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.

It's more normal, imo, than this current trend for infantalising grown adults until deep into their twenties.
No wonder though, I've just read a other thread where you have parents insisting their 13 year olds still believe in Father Christmas.

Mortified?! Really?! That somebody approaching the ideal age at which to be planning and having children (if that's what they want) is hoping to marry?!

I think this is a big part of it. Many people seem to view marriage almost as a kind of first death instalment: the time when you swap enjoyment of life for boring stability.

If you get to know somebody very well and you both actively know that this is the person you want for your life partner, you can start making all of your exciting plans to share together, pooling energies, skills and resources - not to mention things often being more financially advantageous for a couple than for a single person.

Obviously you may not share the same interests, visions and desires for life as each other... but if that's the case, maybe you aren't the best suited for marriage in the first place?

Not necessarily. Plenty of people jump straight into marriage without 'knowing' but hoping that things will pan out. If anything, this is more likely when your biological clock is ticking fast, you see the pool of 'good' men/women your age drying up and you don't want to be left on the shelf, maybe you want to get on the housing ladder and can't afford to alone.

I'm absolutely not saying that any of this is necessarily the case for anybody, of any age; and I'm aware that people can change, circumstances can change, life can change.

I'm just saying that there will be people out there who are mid-late 30s or even into their 40s, and who announce to their family and friends that they're getting married... they'll be met with "About time - what took you so long?!" and certainly nobody claiming to be shocked, heartbroken or mortified purely based on their age... and a good amount of them will, in their heart of hearts, not 'know' for a fact that this marriage is what they definitely want to do, but they feel they 'should' (especially if they've already made the far greater commitment of having children together) and can't especially find a reason not to marry by default or indeed don't see any feasible alternative.

This is how we saw it. Neither of wanted children (we changed our minds but only after 13 years) so we focused on financial security and holidays. It was great being able to buy a house (ages 23 and 24) on dual incomes and working towards building up some savings for travel and a car and so on. The result is that we will be mortgage free at 48.

Yes, this is true, but older women who have had a career are better able to financially support themselves after a divorce. They are also more likely to walk away from shitty behavior from their husbands, knowing they are capable humans not reliant on a man.

You could not be more wrong. I got married at 22, from a middle class background (as is my husband who is a couple of years older). I have a degree and a professional qualification and I earn an extremely good salary.

I waited until I was getting on for 30 to start a family because we wanted to live life together and have fun and progress careers first, we didn’t have kids early and we won’t be young grandparents.

And there are plenty of us saying we did the same 20-25 years ago when it was not different to now. It’s been the norm to get married at age 30ish for the last 2-3 decades.

It is becoming normalised again as the dream of having it all wasn’t real, working, partying, travelling into your 30’s before settling down with a man ready to commit and have children.
The reality is different.
Mr right isn’t always there, fertility problems, high stress, craving your old life before children, it’s a disappointment.
Do it younger and grow older together.

“Deeply uncool” - who worries about being cool when it comes to a decision as serious as marriage?

Obviously people who are concerned about others’ perceptions of how cool they are, are unlikely to be mature enough to get married.

Oh yes what could possibly go wrong with this argument? There’s a reason why couples stopped marrying so young and the average age rose to 30 odd and you only have to look at the higher divorce statistics for this age group to know young people are less likely to grow old together.

You’re joking. More couples who married later are at higher risk of divorce, craving the life they had. Getting married and having children in your 30’s doesn’t reduce the risk of divorce, it increases it.
Especially when the women’s life changes drastically unlike her Husband, who are usually under developed ma child who didn’t have to care about anyone but himself for 35 years.
I’ve friends going through divorce who married in their 30’s, they’re mid 40’s with young children.
I wasn’t young having children, started at 30.
I’ve also met people in their 40’s happily married 20 years.

The reasons are far more people going into higher education and an inflated housing market.

20-25 years ago the world was still hugely different. I got married in that same time frame, having just slipped out of my 20's. Clearly there is no 'one size fits all' approach, but there is a generational change due to many factors such as more education opportunities, a changing employment landscape, a changing housing landscape and more parental involvement. No one is saying one is right or wrong, but it is unusual nowadays.

t's a frankly moronic decision to get married at 23, no matter who is looking.

In your opinion. Best thing I ever did!

“More education opportunities”
seriously, do you think there weren’t the same education opportunities 25 years ago? If anything fewer people are going to uni now due to the increasing costs.

Seeing as around 45% of marriages end in divorce, they have as good a chance as any of making it.

However.... that's based on marriages that happened 30-40 years ago. ONS says marriages now are a bit more stable again - probably down to the fact that people get married later, have lived together and know each other better etc etc.

A few thoughts, marriage doesn’t hurt women’s careers, children do. There is no convenient time to have them. They either slow the start of your career, or throw you back mid-career. But they are so worth it, in my opinion.

Waiting till your early thirties to get married is not a great strategy either. It can put women under pressure and make them feel that they have to settle.

I married at 22 and thought I was mature enough, I wasn't, I had a lot more growing up to do.
For a long time, scientists thought the brain stopped growing around adolescence. However, modern neuroscience has shown that the human brain isn't fully developed until around the age of 25 (and for some individuals, development can continue into their late 20s).

No. Children don't. The assumption that there's only one primary childcarer, and she happens to be the mother, is what hurts women's careers.

I've raised a child, kept my full-time career and made it clear from the beginning that this was a two-person effort. Anything else was a dealbreaker. Fortunately my husband felt the same way and we've always maintained a balanced approach to parenting. Our DC is now 12 and this has worked so far.

IMO, it's gendered stereotypes and assumptions which have regressed since Gen X. The phrase 'having it all' is hideously sexist and never, ever used in the context of men who assume a family and work as their automatic right.

I'm not sure whatever happened to the 'New Man' of the 1990s. Where has he gone? Unfortunately, it seems, this was something of a blip on the radar. For some reason some men seem to think ideas like that are 'feminine' or emasculating, and it's interesting that debates of toxic masculinity have gathered pace since these attitudes once again regressed.

The one thing that's changed is that men in general do seem to be more 'hands on' fathers than, say, in the 1970s. But hands-on in terms of fatherhood compared with what is expected of mothers? That gap is still too wide.

And ofc, marriage in itself has little to do with any of this. I'd been with DH for 10 years before we married. We just happened to have other priorities in life at that time.

You seem determined to pick holes in anyone's counter argument. Are you ok, hun? As someone with a decades long career in education, I'm fully aware of the volume of opportunities in education across the generations, and HoC data confirms an increase from 0.45m in 2007 to 0.7m in 2025. Whatever your views on marriage age, more people are going to university than they did 20 - 25 years ago. Be happy with your own choices, accept that there are different choices and that's alright.

If that's how you feel, make sure you don't/ didn't get married at 23, and we're all grand.

I got married at 22 and it was one of the very best decisions I ever made - and I don't think I am or have been a moron in the more than a quarter of a century since then.

Don't judge everybody else according to your own limitations or inabilities to know what you want and make wise decisions; we're all different, and that's fine.

Prepare for more morons then because that’s the direction of travel.

Whats moronic is making sweeping statements showing the narrow mindedness ignorance and not being ashamed of it.