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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Do you know anyone who got married very young?

288 replies

Worryaboutmybread · 29/11/2022 17:37

I’m a teacher at a secondary with a sixth form attached. One of my year 13 girls is engaged to her boyfriend (whose 19 and finished school last year). They’re planning on getting married this summer after she’s done her a levels. She seems very exited and was talking to her friends about going dress shopping with her mum. I said congratulations as I don’t feel like it’s my place to discourage it as she’s technically an adult but I can’t lie I felt like the whole thing is quite strange. His and her family are very religious and I think that’s a part of it, they’re apparently going to live and work on his uncles farm. It just seems so young to be settling down and like both of them will miss out on a lot. I have never come across something like this before in 10 years of teaching so I guess my AIBU is do you know anyone else who’s done this and got married while still in their teens?

OP posts:
GCMM · 30/11/2022 16:22

My mum was 19 when she married my dad. They have just celebrated their 61st wedding anniversary.

Wetnovember · 05/04/2023 22:50

It’s very very normal in Christian circles. They will be proclaiming that they haven’t had sex and are saving themselves for marriage…although I doubt very much that is actually true. She will be delighted that she has found herself a good Christian husband and life is, henceforth mapped out. Perhaps you can detect my sarcasm. This was supposed to be my life ….2 out of wedlock kids in my late 30s later……

Daisybuttercup12345 · 05/04/2023 23:21

My cousin at 19 in the 80s. Just celebrated Ruby Wedding anniversary.

ALongHardWinter · 05/04/2023 23:34

I did. I was 19. Only lasted 12 years. Also my DD's MIL was only 16 (she was pregnant). That didn't last either.

ifeelimgoingmad · 05/04/2023 23:52

I was 17 when I got engaged and 20 when we got married. We split when I was 24.

In hindsight we were both very young and done everything way too quick from relationship to babies. I’m talking met at 15& basically lived together from then on in. Didn’t spend anytime apart unless at work and even then he became very insecure about that.

MrsMoastyToasty · 06/04/2023 00:48

A friend married at 18. Her husband was 36 at the time and had been married twice before and had 3 kids.They've now been married 38 years.

neighboursmustliveon · 06/04/2023 02:02

My brother and sil. They got together at 16/18 and married at 18/21. They are still together after 20 years. They had kids pretty quickly too.

I wouldn't want it for my children but they do appear to be encouraging their 16 year old to practically live with their GF.

Oldsu · 06/04/2023 02:06

I was 17 DH was 23 we had our 50th wedding anniversary last year

NandorsFamilar · 06/04/2023 03:23

my sister got married at 18 and she is still married- albeit to husband number 4. (and lived with 3 guys in between)
I think she just thinks marriage is the solution to all.
A friend got married straight out of school and that lasted a year. (Remarried and has been with DH2 for about 25 years)

Hopingforbettertimesoon · 06/04/2023 03:53

My parents got married at 16 still together some how! Both had very difficult childhoods and I think have clung together. They haven’t always been happy but I don’t think they know any different. This was a long time ago. 1 brother at 18 and 1 at 19. 1 still married 1 divorced.

I got married late in my family at 32. My marriage is a mess and very unhappy. So I think you know what it depends like anything on the individuals involved. Some it might work out others not. I think now people get married later but they still divorce. At least this couple will still be young enough to easily move on if they realise they made a mistake.

I also think it is a class and cultural thing. I came from a social class and culture where people do marry young. If you are used to people going to university and establishing careers then I think it would seem unusual.

this is all a way of sayIng I see your point of view but also theirs. Who knows maybe they will be happy maybe they won’t. But good luck and best wishes to them that’s all anyone can say.

HatchedInALaboratory · 06/04/2023 04:07

I’d be horrified if my kids got married so young. It doesn’t seem to be common now thankfully.

Mistymoonsinastarrysky · 06/04/2023 06:12

My best friend married at 17, still happily married 49 years later.

Woahtherehoney · 06/04/2023 06:56

My Mum got married at 18 and my Dad was 19 - then got divorced when she was 29 but split a year earlier. Quite a few of my school friends got married young and none of them who did are still married - not to say it can’t work though as I do know of couples who got married young and are still together,

LlynTegid · 06/04/2023 07:10

I know of two couples, both married because of pregnancy. One together, the other marriage lasted about ten years.

SilentAndQuietLight · 06/04/2023 07:17

I was a teenager, he was early twenties. We were fundamentalist Christians, so cohabitation wasn't an option. No longer religious but still very happily married in our mid/late-30s.

Rubyupbeat · 06/04/2023 07:25

We were 19 and 20 and still married 38 years later.

Disgustipated · 06/04/2023 07:41

I was 20, my mum was 21 and our daughter 19. Not religious, no parental influences (in fact each time expressed a bit not keen, though didn’t actually try to stop it). I don’t really know the cause, but all, so far, are happy marriages. Nearly 50 years in my parents case

Typicalof · 06/04/2023 07:43

Yes, I know few people who go married young. To be honest, if the couples are religious and want marriage. What is the point in preventing it? What exactly will they miss out on? I also knew few teenagers who were monogamous, when I was younger. Was that bad? Teen pregnancies happens with and without marriages.

Dm got married at 16 and that was OK for her. I think it is wrong to say having sex is ok, but not marriage.
I think having marriage conversation with teenagers is simpler than boyfriend/ girlfriend/ being offical couple ect... Because marriage is a contract with set expectations, rules and regulations.

I would however, support divorce becoming simpler/ easier.

Typicalof · 06/04/2023 07:47

I also know more people who married later on in life and then divorced. Marriage is not set in stone. It is for people who hope to spend the rest of their life together. They are not being sown together. They are allowed to separate.

Iknowthatlife · 06/04/2023 08:18

We had a temp who was a devout Christian and he was marrying his GF as soon as they both graduated as they were not having sex before marriage. I actually bumped in to him in a restaurant about 5 years after he left the dept and met his wife, they seemed very happy.

My sister married at 18, I was only 5 and attended the wedding, it was the first one I went to. She was married for 43 years until he died a couple of years ago, he was 2 years older than her.

gingercat02 · 06/04/2023 08:21

3 of my friends got married while we were at Uni. 2 divorced 1 widowed young.

The 2 that got divorced should never have got married in the first place.

MrsToothyBitch · 06/04/2023 08:24

My maternal aunt was 20, her DH 21 but this was the 60s and they HAD to get married; they had a shot gun wedding that we still Do Not Discuss and my cousin arrived a fair bit less than 9 months later. It lasted til my uncle died but they should've split a decade sooner- I just don't think they knew how, they had too much tying them. My paternal uncle also married in his v early 20s to my 17yo aunt for the same reason in the 50s. That one is much more openly acknowledged and they were in love until the day he died in his mid 70s. It takes all sorts.

The only young marriages I saw - as in under 23, were all Christians at uni. The under 25s tended to be either for military or to get round emigration or immigration. They mostly seem happy still. My best friend got married at 26 but was a late bloomer so still seemed very young - and he was a good decade older.
My social circle seem to be taking the plunge between 29-35. Lots of us at 32-33. I'll be 33.

LakieLady · 06/04/2023 08:24

A friend eloped to Gretna Green at 16, and married her 18YO boyfriend.

They split up less than 5 years later.

SharonEllis · 06/04/2023 08:33

Not really sure how you can make a judgement without knowing the couple or their circumstances. One of the happiest couples I know (married over 50 years) married when the wife was under 18 & husband under 20 (not quite sure exact ages). But, so what? I got together with partner in my mid 30s, 2 kids, still together after 24 yrs & never married. No model is, in itself, better or worse than any other. I'd say a young couple just needs love & support.

postwarbulge · 06/04/2023 08:54

We married as post-grads at 22 and stayed together UDDUP.