I am sick to death of the pressure to get married young. According to over-zealous family members and my already-hitched mates (who are increasing in numbers by the nanosecond), by now I'm supposed to be married, own a house and have a huge account in my bank. And it seems I'm not the only one.
Social psychologists Roy Baumeister and Kathleen Vohs have injected a toxic dose of moral panic into the never-married female population with their "scientific research", which claims that if women don't get marry young, their "market value" deteriorates rapidly. Say what!? (The findings concluded something entirely different for men, whose market value apparently seems to rise the older they get. *Eye roll.)
While another study found that young women (18-22 years old) are mature enough to handle being ensconced in holy matrimony (this according to the US government's National Survey of Family Growth, I think that an entirely different issue needs to be addressed.
For those who marry young, does life really turn out all that good? Is their rush to waltz down the aisle donning a white dress and a lace garter belt before eating fancy cake and air kissing noxious in-laws, really worth missing out on a life filled with exploration, self-fulfilment, wanton casual sex and the chance to figure out who they really are without being tied to a couch, kitchen and nappy duties for all eternity?
Sounds like the death of youth to me.
Yet, when I got ensconced in a long-term relationship from the age of 18, none of the above even entered my head. Being part of a twosome actually gave me more time to focus on myself (instead of worrying about where my next date, meal or rent payment would come from), focus on the creative side of my career (without stressing out whether it would enable me to afford the lifestyle I was accustomed to) and allowed me to feel safe, secure and fulfilled in the knowledge that I had already found my "one". The search was off. A life together was on.
It never worked out for me (towards the end, our goals changed, freedom was a thing of the past and living together was no longer a joy but a chore).
On the flip side, my friend Marty (who is now 28 with two kids in tow) met his wife at a party when he was 22. She was 28. After experiencing that rare light-bulb moment of "love at first sight", they fell in love, promptly moved in together and she soon fell pregnant.
"Life could have gone either way," he tells me. "It was like a coin toss – either we could make a go of it, have the child, get married and hope for the best, or we could go the other way and take none of it."
It took him one week of heavy consideration to make the decision that changed his life, and nowadays he couldn't be happier.
"Of course it was going through my head that there would be no more playboy ways," he laughs when I ask him if he ever considered not going through with it in a bid to hold on to his freedom.
"That was the hardest thing to let go of. But when I looked into the future and saw what it could be, I decided that I was going to go with it. I knew I loved her very much and did eventually want to marry her, so I just thought: why not now?"
Lucky for Marty, the girl he fell in love with turned out to be one of those people who allows the other person to grow in the relationship without making them feeling trapped, censored or under the thumb.
"She's not a ball breaker – she just goes with the flow."
Which is exactly what I think makes or breaks the relationship of those who marry early. Because here's the thing: people change. You mature. You grow at different rates. And you can either grow apart, or you can grow together. If you grow apart, you're left with a relationship that is more like a friendship than a romantic union filed with sex and fun-filled adventures for two. But if you grow together from an early age and share similar values, interests and life goals, then things can be magical – the stuff fairy tales are made.
Of course the pros and cons of marrying early are plentiful. And even Marty will admit that it's difficult at times.
"You do lose a bit of your youth … but it's not so much in a bad way. You just do." He also says that he found himself having to do things that normal 20-somethings just wouldn't have to do – which can be really testing on a relationship. Others I've polled say that marrying young means you never truly get a chance to know yourself or what you want, you have to grow up too early and miss out, and you never truly discover what good sex is.
I'm in two minds. Dating someone from a young age allows you to grow, expand and explore the world without having to worry about finding a date, getting dumped or having to do it on your own. You are secure, safe and elated with knowing that there's someone by your side no matter what. On the other hand there's missed youth and the feeling that there might be something more out there that you'll never truly discover.
Either way, I truly envy couples like Marty and his wife. They will tell you that it's rubbish that marrying young isn't the way to go about it. That if you truly find someone special, why delay it? Instead they will say that it's how hard you work at the relationship that counts.
And I certainly hope they're right …
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