AIBU to feel shocked my 23-year-old daughter is marrying?

[SlothsRUs]

My 23 year old daughter has just announced that she is getting married next year.

I am completely shocked.

Surely it’s not normal anymore to marry that early.

I tried to be joyous and congratulate her but would you be happy?

I want to know why she wants to marry this young.

I know she is an adult and what she does is nothing to do with me but I am really shocked.

I got married at 22 and financially it was the best thing I ever did. It meant we were settled early and had paid off the mortgage by the time some friends were thinking about buying a first house.

I got married at 23, we now have 3 amazing children, a home, and a happy life! We’re 9yrs married this week and going strong! X

I was engaged at 23 and married at 24 - it hasn’t stopped me from doing anything. We’ve been married 20 years in December.

You sound lovely. Be prepared for no contact because that's what you deserve. Your poor girls.

This is such a judgemental and horrible post. Sorry but it is.

I really don't see the problem if she's found someone she loves and trusts enough to marry. She'll be 24 by the time she marries. I was married with a toddler and a baby by that age and more than 50 years later we're still married.

Eh, no? Very odd take.

not to sound cold but in todays society theres always round 2 when needed

The employment market is changing. AI is replacing graduate entry level jobs and the university sector is being decimated. Education opportunities are decreasing and so are opportunities for graduates. Young women are looking at Gen X marrying late and struggling with decreasing fertility, combined with putting in 12 hour days at work and wondering if that’s what they really want. Gen Z is all about wellbeing, work life balance and self care. Essentially the opposite of millennials and Gen X.

I’d be happy for my daughter. She will be 24 when she actually gets married- you said married next year. It’s not a done deal till they actually get married.

Assuming she has finished her education and is marrying a nice young man- why wait? Do you feel she is immature or he is lacking in some way?

Marriage can be a cornerstone or a capstone as they say. Either is valid. The cornerstone approach can save fertility worries and get people financially ahead.

OP we didn't have children until we'd been married 12 years. A marriage is between two people. I built my career and my husband worked in a blue light role locally. Perhaps that's your daughter's plan.
Be happy for her and as I said up thread don't do any of this joint finances malarkey.

The sort of people who talk about these experiences are almost always horrid bores that everyone avoids, I know a couple and they are semi-tragic figures tbh.

Listening to people's travelling stories has to rank in the top 5 most excruciatingly boring and cringe experiences

And I've spent done my fair share of travelling! It was fun but I don't consider it a massive achievement though 😕Done a fair bit with my husband too

I doubt I'm the only person to whom those things sound a mixture of inherently implausible in my circumstances and grim.

As long as my apples are far far away from yours.

And they will be. So no hope needed.

Funny.

So glad my mother was nothing like you. Is it generational?

I did work 24/7 on some project that was more important than anything else.
We did choose to head to a different continent while travelling because we met some interesting people.
I studied and worked abroad before marriage, which still dating my now DH.
The rest I haven't had the chance, or wouldn't want to do, but there would be no reason not to just because I'm married.
The only thing I actually wouldn't do because I'm married is have sexual or otherwise romantic relationships with anyone else, which I obviously don't want to do anyways.

Grow up.

Not everyone lives as you do.

My daughters won't ever live like you do.

Nothing horrible in saying so. My judgement isn't personal. You are all making it so.

I find you horrible. Sorry but I do.

Bet it isn't for you.

I got married at 23, should have been earlier but was delayed due to Covid. Still very happily married 5 years later 🤷🏼‍♀️. I think it depends on maturity

Married at 23 here, celebrating 25 years next year. Think you’re looking for problems that aren’t there @SlothsRUs yes, marriage can end in divorce,
at any stage.

I'm fully in favour of 'live and let live' and leaving everybody to make the right decisions that suit their own preferences, lifestyles and personal plans; but I do wish that other people wouldn't smugly judge everybody else according to their own indecision, immaturity, lack of commitment or general flakiness.

Some of us do know our own minds and are mature enough from a younger than average (still very much adult) age to make what we fully understand are big, long-lasting decisions.

If you yourself are not ready to make the decision to marry, take as much time as you want and need before you do - or indeed stay happily single all your life, if that's your preference; all wonderful. We will make our decisions for us, when we are ready, thanks.

Far too many couples are going about things haphazardly these days. Buying houses and having babies before creating the legal contract of marriage isn’t an improvement.

If you are worried, what I would do is find a good financial planner and offer to pay for her and her fiance to meet and get the life together in order. You don’t need to be involved in the decision making. Getting a neutral 3rd party to sit down with them and help them make smart decisions about planning their life together will set them up for a healthy marriage and a healthy financial future.

... and then finding out that unfortunately women's fertility is at its peak at exactly the time some ambitious women are focussing on their careers, and by the time they feel their careers are doing well enough to think about pregnancy it's not just quite so easy. Some turn to technology to help out but success there is not guaranteed. Then, as others have already pointed out, older parents find themselves caught in the horrible position of having young or teenage children at exactly the point when their parents and parents-in-law are starting to need a lot more support.

It's much better if possible to have children earlier while you still have energy and so do your parents and parents-in-law, if they're going to be actively involved in supporting you all.

No, it's not. Not least because we have no idea what generation Liberancho is.