It seems to me we just can't make a reliable guess about the 26 year old in this anecdote. God seems to be at once more exigent and FAR more gracious than we can imagine. And it hardly seems to me to be proper for any of us to say, "So and so won't make the cut."
I guess I'd argue about it more if I could get a clear notion of where the handles of the argument are. I do not so much think about my 'salvation." I do not go to Mass, haul out the Rosary, pray the Divine Office, or read my Bible with the intent of "getting saved" or enjoying "being saved already." It's to encounter Christ, to renew my offering of my miserable self to Him, to spend time in His company. I guess I think benefits follow or accompany these activities, but that's not what's on my mind. It's just to be with Jesus.
And people wander. God graciously runs us on a loose tether and lets us sample the poisonous grasses and toxic browse, and suffer the consequent colic. That is part of guiding and protecting us, of training us up.
Maybe this young man and his wife, in the experience of matrimony and parenthood will see how bankrupt life is without God's help, His Love. Maybe, like those who reject the Church for a while, their real longing is for the gracious Truth and their error is not rejecting God but rather seeking him as boldly as they know how. It is hard to see that in grouchy Miss So-and-So and hypocritical Mr. Whatsisname God is working His gracious purpose out. It is hard to remember that we see only the surface and that perhaps their ill-temper and unreliability are signs of a spiritual conflict whose greatness we cannot imagine.
Fr. Thomas Hopko, an Orthodox priest, once said that people often came to him saying, "I'm worried about my relationship with my spouse." His response was, "You worry about your spouse and the relationship will take care of itself.
I guess that's kind of how I think about whether or not I am saved. I will "worry about" Jesus, and I expect the relationship to take care of itself.
amen Dawgie