Ideal age to get married?

[zaracharlotte]

I married at 30 after four years of dating.

My sister is currently 25, and has been with her boyfriend since meeting him at university aged 18. They are very much a permanent fixture in each others lives, and are committed to marriage at some point in the future. Engaged to be engaged, you might say.

Tonight she asked me if she was too young. I was stumped. I have no idea how to answer that question. On one hand, they are such a committed couple, that getting married wouldn't make much difference. However, I have this gut feeling that 25 is still too young - probably because it was too young for 25 year old me.

So I'm asking you - if you could do it all over again, had you met your partner (current, not any previous marriages) at 18, and were now aged 25 - would you consider this too young for marriage?

It's a fair point NurseDoctor, although the idea that children are at risk of any ill effects as a result of parents splitting seems to be quite a controversial one on mn.

Actually I disagree Nurse - they do crop up when people have children too young all the time. It just tends to be said as a quiet, exasperated whisper accompanied by a roll of the eyes and a shake of the head, because to say it directly and out loud the the people in question would be seen as unhelpful and unsupportive. It doesn't mean that people don't privately think it though.

No I don't think 25 is too young though these days it probably is considered young. And she has known him for a number of years. I think anything around 22 or younger is a bit young. And under 20 crazy.

We met at 19 and married 10 years later. The first 4 years were long distance as I was away at Uni, then we moved in together. He then did four years of study as a mature student, then we bought a house and then we married. We count our relationship from when we met, not married, so are planning a party for our 25th anniversary next year, not our 15th.

We didn't want to marry until we had a few practicalities settled, not because we felt to young before. 29 was when we were moving on to the next stage in our lives, but we were the first of all our friends to marry. The only people of my generation I know who were married by 25 are religious people for whom living together was not an option.

But I would echo what others have said - if your sister has a doubt, then she should listen to it. What's the rush?

The kids thing - well, kids are non-reversible, marriage is if it needs to be. Although as someone who is happily child-free, it drove me mad for years when people told me I was too young to decide I didn't want any. No-one would ever dare say to someone who said they wanted kids that they were too young to decide and that they'd change their mind!

I was with someone for 4 years, ended when I was 27. Met next partner which lasted for 5 years, ended recently. I'm 32. I'm glad I didn't marry either of them.

More about choice of partner and being suited to marriage. I chose the wrong people, even though I loved them, but ultimately I'm glad I've had those experiences because I know what I'm looking for now. And I'd like to think there's still time to get married.

HaloItsMeFell fair point. Perhaps people just shy away from vocalising their opinion. I truly don't think there is any "right age", just the right time for that couple. Some people don't want to spend years partying and clubbing, but on the flip side I do know of people who are now trying to relive their "missed" youth, though this is usually people who have had children young as opposed to married.

I think OP if your sister is unsure there is no need to rush anything

As long as your dsis gets married before having children whatever age is good if she is happy, just make sure she understands that dcs without marriage leaves her very vulnerable if she decided to stop work/career break. (maybe completely irrelevant if she is not planning a family yet) but marriage provides the ultimate legal safeguard to assets/property/savings/pension and there is no such thing as 'common law spouse. ..

I got married at 21 after being together fit 5 yrs, living together 4, 1 dc.

I was /am very young I don't ever doubt for one single second that I married the right person.

But. I'm under no illusions that we will need to work hard at growing together, so that we don't grow apart. I do worry about it.

DH, doesn't. His parents are currently celebrating 40 odd years together, married at 18. . . My mother is on her 4th marriage.

I do not know if this is where my worry stems from.

With this said I think the ideal age is 28/30 ish. However, I think this is because most people don't meet the person they want to marry until this age. . I think dh and I just met very early on, and I consider myself lucky.

As others have said I think it is more important whether she feels ready. If she is questioning whether she is to young is it because she feels she might be or others have told her she is?

I do find it interesting though that 25 is considered so young for marriage these days. When my mum was 25 she married for the 2nd time, my dad was 29 and between them they already had 4 children. They have just celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary. I think considering 25 young for marriage is a pretty recent thing.

I married at 24 (28 now)

I didn't consider divorce stats at all but felt/feel confident in our relationship. I thought that we could have our youth together and getting married didn't equate to settling down and kids immediately.

I got married at 25.
I met dh at 17, started dating at 19, bought a house at 22 and married at 25.
We felt ready, what was harder was dd coming along 13 months later!

I don't think there is a 'right age' to get married.

I'm a year older than your sister and have been married almost 6 years. I've never doubted getting married young, it was the right time for us.

If your sister isn't sure she's old enough then it's either others have said she's too young or she's not ready to be married yet.

Don't believe all the 'whenever' nonsense on here.

Men - 30
Women - 28

i will brook no argument on this and if i were prime minister would make it the law.

Shut this thread down. Were done.

How depressing that it's like some destiny to get married.
Why get married at all?

Absolutely ladyblablah - the best age is never. If you want to be with someone then be with them, why do you need a piece a paper to justify your relationship? Look at how many posts there are regarding marriage breakdowns where one has become dependent on the other, ugh. In all the romance of marriage it is so easily forgotten that you are entering into a legal contract - so easy to get into, fucking hard to get out of. Been there, done that and never again...

Not sure about ideal age.
What I would say though OP is that if your sister doesn't feel ready yet, even if it is a tiny tiny niggle about her age she should wait. Listening to your gut is so important as it's an expensive mistake to make (having ignored it myself at a young age). And if all ends up peachy and they marry later with no niggles they've not lost anything as they've still had the time together.

You get married when you are ready and chronologically that varies from person to person.

FWIW the marriages I've seen that run into problems are generally when the couple have had little or no experience of other relationships and start to get curious/restless after a few years together.

The stronger marriages are amongst those who have tried a few partners before they identify the match they want to marry.

ime the utterly disastrous ones are amongst the group that don't believe in sex before marriage usually because of religious beliefs; They rush into poor matches at a young age because thier hormones are surging and they think it's love and need the ring to get their leg over.

We were so young when we married we heard the lot. Once people are married they get fat, lazy, boring, never go out, stop clubbing/drinking, have boring sex and the list goes on. No wonder people are nervous of getting married young if that is what they think it is like.

What is strange in my rl is the people who had ideas like that when we were all 20 are now married at 30 to people they never like to go outside, always cleaning, or saying sorry I can't go out ever due to children/pets/my husband or wife says so. I couldn't live like that at 20/30 or any age.

Got together with my wife when i was 17 and she was 16 and 20 years later we both agree we should of met when were at least 25 :-). Never a right answer to this unless you are already with someone for a long time and can look back ?

Absolutely ladyblablah - the best age is never. If you want to be with someone then be with them, why do you need a piece a paper to justify your relationship?

A piece of paper isn't needed to justify a relationship but it does help to make certain things a whole lot easier:
Home ownership: if one partner dies the house ownership transfers to the spouse unless a will states differently.
Parental responsibility: it can be decided by being on birth certificate now but previously that wasn't the case (children born before 2002).
There have been several cases recently where a mann has died whilst his partner is pregnant and because they were unmarried they cannot be named on the birth certificate without a DNA test.
Splitting of assets after a relationship breakdown means both parties are likely to leave the relationship with something if they were married.
We don't have common law spouses so marriage is a lot more than a piece of paper to justify a relationship.

We were the first of our friends to get married and were both 25, met at 20. Personally, it wouldn't have been any earlier as we wanted to have completed all our professional exams first.

This year has been really busy with weddings now they've ranged from 27-31 in age so late 20s seems to be the 'ideal' in our group but as we all work in same industry it's more down to having career sorted rather than 'not being ready to commit' if that makes sense.

I agree inthedark. We didn't get married to justify our relationship or, in fact, for romantic reasons at all. We had a child together and were buying a house. Our marriage cost under £300 and was the quickest and cheapest way to ensure dd would be taken care of and there would be no inheritance issues should anything happen to one of us. It was a strictly administrative decision.