Posted on 09/09/2016 5:37:46 PM PDT by Chickensoup
My son 21 is courting a wonderful young woman20. She is educated, motivated, traveled, religious, warm, intelligent, thoughtful and attractive.
My son likes her very much. She likes him very much.
They both are hearing family and friends tell them not to marry so early. She will have a great job with a great future. My son will have a baseline investment income and can work full or part time as the family needs.
He is disorganized and would do well yoked. She seems to enjoy his eccentricities. I am encouraging early marriage. Would like to hear Freeper opinion on early marriage in today's marriage marketplace.
I’ll look for it.
Best,
JT
My son will have a baseline investment income and can work full or part time as the family needs.
So what’s the issue? He’s perfect, she’s perfect... Sounds like happily ever after. Why put this out on the internet?
What a wonderful story! God bless you and your family.
When I was a young 21 year old soldier, I married a 20 year old girl that I had dated for only three months. My family, her family, and most of our friends tried to warn us that the marriage would be an unmitigated disaster. In December, we will celebrate our 33rd anniversary. Miss Yvette is still the light of my life.
They do Love each other, I was being circumspect.
Then I don’t think age matters.
We were 17 that was 46 years ago. You have to work at marriage and intend it to be forever.
How long have they known each other? Do they want to get married? Are they still in school? You’re not giving us the real important info here. They’re adults so it’s really up to them. If you and the other parents think it’s a good idea, that counts as a plus, but it’s not up to you. But I would say that I while I would listen to parents I don’t think you should listen to every dope who wants to give you his or her opinion. In a lot of ways age really is just a number.
Tell him to back away slowly, and then turn and run when he is a safe distance away. Nobody should be married until they are over 25, and only then after a long courtship.
CC
I’m all for early marriage. What’s the alternative? Sleeping around until you’re in your mid-30s, and then scrambling to have one kid? People should do well to remember why St. Paul endorsed marriage at all: “they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.” Do people burn with passion less when they’re 20 than when they’re 30? Do they have less energy for child-raising when they’re 20?
The only danger is that people who marry when they’re 20 often do so with little sense of what they want in a partner, or out of compulsion so the divorce rate is high. But for those who wait, they often simply never marry. So is it better to risk marriage and divorce then living in sin and then part ways?
Just be there for them. Help them nest-egg for college if you must. I;m a little concerned that your son isn’t planning on working: does he plan to be a stay-at-home Dad? I have no problem with that role reversal, if it suits their nature; I do have a problem with planning on living off investments.
“I loved that my husband was the one who kept me from burning out.”
I respect your reply, if I didn’t, I would not ask this followup: Please explain why you made/feel the statement in quotes. No traps/trick questions. Never heard this before.
And congratulations on proving that “Man plans, God laughs”.
PS- I still think Chickensoup’s offspring is too young. At 60 hours per week he works long, but he doesn’t necessarily work smart— that comes from experience.
“If you all dated for 14 years and you never married her, she should have dumped you at least 6 years before she did.”
Wow. F*** you.
IMHO based on my own personal experience only, I believe a person should not get married until they are in their late 20’s. I blew it getting married the first time at 22.
25 at the earliest........
Outstandin
I married late to a woman 8 years younger, and I love her, and my marriage, and our son. But I have so many friends who I made because we were all single together who are still single, and I feel so bad for them. SInglehood causes loneliness, depression, and grave moral risks.
I feel this is an important finding:
The divorce rate for those who marry younger than 20 is 32 percent, but for those who wait just until 20, it is only 19 percent. The lowest rate is at 25 (13 percent), but by the time people reach 32, the divorce rate starts back up again... at a rate of 5 percent PER YEAR. The old presumption that the older you are when you get married, the less likely you are to get divorced NO LONGER HOLDS.
Here’s the thing: if they DON’T marry, there’s a 1 in 2 chance your son will be single at 32. So is fear of a divorce worth the reduction in divorce rates of going from 19 percent to 13 percent? Isn’t 19 percent low enough?
Wait, you ask, isn’t there a 1 in 2 chance that people end up divorced?
No. It never was. There was a time in the 70s, just after no-fault divorce, when marriage rates plunged and divorce rates briefly soared that for every 2 marriages, there was 1 divorce. That is not at all the same thing as saying 50% of all marriages end in divorce.
Further, those who have one divorce frequently have several. Only 23% of all people who ever get married ever get divorced.
Here’s are the real questions:
Are they getting married because they feel they have to? This is a key reason why early marriages end in divorce.
Are they dedicated to marriage as a life-long concept? And do they make God part of their marriage? Among regularly church-going Catholics, the divorce rate is 85% lower than among Catholics who do not go to Church regularly. (The gap is less pronounced among Protestants probably because divorce is more accepted among certain Protestant denominations.)
That’s not young at all and there doesn’t appear to be any reason for them to wait. In my opinion most people today mess up their lives by waiting too long to get married. They then fall into destructive forms of sin that compromise their future marriages and the rest of their lives. This sounds like the perfect age for that happy couple to get married. Congratulations for this great blessing.
Lots of anecdotal evidence from others here shows that properly grounded couples can and do live happily ever after. However, we all know a few failures on that front, so contradictory advice is to be expected. It’s true that the present culture is anti-maturity and anti-commitment (and that the courts can destroy a man if it gets to that point).
The couple will have to decide for themselves. A man needs the respect of the woman he loves, and a woman needs the love of the man she respects. If she respects him, and if he is worthy of that respect, there’s no reason to wait.
My wife and I were both 20. I was JUST 20 + 1 day. My wife was 27 days short of her 21st birthday.
It will be 47 years in December.
Marry for LOVE.
Forget all that other bull$hit. Jobs, security, age, relatives approval......
You said “LIKE”. That worries me.
If you’re not
In it for love (baby)
If you’re not
Willin’ to give it all you got
If you’re not in it for life
If you’re not in it for love
Let me make it clear
To you my dear
If you’re not in it for love
I’m outta here!
Shania Twain (too bad her husband wasn’t in it for life)
He left her for Shania’s best friend. Ruined her emotionally to the point of ruining her career.
I’m 47 and have a 3 month old baby. Tried to have a baby for many years and God finally blessed us. We were about to stop trying. I’m not gonna complain.
With that said, I vote for having the children fairly young when you can just bounce out of bed at night, feed child, and still feel rested the next day due to youthful vitality.
I’m a wreck!
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