You're just a kid, how would you know what you want for the rest of your life?

I married my first wife when she was 18 and I was 20. We went through a lot of hardship. It should not have worked out: we were both poor, from broken homes, in an LDR from different worlds. She was the popular girl, I was a shy and awkward nerd. When we got married, we had only been in one another's presence for a few weeks total. I went into the marriage not expecting a path or plan, as my parents were toxic which ended with my mother's suicide, and my mother in law had been married 4 times before she became single for the last time. None of us had healthy marriages to draw from. At our wedding, her relatives even said, "I give it two years, tops." We were desperately poor, and struggled most of our marriage with health and money issues.

But we made it work for 25 years. We'd still be married, but she passed away ten years ago. We became "foxhole buddies," us against the world.

This, all marriages are supposed to be this, us vs the world, while I get the argument you don't know who you really want when you are 20, I've also seen cases like yours, as long as both people figure out us vs the world, I think the marriage will last. So when people say 25 and after it makes sense, I've also seen cases where people never understand in their life this us vs them mentality, and are never happy and I always wonder the question how much age plays a role in people understand what marriage is supposed to be?
Anyway thanks for your take my man, my condolences, I wish you all the best.

It goes up. Now I think people that get married before 40 are weird.

On serious note.... It's any age. You can tell when a couple is just trying to reproduce an image of "family" because they were told it's the next thing to do in life. Working in retail id often see families you could tell just went through the motions and that everyone was disconnected from one another. It's sad.

Imagine the following scenario: you meet someone in college, and when you graduate at 22 you don't want to split up. They say sure, let's live together, but we need to get engaged; if it doesn't work out we can just break it off. After a year you realize your lives are much better together. You decide to get married but not to have kids until you're 30. If it doesn't work out you can divorce, but you sign a prenup and at least no kids would be involved.

If you both have clear and compatible career goals, that scenario saves you a lot of dating drama and gives you valuable support. I wouldn't call someone in that scenario "weird."

Yeah I've noticed at least a lot from my high-school group that dating for about 4 years is a good amount of time, me personally and a lot of close friends seemed to have hit their hardships in a relationship around that 4 year mark. Also moving is a good test about how you do in stress haha
- Been married for 10 years now. There's one thing I've found to be the ultimate relationship tester:
  Furniture Assembly.
  If you can survive assembling a few pieces of IKEA puzzles together it's probably going to last XD
I think the main point here is people around those ages aren't fully capable of making those kinds of decisions in the first place.
There's a reason why most marriages end in divorce after all.
Get married before you have a clue. Get a clue after being married a couple years. Get a divorce because you realize you had no idea what you were doing.
- This is 100% a data-driven fact. It can't apply to everyone, but it's a really great average.
  Those who wait until after 25 have a 25% chance of not getting divorced.
What purpose does engagement and marriage serve there? "Must be this financially trapped to continue?"

I'm in my mid-50s. The generation older than me - my aunts and uncles - generally were in school until grade 8 and were out of the house and working by 16. My mother had her older sister as her teacher.

24 is not a child. You can vote drive, drive, drink, marry sign legal documents etc. And at least for women fertility begins to decline at 32. If you mean you will continue to grow as a person and develop new interests that hopefully never goes away. I went to grad school and was in academia for over a decade after my PhD. I have made two major shifts in my career since then. Old people still feel like they are in their twenties or early thirties mentally, we joke about it all the time. So congratulations, this is it.

at least for women fertility begins to decline at 32.
That's a little bit of a yikes there, buddy.
Edit: and additional "yikes" for all of the people that don't see the problem with assigning a value to women based on how fertile they may or may not be.
Edit 2: tHe QuAnTiTy Of EgGs! Because women only exist to get pregnant.
- How can a fact be yikes? It’s only relevant if women want children, but if they do then the earlier the safer it is.
- Why is that a yikes? More birth defects, complications, start running low on eggs. All of that is just facts...
- They said nothing about the value of a woman being tied to fertility, that came out of mind..
  As for the decline in fertility statement, that has been scientifically proven for decades and assumed for centuries. Women are born with a set amount of eggs, they typically go through at least one per ovulation cycle, they start reaching the end in their 30s and risks of birth defects start increasing in their 30s
- So biological facts are now cringe?
- The question was about marriage. There are two reasons that I see people get married. For young people it's about starting a family. However you and I feel about it personally, legal structures that are in place just make it easier when you're married. The other reason is for older people. Pensions and estate planning is easier for married couples. Again, I have opinions about it but it remains a plain fact.
- I believe you are the one who is confused and making unwarranted assumptions here.
- In fairness, when we had our first at 34 she was a year off being medically labelled a "geriatric mother"
- You are the only one talking about tying women's worth to anything
So, you agree with OP? There is not an argument against it here.

At what age are you supposed to know what you want for the rest of your life? You will never have an answer to that in any capacity, and not just in marriage. You evolve as a person, you'll never have a fixed desire for your whole life. And that's the great thing about marriage and relationships, they also evolve. And it's about who you want to try doing that with

At what age are you supposed to know what you want for the rest of your life?
Maybe around the year that the brain finishes developing, which can vary from person to person but is typically around the mid 20s.
- I see/hear about marriages started at 30+ 40+ 50+ all the time that fail. I see people pivot careers and industries in the middle years of their life. People tastes change all the time as they get older. Let's not pretend that when your brain finishes developing you suddenly have life figured out/know exactly what you want
  I generally agree that getting married before 24 is a pretty risky move and you have to have thought it through very carefully, but the argument that "you don't know what you want for the rest of your life" is not the reason why that is. It relates more to life experience/emotional capability/massive foresight. Marriage is more than just "wanting something for the rest of your life", it's a commitment, it's not just some eternal desire you may/may not have
I feel like it might come from the fact most relationships are pretty short before you are 24. Few people hold onto long lasting relationships by that age and few (at the time) short ones develop into anything reliable.
A former classmate of mine met a guy and got married after knowing him almost a year, like right out of highschool. Last I heard of her they went through a messy divorce couple of years later, which we all saw coming and tried telling her about.
- That sounds more like an issue with that person not being open/receptive to her peers advice. And I think this is true for many people beyond the age of 24 as well
You evolve all the time, but you might have some desires that are fixed for your whole life and you might realize it before you're an adult.
Wow, well said!
That might as well be an argument for child marriage.
- Uh, no. If you're just a kid at 24 according to OP, when do you stop being a kid? When OP arbitrarily says so now? Could've sworn legal age meant something like "when you're no longer a kid and can make your own decisions". I mean I agree, 24 year olds are basically kids and still have a lot of life experience to gain. But they're not actually children like you're weirdly implying I'm saying

Can we stop extending "just a kid" into ever older years? Society already years anybody under 18 like they're the same as a goddamn fetus. Human life expectancy being what it is, we shouldn't be treating people... not even like they don't know anything but like they couldn't even conceivably know anything for fully a third of it.

I don't know how it is for you, but when I look back at 24-year-old me, I am not impressed. I guess what I'm saying is that there are a lot of us who definitely don't have their shit together when they're 24. They say your prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed until 25 at the earliest, but I feel like it was closer to 30 for me. Granted, I'm kind of a dummy anyway, so this probably doesn't apply to everyone.
- That reads as "I couldn't make those decisions at that age, so obviously no one else could."
  I say this as someone that had my first child at 23, after talking about it with my girlfriend since the age of 19.
  We don't regret a thing. (Well, apart from not winning the lottery. Yet.)
- Just wait. 45 year old me was cringe. And 35 year old me? How did that guy even have friends.
- 24-year-old me was an awesome badass and I regret nothing.
- I was a shit person at 24 who knew nothing so everyone must've been a shittier person at 24 who knew even less than me, vibes.
- I don't look at other people as if they are or were me, I look at them as if they are their own people who may or may not be living their life differently from me.
Is 18 years a third of your life given todays life span?
Where do you live where the expected life span is just 56? O.o
- I think they’re referring to the 24 number op originally stated, that is roughly a third of the life expectancy for males at least.

The age at which you meet has nothing to do with it. Healthy relationships are about evolving together. If you can't do that or if you do it separately, that's when it falls apart. Sometimes you're lucky and you find a compatible person early, sometimes you don't. That's all there is to it.

Seems like 24 is an arbitrary number. Some folks consider themselves "ready" for marriage at 18, some at 40, and some never.

I think its very subjective and situational.

I wonder if OP is 24 and just got married.

Me 32, i dont have a fucking clue of what i want for the rest of my life. Maybe those couples that married in their early 20s wanted to explore together what they wanted in life. Good for them.

I understand the roots of marriage, but I want a partner who would be ok with parting ways in the future. We live once, why do we have to commit to 1 person for most of it? Things I enjoyed 5 years ago I don't care for now. Tastes change.
- Marriage isn't for everybody, and that's okay. As long as you aren't stringing partners along who are looking to get married when you already know that you aren't, then your choice doesn't seem to be hurting anybody.
  I'm 35 and married. Sure, tastes change, but my wife and I chose good partners in each other; we won't hate each other or get irreparably sick of each other, we make a great team, and we understand each other's limitations and are mature enough to ask for help. We let each other in. There is security and stability in marriage. I'm not great at meeting new people, so not having to go on another first date again is a huge relief for me. Making a good first impression is fucking exhausting. In contrast, I know how my wife is feeling pretty much just by glancing at her, and it's really fulfilling to be on the same wavelength as my partner like that, especially because we're also open communicators who can share the honest, fucked up feelings without worrying about judgment. So we're basically each other's therapist, but we share housework and meals and money, and we snuggle and kiss and fuck. I can understand that that's not appealing to everybody, but it's hard for me to imagine a version of myself who doesn't want this. But again, it's not for everybody, and it's perfectly okay to not want it for yourself.

Not going to try to change your mind about this opinion, but I'll take a stab at shaming you for being so vocal about a thought that is very much "othering". Maybe turn down the judgement a bit, you don't know people.

You're weird
What's truly insane is people who marry under 20. And if you think it's possible to know who you are and what you want at that age, you have a very simplistic view of the world. Or you're brainwashed by those who reared you, ie you have a very simplistic view of the world.
- No, teenagers are often gifted with some nugget of wisdom or other about their lives, it's just that parents and random commenters online never believe it.
  I knew I wanted to get married and to whom. I also knew it was a good idea. I only waited to mid-twenties because she wasn't sure. 30 years farther along, we're still married and teenaged me is proved right.
  Cynical, older, slower me might have screwed it up somehow.

24 is just as arbitrary an age as 18, change my mind

someone at 24 has several more years of experience in the adult world. someone at 24 has several more years of neurological development (which isn't complete until around 25). in other words, at 24 someone has better context for decision-making and better decision-making ability than someone who is 18.
- On average sure. But your statement at its face is simply wrong. Older does not mean they make better decisions.
Yes it's all about mental age and mindset.

I see a pretty stark difference between people who married young and had kids right away, vs people who married young and enjoyed their time for a while before having kids. The ones who had kids seem weird to me, never got a chance to goof off in their 20s and figure out who they are. The ones who waited feel more normal. But that's just my experience.

The ones who had kids seem weird to me, never got a chance to goof off in their 20s and figure out who they are.
I definitely needed to goof off in my 20s and figure out who I was. But not everybody is like that, and the meme in question suggests it's "weird" to know who you are and not need to goof off.
How old are you? No need to be specific this isn’t a creepy question lol just roughly what age are you? Because I don’t think we can make any sort of broad assessment until the people who had kids when they were young have kids out of the house. I know plenty
of people who are enjoying their 40’s with kids happily going off to college around that time. If you have kids in your early to mid 30’s - assuming you stopped at 35, which isn’t a given - you’re starting to have them out in your mid 50’s. Those are very different times for you, physically, mentally, professionally, etc. even if it doesn’t seem like it.
I imagine for many in this thread it is too early to be making a final assessment. I think also a lot of people here forget that nobody is thrusting these decisions upon them (except maybe overeager parents who want to be grandparents, in which case they need to back off). Different people have different objectives/goals in life. They aren’t worse off for not doing it your way.
The strongest marriage I know is my buddy from high school who married his high school sweetheart, right when they graduated college at 21. They just had their 3rd kid at 35 and they’re ecstatic. First was at 22 or so.
The point is a post like this shows a certain amount of hubris/lack of imagination/lack of exposure to people with different lifestyles and priorities.
- I just can't imagine being a grandfather at >70... and seeing NOTHING of that generation before I'm doomed to dementia/death.
  My Grandparents were a HUGE part of my life... and knowing that some people don't want to be that positive influence to their grandkids lives is disappointing. Raising kids is a hard thing to do. To not be around when my daughters need the help is something that I refuse to acknowledge as "healthy" just because some numpties on the internet think that everyone should be older than 35 to have kids.
  As it stands, I haven't needed my parents much at all for raising my kids (I was 26 for my oldest, I would have been fine going a bit younger as I was more or less in the same situation). But they're there if something happens (familial fallbacks are great bus factor multipliers.)
  A lot of what I'm reading here sounds like most people seem to think that you should be 100% self-sustaining before you do ANYTHING... and that's just not an answer that works in my brain.
  Edit: This whole premise is actually a really good way to kill generational knowledge. My dad doesn't know nearly the same stuff my grandfather does about the family.
This is the main point here, IMO. A child is a huge responsibility and the early 20s is a period of life you're still figuring things out. Culture also plays a role here; where I'm from, people are deciding to live together (without having kids) for a couple of years before formally marrying.
- Having a kid in your 20s is not for you, but you can’t just assume that that is the case for everyone else.
  I mean, let’s take this post: what is so magical about 24? Why not 25? Why not 23? I imagine the number was pretty arbitrary. It just sounded right to OP.

I married at 22 over 20 years ago did not regret a day... I think a happy marriage is just a lot of luck a lot of self reflection and effort. No matter the age it is not a self running maintenance free system

Luck is something I didn’t consider.
- I met my wife in high-school, we married at 21/22, it's going to be our 19th anniversary this year. So yeah, definitely got lucky, and I would discourage my kids from doing the same even though it worked great for us.
- I doubt waiting makes people any luckier in that respect. In the end, it's a gamble.

Do whatever you want. Maybe your marriage will last, maybe it won't. Live your life. Take chances.

Hahahahahaha
Cries in paralysing anxiety
- I'm sorry you have to deal with that. I have lived with a persistent background anxiety for my whole life, and only in the last year have I started treating it (in my 40's). It hasn't solved all my problems, but it does mean I'm not constantly jittery. If you're already treating your anxiety, then I can only wish you luck and success.

I got married at 22, (wife 21) and on the 17th of Feb we will celebrate our 32 year anniversary. Seems to have worked out ok for me.

Fist-Bump Met my wife in 8th Grade. Got married at 21. Just celebrated our 28th anniversary. I think if the trust, loyalty and love is there, you'll know. Neither of us had a doubt about each other, and we're best friends.
Note: We did take a year or so off around 18-19, too get 'it' out of our systems.

If you know you want to marry and have kids, and you know who you want to marry, it's weird to wait, especially since you can avoid being a creaking old person who still has young kids.

What you think you know when you're in your early twenties and what you absolutely know in your early 30s are very different things.
You've still got too much of leftover juice from puberty until you hit 27.

If we make it to 24 that'd be 8 years of dating and id feel bad not marrying her by then. My only caveat is I want to be out of college by the time we marry tbh

I'll probably still go to grad school but I'd atleast like my BS

That's what we did, it just turned out that we were together for 7 years before everything fell in to place. We got out of college, got our careers in order, and bought a house. Then married the next year.

I met my wife at 37 and married at 39. Best decision I ever didn't intentionally make :)

But looking back, I had a TON of growing up to do before I was ready to seriously commit to marriage the way I personally view it. Pair bonding for life. Sure, people, things and desired change, but I've watched far too many god awful divorces to ever want to go through that, so I wanted to be really sure and I totally was. It's been an awesome 16 years.

If you don't know what you want before you're 24, should you be allowed to make any decisions?

Well that’s just like your opinion man. But yeah.

I think everybody's different. I mean, there do exist 23 year olds who are incredibly mature and fully formed as human beings, capable of making that kind of a Big Decision, but from what I've seen they're pretty darn rare :)

Worst mistake of my life. I love my kids, though.

As a rule of thumb I'd agree

That said, few people I can immediately see are extremely compatible and uniquely similar would be fine marrying that young. I could see how having a kid even at 20 could be appealing. Imagine being 40, your kid is 20 and finally cool to hang around with while you're still healthy

At 53 with a partner and two kids, I am currently in deep, deep depression wishing that I’d married the girl I split up with at 24.

no shame in therapy if you haven't been
- I’ve been for other issues but it’s more or less all the same: “pull yourself together, stop XYZ”
oof
Do you miss the 24 year old girl or do you miss being 24?
- The girl, who is now about 49 with two kids.
  I’m fine with being oldish. I’m a much wiser and less impulsive person.
I think I may have just gone down the same path and im scared I may have the same realization one day.
Why did you guys split up back then?
- Me being an impulsive dork and dumping her for a far less intelligent girl with bigger breasts who didn’t even really happen even. That was it. Game over. She wouldn’t take me back.
  TBH I should’ve ended myself then but was too stupid to even realise that was the better option than living another 20 years without her. Still… I wouldn’t have wanted to hurt my parents. Been distracting myself ever since with lots of other stuff. Can’t do it now because of my kids, and mother still alive. Dad fucked in head with dementia. Oh well. Keep trudging on and now have Lemmy to make stupid comments on. Yay.

Say that to the ppl in countries/places where people start working from the age they are old enough to hold tools, or after high school, they or their parents are not gonna bother delaying their marriage well past puberty, it varies wildly depending on the place(and culture), not everyone is living in a rich country and want to complete masters before doing anything else.

No one knows what they want for the rest of their lives when they're 34 anymore than 24. Same for 44, 54, etc. we're all figuring this shit out together.

But I'll pose another hot take:

Marriage is stupid in general. Pledging to commit your life to another person is stupid, and you don't need a church or government to recognize your commitment. If you end up hating each other somewhere down the road (which is likely) there's no sense in continuing to torture each other. It's not good for anyone. Get divorced? Well then what was the point of getting married in the first place? It's supposed to be a lifelong commitment.

“Baby, this relationship is so good I want to get the government involved”

Lol for me all people who marry are weird why draw the line at a certain age

I am guessing this is mostly informed by your own experience, personally I feel the same, but I was a fucking moron at 24, certainly not ready for something like marriage or kids, hell I am 31 and I still don't feel that way.

Others might feel otherwise or grow up faster, to better parents and that's okay, no need to label people who do things different than you as weird imo.

Throwing my anecdotal 2 cents in -

Married at 23 (wife just turned 21) straight out of college. We were both very immature, and we divorced two years later after she fooled around with her 55 year old boss. Left me devastated at 25 going on 26 thinking I was used goods. After a lot of maturing, a few more relationships, I remarried at 33.

It takes a lot of self reflection - because even though I could chalk up the previous marriage to “lol she a hoe” - I had piss poor financial skills, was very immature and lacked a lot of self confidence which manifested itself in toxic behavior all around. There are times I just cringe at who I was at that age. Not that I’m a perfect person now, I’m just more aware of what I needed to improve in myself to be a decent person and partner.

Part of it is the age old wisdom of learning to love yourself and figuring out what you like, versus just trying to mold yourself into the person you think your partner wants. And not to say that “oh I’m an asshole, They have to deal with it” but truly understanding what makes you tick and finding someone who loves and accepts that part of you.

Married at 23 (wife just turned 21) straight out of college. We were both very immature
Also totally anecdotal: Exactly the same for us, up to this point. Now I'm looking at 36 on the horizon this year, and she 34, and we're still both quite happily married.
My only point being: it just depends on the people. It works for some, and for others it doesn't. I wish I could tell a person which kind they'd be, but I can't.
I will absolutely say, however, it's gonna hurt a whole hell of a lot less to simply wait a bit longer and be sure of what you want, and that you're both in agreement on the major things. It doesn't mean you have to wait in order for the relationship to succeed, but it sure would improve the likelihood that it will.

Kinda had an affair with a woman who married at 24 and regretted not 'playing the field'. She ended up getting pregnant with her husband shortly after and I really hope they make it last, but I have a horrible feeling it was a doomed attempt to fix their relationship with a child.

Putting arbitrary numbers on people to measure their matureness is weird to me.

There are 15 year old people who are wiser and more mature than a lot with 50.

You can't know without knowing the person.

Well it's not arbitrary is it. Any quantitative measure of maturity is definitely correlated with age.
Your "very mature" 15 year old is either an outlier, or an indictment on your ability to ascertain maturity.
- Any quantitative measure of maturity is definitely correlated with age.
  Is it? Do you have numbers on that?
The numbers are not arbitrary. They are used to measure how long a person has been alive, which is kind of statistically significant, and yes, largely correlates with maturity. I'm not 26 mature points, I'm 26 years old.
- and yes, largely correlates with maturity
  That's where we disagree. You say that as if it were a proven fact. If you got studies on that, please report.
  My point is, that at least from my experience there is a lot more to maturity than mere age. And you can't really know if you just superficially look at someone and their age.

Met my now wife in high school. We've been together since high school.

We've been married for 5 years now.

I'm 40 next.

So kinda agree with the post, but not the sentiment that if you met your partner early you're weird. I was lucky I met the love of my life so young. Just because you didn't doesn't mean I'm weird, just not as lucky as me.

My wife and I both met at the tail end of college in our early 20s, we knew pretty quickly what we had but we didn't rush things other than moving in with each other after the first year. We didn't get married for another 10 years.
I almost feel like weddings early on can put huge stress on a marriage. Even if you have somebody paying for it all it creates a lot of crap to deal with and you can get forced to meet and deal with a huge amount of new family members all at once instead of slowly integrating into those things over time. We had to pay for our wedding ourselves so had zero rush and invited only who we really wanted to be there, and while it was a blast it was still stressful. But holy shit that limo ride back to the hotel room when it was all over is a top 5 moment in both our lives.
- Yeah we got married on our 18th anniversary of being a couple. I always said I didn't believe in marriage and I still think it's a silly idea to be honest.
  My argument was that we had made the choice to be together and to be an exclusive couple. There was zero need to get married to have that. It's a certificate that costs a fortune just to have someone else tell us the terms and conditions of our relationship. I had proposed to her a few years into being together and we just remained engaged for a decade or more.
  My Wife had an issue before the marriage where she would get odd looks off some people, some of the time, when our surnames came up. My kids had my surname and she had hers, and there's still a stigma to that from some people.
  So she changed her name legally to my surname at some point, so we even had that benefit without technically being married.
  Then one day she just said "Hey should we get married? Doesn't have to cost much at this point." I had zero argument against it except the tired old arguements of "It's just a bit of paper, we don't need the State to tell us we're together." So we went ahead, and I picked the date of our anniversary so I didn't have to remember another date.
  It was a Monday so that immediately cut the people that didn't wanna book a day off work, and it cost us £500 including food and venue (the pub over the road from our house which didn't open during the day on a Monday). And it was a cracking day. We could just wander home if we needed anything, and when we'd had enough drinking we just toddled over the road.
  As for the wedding night, my Wife still ribs me for the fact I just rolled into bed drunk and snored.
  What we managed to do was prove that a wedding doesn't need to be too much of a stress, or cost the earth, to be a meaningful event. It's still a high-point in our lives, but we didn't really gain anything from doing it.
  One thing I will never understand is the people that think that it's an important part of a relationship. A guy at work was talking about the length of his marriage. He is much older than me and was saying he had been married 40 years. I piped up that we had been together for 23 years and married for 5 and he just replied "Yeah but we've been married for 40 years" like the 18 years before our "ceremony" were meaningless. But this is the same guy that asked me yesterday if I was "A Fucking Puff or something" because I've painted my nails black. There's a generation of people still alive that think like this and honestly, I hope it's gone by the time my kids grow up.

People who may before they turn 24 30 are weird

FTFY

At that age I was only interested in gaming. Don't know how people have the facility to form long term relationships

I don't think ppl getting married is wierd before 24 risky sure. Having kids before 24 is crazy. Like 2 years in workforce at minimum. Barely time to be able an adult before a parent.

Barely time to be able an adult before a parent.
Which always ends up unfair to the parents and children.

Concept of marriage is weird and feels like some weird breeder shit imo

It is a religious ceremony and should hold no legal bounds. Most benefits of marriage should be considered something else. Marriage is fuckin weird

On one hand, it kinda is. On the other hand, ppl tend to turn out to be complete jerks, and marriage somewhat protects from the consequences of such a revelation. On the third hand, what Bolex said

Met my wife in highschool and got married right out of college. We are now pushing 40 and are still happy and content. We were lucky, we grew together and in similar ways, but we also just knew when we knew. We even had twins a few years back and even the stress of that didn't destroy us.

We (hopefully) still have many years together and maybe things will break down, but, so far, neither of us regret marrying so young.

While I also feel it is weird, I strongly believe marrying kids (<18) should be illegally nationally with no exceptions. I have personally witnessed lives destroyed.

Yeah! Just be with them for 15 years dragging your feet like a normal person!

I don't trust anybody that isn't a wizard.

Married at 23. Met my husband at 18 on a dating app, was supposed to be a quickie. He's just that charming, and I love him lol.

I don't know about you, but my healthcare plan only covers memes.

I also think that when I see people of that age married or with kids. But I think it's just because of our different life experiences.

I opted to enroll in a PhD right after graduating and so, at 30, I still feel like my life isn't at a point when I can start thinking about kids or marriage. But I know a lot of people enter relatively stable jobs as soon as they graduate university (or high school, although in my circles everyone went to university - it's not as expensive as in the US here). I can understand people in that position starting to think about family earlier than me.

Marurity matters, not years . In my parents era 18 was a common marriage age, but they were done high-school and working full time at 16, unless you went to Uni.

I was just a kid... why would you think I'd know better?

I'm 35 and I'm still not sure that I'm old enough to get married yet.

I was recently trying to talk a person online out of marrying someone once the two of them are both 18. It's partly because they're head-over-heels in love with their partner and partly to move out of the US to Canada to escape their trans hostile state. They are trans and their partner helped them through some rough patches. The couple is only now meeting in person for the first time after three years. It was a little frustrating talking to them because I'm a naturally cautious person. My husband and I took about five years from first date to cohabiting to wedding. They honestly sounded like your stereotypical love sick teenager.

I would agree with the general judgement of this cartoon. There's going to be some survivor bias for marriages that worked young. I know a woman who married a man who was in his 50's when she was 18, right out of high school. When he died, she never remarried. But you never hear much about the marriages where an 18-year-old deemed themselves "more mature than those other girls/boys" and it turned into a disaster. They typically don't last that long and no one wants to talk about them much.

Kids make bad decisions sometimes. It’s not weird.

There are some arguments in this thread that are getting dangerously similar to pedo arguments.

Edit:

Who is downvoting me? How am I wrong? Look at all these "age is just a number" comments. All the "some people are mature for their age" comments. I'm not making an accusation, but if you think this is a winning argument with your full chest then my level of concern is rising.

24? Fuck that, 26 at least. Gotta give your brain as much time to develop before committing to something like that

@Custoslibera@lemmy.world Could you share the meme template, please? =)

Here you go.
- Thank you.

I'm 40ish and I've wanted the same thing since I was 20. Haven't found a good match but nothing has really changed regarding my long term goals and the things I want from life.

No. Not just "no", hard no. Part of our society's problems stem from how people spend half (if not all) of their 20s partying. This is particularly an issue for us traditional men who want to marry earlier in adulthood but can't find any high value women who aren't feminists who have, let's just say, "been around". Furthermore, when you marry and have kids at an earlier place in your adult life, you get to spend more of your life with your children, see their successes, you get to witness your legacy unfold in real time.

That is what we need more of and I will not be convinced otherwise.

Ew