances ect?

OP posts:
buntywindermere · 02/03/2022 19:57

22 & 23 in 2014. We are only getting happier, even though life is getting harder! Nobody was particularly vocal against, but I know some people thought we were "wasting" our 20s by settling down so young.... On the contrary, I have had a great time and can't wait for my 30s.

BobbysKnuckles · 02/03/2022 19:59

I got married at 21 back in 2017, my husband was 23 - we've now got three beautiful children, a lovely house and we're celebrating our five year wedding anniversary this month. Smile I can't believe how quickly its gone.

Sprogonthetyne · 02/03/2022 20:00

DH and I were 18 & 19 when we got married. We met at 6th for and got married just before uni, we lived near his & I commuted to another. We lived off student loans, which worked out OK as it was based on each others income, not our parents. That was actually part of the reason we got married so quickly, as his parents wouldn't fund uni, but there income would have made his loan tiny (it seemed like a good reason at 18).

While it probably wasn't a great idea, and we did end up skipping some life experiences, we're still together 12 years later, and now have two DC.

IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere · 02/03/2022 20:01

My son was 19 when he got married in 2018 - he had just finished his first year in university. He and his wife paid for the wedding themselves. She was working and he had his student loan/grant. The first year was tight financially but they were very careful. The second year he was on a placement so was earning well. The third year she started a new job and because of Covid he was able to study from home and save the cost of travel to and from the university.

Now he has graduated with a good job. She has a job she loves. They have a flat with a garden that they love and they are as domesticated and settled as many couples twice their age.

My youngest daughter is 19 and will be getting married next year.

My husband and I were in no position to argue with them, having been together since we were 17 and married at 21.

toastfiend · 02/03/2022 20:01

I was 21, almost 22, when I got married, so not as young as you've specified but most people act surprised when it comes up.

8 years on we're still very happily married.

AllAmericanGirl · 02/03/2022 20:05

My parents were 17 and 19 when they got married. Celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary before we lost my dad.

SecondhandTable · 02/03/2022 20:05

Me and DH! We got married at 20, nearly a decade ago. People are always really surprised when it comes up. I have a friend who got married at...I think 20 as well actually, she's a few years older than me. Her partner was about 15 years older than her though. They got the marriage annulled less than a year later.

LondonQueen · 02/03/2022 20:14

I was 19 when I got married 6 years ago, one of my friends got married at 16.

D0lphine · 02/03/2022 20:16

@TarcasticSwat

I must be really naive, I'm really shocked at the number of Christian stories on this post. I didn't think it was that common nowadays for people to still be getting married young for the purpose of sexual relations and living together. Are these UK couples?
Yeah I know people who believe in no sex before marriage- Christian and Muslim- who have got married young.
PurpleVivo · 02/03/2022 20:27

I met my husband when I was 17 and he was 23. Married when I was 23 and still super happy. Bought our first house when I was 21 and still living in it. Not Christian and didn’t have our first dc until I was 26 and second when I was 28 as we wanted to be together without children first. Now been together 18 years and love him to bits. I do think in some ways it was easier when we were younger as mortgages etc were easier to come by and the cost of living was cheaper. Now I’m studying to further my career and OH has a good job too. I think it can be done but you have to compromise. I’m glad we waited to have kids too as by the time they came along we had been together for a while. If e had tried to do it all too soon it would have placed a lot of strain on us as a couple.

KindergartenKop · 02/03/2022 20:40

We got married at 23 in 2009. Two kids later we are still together

lljkk · 02/03/2022 20:41

I have fundamentalist Christian cousins. One of them got married in Sept 2017 when he must have been... 22. Still seems happy.

My grandmothers & mother all got married at age 17 or 18; the marriage of 1921 lasted 60+ years (even though my grandfather cheated) but others lasted only 2-3 years.

PumpkinPie2016 · 02/03/2022 20:41

I know someone who married at 21 in 2010. Sadly, they divorced a couple of years ago.

Slightly older - I got married at 25 in 2012 - we will celebrate our 10 year anniversary this year.

My mum was only 18 when she married my dad (then 25) I'm 1980 - they celebrate 42 years of marriage this year!

Similarly, my Nan was 18 when she married and my Auntie was 19.

When I look back at my 18 year old self, getting married didn't even cross my mind but then, I was going to university so was focused on that.

beautifullymad · 02/03/2022 21:10

I was 18.

The youngest now of my extended friends and family all are in their 30's before they marry. They all lived together first. They have all married with the sole purpose of starting a family.

But back in the 80's marriage was very much encouraged before you lived together. At least it was in my circles. Looking back can't believe I married without really knowing what it was like to live with them.

A580Hojas · 02/03/2022 21:12

@AllAmericanGirl

My parents were 17 and 19 when they got married. Celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary before we lost my dad.
OP asked about people getting married young now, not 50 years ago.
WombOfOnesOwn · 02/03/2022 21:13

I know people who got married at 20 in 2016. They're still together, lovely people too! They had a baby together at age 19 while attending university together.

They had a rough patch a couple years in where they thought very much about splitting up but seem to be doing better since. I think they've matured a great deal from being parents, and married.

Sugarplumfairy65 · 02/03/2022 21:25

We have a lot of couples in our family who married young(20 or under) and are still together in their 60's. My best friend and her husband got married when they were 17. They celebrate their 53rd wedding anniversary next week.

StellaEllaIsabella · 02/03/2022 21:28

Two of DC1's classmates married at age 21/20- they started dating at school. They seem happy seven years on, though I think their parents helped out financially to begin with.

Daenarys · 02/03/2022 21:32

Married age 20 in 2010, husband 6 years older. Still together, 2 kids, happy with all the usual ups and downs of marriage.
But I was probably too young (met at 18) and have changed considerably. Would want my kids to be older before they settled down (how hypocritical!)

Halfarsedjingler · 02/03/2022 21:39

I got married at 23 in 2007 which seems young to me now, but still happily married.

TheNinny · 02/03/2022 21:40

My male colleague got married at 19 in 2018. Think his bridge was the same age.
That’s the youngest I’ve known lately. They are now excepting a child. They both are nominally catholic but non - practising so don’t think that was the main factor. Both were in ok jobs and already lived together so maybe felt appropriate life stage or something

sqirrelfriends · 02/03/2022 21:42

A school friend got married at 17 and was divorced by the time she was 22. Very religious though.

A childhood friend got married at 21, which doesn't seem that young but seemed mad at the time. They're separated now 10 years down the line.

BulletTrain · 02/03/2022 21:45

We were 24 and 25 but we'd been together 6 years by then. We've been together 18 years.

KitKattaktik · 02/03/2022 21:53

Married at 20, divorced 17 years later.
Now happily living with my partner for 15 years.

My daughter has told me she'll never marry but with the amount of savings she's got I don't blame her.

MurmuratingStarling · 02/03/2022 21:54

@lostintranslation12

I think there's a lot to be said for getting married a bit younger/having babies younger. I don't mean 16, but like early to mid 20s. Only if you have found the right person of course, and not get married for the sake of it.

I know half a dozen or so women who got married at 19-23, (some 20 to 25 years ago,) and had a child within 2 years. They are now mid 40s, and their children are married with one or two kids now. (Got married within the past 3 to 8 years or so) The 40-something parents are able to help their young adult children, as they have all the energy and good health to help with life in general. Financially, with the grandkids, and with general grunt work.

I know a number of families where the young mums and their little children/babies/toddlers have great support from middle aged grandparents. And they still have the great grandparents alive. There's a great support network around them. And younger people manage finances the same as older people. They work! And many younger people (in their 20s,) who I know, earn a lot more than people a generation older.

There's not the same network when you have babies much later (40+) IMO and in the experience of some people I know.

When you don't get married/have kids til say, your very late 30s/early to mid 40s, your parents are very likely going to be quite elderly and unable to help as they could have - if you had had children 15-20 years earlier.

And you yourself (at 45-ish with a small child) are going to struggle too, with tiredness and exhaustion, and by the time they're teens you'll be in your 60s. And you will find it a real struggle looking after young tweens and teens at a point in your life where your kids should have left home a decade ago.

And I know a bunch of posters will come on and say their 75 year old mother is a vibrant firecracker with more energy than a thousand condensed suns, and they themselves at 50, run 10 marathons a year and could run rings around women half their age, but the fact is that the health (and energy levels) of most people, starts to wane when they hit 48-50 or so. And the energy levels, (and often health too,) start diminishing a lot more by mid 50s. NEVER under-estimate the effect the menopause will have on you.

Being a mother of young boisterous children in your late 50s/early 60s is not something anyone should be aspiring to IMO. In addition, as I said, if you're waiting til mid 40s to have your kids, your own parents are very unlikely to be of any support, as they will very likely be 70+ themselves by then. And the fact is that most people that age will not want to look after little kids. Some won't even be capable of it.

JMHO.

Swipe left for the next trending thread