Do you know anyone who got married very young?

[Worryaboutmybread]

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?

My sister got married a couple of months before her 21st. Still together 30 years later and happy. Personally I wouldn't advise or want this for anyone.

DM married DF, when she was 19, but then she had known him since she was 2. He was one of her brother’s school friends at secondary school. DM didn’t believe in sex before marriage. They had me asap. They were together until DF died at 75.

There will always be tons of people tipping up here to say they got married at 19 and are still married at 59 and everything is great and still going strong etc.

It clearly works for some people. Personally I think it’s extremely limiting and cuts people off from a huge amount of enriching life experience having kids and settling down that young.

I’m sure plenty of people think this is snobbish and judgemental but I will own this. It’s fine if you don’t want much from life other than kids but I would be horrified if my DD got married this young.

I was 19 in the February, married in the July. DH was 23. Just about to celebrate our 50th anniversary.

It was the norm then. Out of our friendship/family group only one couple divorced and one was widowed. All the rest still together.

Nowadays 19 year olds seem so immature to what we were back then somehow. Or perhaps time is playing tricks. A couple of years ago our neice, at her 18th birthday meal, had no qualms about asking her dad to cut her meat up for her!

My grandmother married at 16. She was the oldest of seven children, and was sick of nappies, etc, helping to bring the younger siblings up. She said she would have married anyone to get out of there. She and my grandfather were together until he died, from the effects of smoking, in his 60s iirc.

Changed my name as not everyone knows this about me and I still feel I was such a fool.

I got married a month after my 17th birthday, I had my first baby a year later at just 18. I found out his work colleague was pregnant a week after the wedding, she gleefully told me they'd had sex in the flat that was our first married home and had sex with him in my bed before I did. She wanted me to pay for the abortion, I declined.

Stuck it out for 14 years as I was ashamed, don't know why as I didn't do anything wrong.

I could weep when I think of 17 year old me and how hurt I was.

My parents. They are still married but we aren't in contact. They are heavily religious and use that as an excuse to be quite abusive. They were also stuck being particularly bratty teenagers in my opinion. Their relationship like an echo chamber of approval for their selfishness an neglectful abuse (not just batching I was removed from them)
I went to uni with a couple that married between the first and second years. He pressured her to drop out of uni, he was sleeping around campus before the second year was even enrolled.

I think under 21 shouldn't be allowed to be Frank under 25 is pushing it.

I was 19. I'm in my 50s now and have no idea where he is or what he does now, nor am I interested.

Different generation, but my parents were 19 and 20. They just had their 58th anniversary.

(My parents were 17 & 19 when they married now nearly 70s).

If you look at the Relationships board you will see women of age 25+ dealing with this kind of nonsense and “forgiving” poor behaviour because they feel they must. It’s not an age thing. And you got out of the relationship in the end, so you are absolutely not a fool.

I worked with someone 30 years ago who had married at 19. She was adamant that it wasn’t too young. Found out a few years back she’s now divorced. Which surprised me as they seemed pretty solid. I do wonder if it was the trading up to a newer model thing.

Thank you, that is very kind. I should have run a week after the wedding but I suppose I didn't want to prove everyone right and I did feel such a fool.

My parents married at 17 & 19 and 64 years later are still happy with each other!
My DH & I married when we were just 20 and my DS married his 20 year old fiancée.
We are all still married. It's not been easy for any of us but marriage never is.

I do find the idea that marrying young is limiting a little blinkered at times. Though I was just 20 we’ve travelled all over, rented all over, swapped jobs. I didn’t miss out on experiences, we just did it young. We studied to post grad too. I quite like having the shared experiences of travel, sleeper trains across Russia or greyhound buses across North America etc. It doesn’t have to mean settling down into a mortgage.

Dd was also young, carried on at university and they work abroad now. Seem to be on a similar path.

We are all still married. It's not been easy for any of us but marriage never is.

That is absolutely not true for me, and I'm sure for many other people.
We will be celebrating our 42nd wedding anniversary this year, and at no point have I found it difficult.

Marriage shouldn't be hard work.

I knew two people who married as teenagers. Both got divorced by their late 20s.

I was 19. DH 21.
Still married and adore each other 33 years later

Only Americans. It's how they cram in three or four marriages. Mind you, one couple still together were high school sweethearts. I think it makes sense to marry your first love to some extent, many people never get over theirs or fall so hard again.

I met my DH when I was 16 and in sixth form. I moved in with him whilst I was still in sixth form. Got married when I was 20. We're still together 28 years later.

My parents dated in school and married each other when they were 16, they're both 70 now.
My best friend married at 18 they're still together 25 yrs later.
Those two relationships really are the epitome of what a stable relationship is all about.
My brother and I are both divorced.

You've never been through any sort of trial or testing situation? Long term unemployment? Ill health perhaps? Well lucky you.

Any relationship can be strained by difficult circumstances, and it does take a lot of patience and grace from both partners to get through tough times.

I was engaged at 21 and married at 22 in 2001.

It hasn't always been plane sailing but we are very happy together and couldn't imagine life with anyone else.

Infertility
Nearly losing DD when she was a few weeks old
DH's stroke
DH's cancer

None of those tested our marriage though. A strong marriage would weather these events quite easily I would have thought. DH and I share the same values and neither of us would throw in the towel at something like the above.

I was married at 21 and still am 18 years later! I don't regret it for one minute!

I got married at 18. He was 19. It was partly due to a strict religious upbringing (me) and partly wanting kids (him). It was a disaster and I left after 18 months. Someone did try to tell me but I didn't listen. I did it to stop judgement from my parents about sex before marriage. I wish they'd tried harder to show me that I had other options. But I think who you marry is more important than when. If they're wrong they're wrong, whether you're 18 or 38. Women hopefully now have more choices available and marriage isn't seen as the "I've made it in life" that it once was. If you think someone is making a mistake, listen to them and talk to them. It's really hard, though.

My brother married at 17 - still married some 50 years later! They're just compatible, get along well, and have a good life.

These days however I think teen marriages are rare.