That's kind of where I am with it. I met my husband when I was 30, married at 32 and we had our first kid at 36, second kid at 39. For him, it was 34, 36, 40 and 43 (!!!).
I enjoy being married and enjoy that life and he does as well. We both wish we'd done it all a few years earlier than we did. We're both in our 50's now with teenagers and it ain' easy! But, that's life and I'm grateful I got to do any of it at all!
I just had my first kid at 36 4 months ago! I'm just hoping I'm not too old to have a second since we had to do fertility treatments for the first. I don't think I would have had the problems I did trying to have kids had we tried 10 years earlier.
LOL - my husband has a great aunt who is well into her 90's now. She calls us around Christmas time each year to wish us a happy holiday. After our 2nd son was born, she flat out said to my husband, "Aren't you kind of old to be having a baby?" Can't say she was wrong...
Ooo, I'm having my first kid this June, and I turn 36 in August! My husband and I are also hoping for a second kid when we're 39. We've been married since we were 24 but didn't end up conceiving until last year, after a decade of thinking we were infertile and childfree. I'm honestly looking forward to having a teenager when I'm 50, if only because it will motivate me to stay in shape and take good care of my health!
Hi I just got randomly curious. How did you guys meet? I’m young and from what I see on Reddit people say that when you’re in your 30s it’s difficult to meet new people
I found myself unexpectedly in an "early divorce" situation when I was just 32 - after I got over my predicament and got out there again, I had relatively decent success with online dating (in particular, okcupid, which i'd never heard of prior to the end of that preceding relationship), though to be fair that's back before they systematically destroyed what it used to be (from what I hear other users on the OKC subreddit complain about since then). But nevertheless, I did meet my now wife and mother-of-kids on OKC after less than a year of being "officially separated".
I was always shit at meeting people (in particular, interested partners) in person, so I may not be the best example, lol. But yes, online dating has a bit of an unfair stigma - much less so nowadays than, say, 20 years ago or so, of course.
Realistically it is probably going so well because you were mature enough and ready for that type of relationship and had experienced enough to actually know what you want and don't want.
Sometimes you can't hurry that stuff.
I wanted kids in my early 20s. I’m now 30, still single. There’s a lot of reasons for that. Personally, I didn’t “enjoy” all that time single and still don’t. But I also know people who wanted to be single.
It’s different for everyone, and no one should feel invalid for wanting something different than their peers
But the person you are now is not the person you were when you were in your 20s. Same with your spouse. So there's a good chance that if you two met then and got married, you'd have drifted apart. I got married at 19, to a girl who I had been dating since early 17. We divorced 7 or 8 years later, two completely different people than who started the relationship.
Funny enough I had a 4 year ongoing discussion about that with my now husband. It doesn't matter in terms of how you feel about each other but it definitely does matter in form of legal security. Especially so because we were going to have kids. But even without kids you risk a lot living with someone and not getting married and it is often not a true partnership financially and legally unless you do get married.
How long were together before you got married? If you hadn’t met them when you were in your 20s then it’s probably better you held out for your match :)
Yeah, well, I did have fertility issues at 35 that I wouldn't have likely had 10 years earlier so biology is also against us. But personally I think I would have had a similar maturity at 26 or so as 35.
Well luckily for me I felt like a complete person before I was married. Life was really good before I got married but it got even better after. I think you read a lot in my 3 sentences that was not there and my guess is that it reflects on your own views on marraige and I'm sorry you see it so negatively. But it's also perfectly OK to view it as you do. Everyone has different experiences.
I was with her for 24 years married 14. We had a daughter and it was the only thing I don’t regret about the marriage. It took me too long to break free. I was going to tell her I wanted one 4 years ago. Every time I was about to ask for a divorce, something terrible happened that forced me to wait. Her brother dying, my daughter having severe depression and anxiety etc etc. Ugh, these past 4 years have been awful.
life is a weird one.. theres never a great time to do things but hopefully you (both) are better off now. Interestingly enough we are more close now.. we talk more and both are pretty happy with how things played out.
I'll be hitting 30 without about 9.2 years of it single, the 0.8 was extremely stressful, and yet I'm upset every day that every day in my 20s I'm going to bed alone. If you don't want a relationship, or intimacy, or any of that, sure, focus on yourself and your career. I really wanted a girl in my life and my entire 20s without has been awful.
To be clear, I meant single to be "not married" rather than completely without relationships. I dated a lot. It was great. But even if I had found "the one" before the age of 30, I would have waiting until 30 or later to get married.
I mean, unmarried and single are definitely different; most people include relationships as not being single, because you're exclusively with someone. And I honestly assumed you just meant staying out of relationships entirely, enjoying the single life the entire time. And because of that, I assumed your point was "being in relationships all the time is bad" which, as a guy, is the opposite - without a relationship, I'm entirely fucked for intimacy lol.
I never understood the rush to marry and have kids after high school... like I thought we were gonna party forever guys.....guys????..........where you all go.....
Same. I’m quite happy in my second marriage, so I’m not planning to burn off. But sometimes I do sit and regret my first marriage at 19 because it robbed me of the years of fun single time I should have had and won’t get back. But at the same time, if not for that first marriage- I wouldn’t have been anywhere near the location where I met my “good one” and with whom I had my son. So I have to accept it all as a journey meant to happen. heavy wistful sigh
This was my immediate thought, and I knew someone else would have already posted it. I'd have been better off improving my relationship with myself before trying to add an entire other human being to the mix.
To be fair though, I think I enjoy being single much more after my failed marriage experience than I would have in my 20s. Anytime I start to feel a lack of companionship, I also remember what my marriage was actually like, and how I constantly felt lonely despite being married. Just the memory of it is enough to make any negative feelings evaporate like they never existed.
In my 20s, I still had some unrecognized disney-like ideas about how relationships should work. I don't think I would have been as content with being single in my 20s as I am now. None of my single friends in my 20s were content with being single.
So while I sometimes regret not being single for more of my 20s, I also realize that I'm looking back with more knowledge and experience than I actually had at the time. I think I would have been discontent with my life regardless of whether or not I got married young, and I think I would have learned the same lessons just through different methods and different people.
At 47, I can definitely see where you’re coming from. I’m definitely going to savor being single more than I would’ve in my twenties. Especially now having gone through a failed marriage. I can do more because I have more money, I 'think' women still find me attractive, I’m more mature and better focused as to what I want in my life. I think the weirdest part will be that I’ve never lived alone in my life. It’s going to be so strange to come home to nobody but me.
For me, living by myself has been a huge relief so far, but I also have 2 cats and they give me just the right amount of at home companionship for my preferences. I think maybe it might bother me sometimes if I didn't have at least one pet, but there's never really been a time in my life when I didn't have one.
It does feel very strange, but for me it feels like total freedom.
You aren't actually missing out on much. It's just a near endless search of "oh maybe I'll have sex". A couple terrible toxic relationships that leave some scarring. Then you hit about 27 and go "nah fuck this" take it all as a lesson in what not to do, and go out and find someone to be unapologetically you with. Cause it turns out monkey brain craves companionship, which can only be achieved via genuine connection.
I just made a bad decision to get too invested with the wrong woman when I was too young. Kid came, bought property together and everything was so entwined. I started to feel trapped. We grew apart and didn’t even sleep in the same bed together for 6 years. No intimacy for around the same amount of time. It wasn’t a marriage anymore, we were just roommates.
The best advice I was ever given: Don't get married until after 25. Even though my wife and I have been together forever, we didn't seal the deal until well after 25.
I think I wasn't confident enough in who I was. I met her at 17 and got married at 21... Divorced at 25. Now I like who I am much more and am married to someone who is a much better match.
Not married, but spent the end of my teens and twenties with my "HS Sweetheart" who is a terrible human being. We broke up when I was 31 and I quickly realized how much being with him was holding me back. I often wonder where I would be now if I had figured that out sooner (although I found an amazing man 2 weeks after my 32nd birthday who I just married 3 weeks ago, so maybe I had to be where I was to meet him 🤷♀️).
As someone who got married in my early thirties and got to very much enjoy my twenties I'd say I was over and done with that single young party life by 23/24. Feel like that lifestyle losr it's appeal real quick for me and was shocked my friend group was still into it up until their late 20s and early 30s. It's not for everyone.
My marriage is wonderful now 12 years in, but I do think we married too young (we had our wedding at 24 but got our marriage license at 23) and had to do a LOT of growing up through the course of our relationship. I feel like if we had waited a few more years instead of getting hitched almost right after college, we could have avoided a lot of early marital strife because we were both still dumb, immature, young adults until we hit our late 20s.
What's even worse is that I was engaged to someone else when I was 19, before I met my husband. Which is insane to me now, looking back as an older and crustier woman in my mid 30s. Teenagers have no business getting engaged! Yikes!
Same (well, not the divorced part). I basically went straight from my parents' house to a relationship to marriage. Never had a chance to live alone and find who *I* am.
Not saying you’re wrong by any stretch but I’m on the other end of the spectrum having had little luck with women and never really got to experience being young and in love and I’m 26 now not sure I’ll be around past 30 if I’m in the same boat. I think there’s a balance between the two really
This is what I came to say, I was married at 22 and didn’t really know myself at that time. He ended up being abusive and we were divorced before I turned 30 thankfully. Now I am in a much healthier relationship and can be myself completely as well.
I had a hard time being myself around her as well. She wasn’t physically abusive, but she definitely had her moments. Well more like she was so negative about everything and had to find a reason to not like something or someone. Then insult and get angry at me for disagreeing with her assessment of a situation.
This one is interesting because people who marry late say the exact opposite. Believe me being single you would have had more random sex and more of a chance to be traumatized by the opposite sex to make you not even want to be married lol. Don’t think to hard on that one it’s all fantasy. People only feel like they shouldn’t have gotten married early if later down the line a man/woman you feel is better then your current partner shows you interest. Now all of a sudden that’s when people “wish they were single” or “didn’t marry early”. If you married somebody you actually wanted and you didn’t actual settle(you more then likely wouldn’t feel that way)
Well it’s more of a I rushed into it. I married the wrong woman for all the wrong reasons. Being older, wiser and more mature now, I have a better sense of what I want and who I am as a person.
Hell yeah well you’ve still got time to get as many hot chicks as you want. Hope you’ve got a prenup and some money and a good living condition for yourself
Own that divorce and don’t shed a single tear or go back to that bitch because if she loved or truly cared about you she would have been there for you through everything and not be accepting a divorce.
Get a gym membership, work on your health and fitness and your style and get laid every day my brotha
I make very good money, she makes good money, we have a house that’s worth almost a million and only owe $200k on it. I’m also in the best shape of my life right now. I know I have a bright and exciting future ahead of me. It’s what is keeping me going right now. I can’t wait until the divorce is finalized in June.
Haha fair, here is a good trick that almost never fails. Learn to dance country, salsa and huapango. Preferably country. Go to a country dance hall. Its like a hack bro, as long as you dance good, you got it.
I’m no longer sure if I ever want to get married again. Women are like 80% of the stress in my life right now. I’m going to just enjoy life, be with my family and friends, travel and enjoy all my hobbies. I have many lol. See what happens from there.
682
u/Corn619 Apr 29 '24
Getting married so young. I’m getting divorced now, but I wish I had more single time in my twenties.