am i too young to get married!

[jumpin_kangaroo]

I am 18 years old and I am in my first year of university. I have an awesome boyfriend who i love very much who is in his first year of pre-med. He obviously has ALOT of school ahead of him, but we want to get married before his school is finished. In two years, (we will be twenty) he wants to move to another college very far away from ours right now to finish his schooling and i want to go with him and finish mine as well. I think before we left I would want to get married, but am i too young! I love him to death and we have an awesome relationship but am too young to think about marriage and stuff

 

[d0c markus]

if you have to ask, probably.. but thats not for me 2 decide.. every year some 2,000,000 get married in the USA and every year like 1,200,000 somethin (roughly i cant remember exact numbers) get divorced its about 50% so pray pray pray pray about it before you make a mistake...



ask each other this.. "when i am 90, will you give me a sponge bath and clean up after my bathroom blunders" if yes thats awesome Most dont think about that, but your in it for the long haul..


make sure you have agape love, thats greek for unconditional love, love him no matter what, regardless any stupid thing he does, and he should do likewise... so yea pray..

 

[IslandBreeze]

If you think you're too young to get married, then you probably are. I was 19 when I got married, but my husband had a good job, and we were able to afford to live on our own. If you can't live on your own and take care of each other, you have no business getting married, IMO.

 

[Acceptance]

I agree with Cammie. I think you'll be SHOCKED at how much growing up you'll do in the next couple of years. The things you valued at 18 and the things you value at 23 are almost always different. Yes there are those random couples who get married young and stay together, but I would have to say they're in the minority. One of my friends who got married at 19 (5 years ago) just got divorsed 3 months ago. Luckily they didn't have any kids together yet.

I think you have to really know yourself before you can choose who you want to be married to for the rest of your life. And there are just so many life growing experiences you'll go through in the next 5 years to make that commitment now. If you're really meant to be together for the rest of your lives, what's the problem with waiting a couple more years to get married.--This is all just my humble opinion...take it or leave it.

 

[Lizzi4Christ]

I think it depends on who you and your boyfriend are. If you think you're too young, then you probably are. But that's not for all people. Like Cammie, she was only a year older then you when she got married. But she knew it was right for her. It totally depends (Cammie's my hero )

 

[Judilyn]

IMHO, 18 is too young to get married. Finances plays a big part in marriage and a shortage of cash can cause problems.

It is so hard to know what you truly want at the want at the age of 18. My first marriage took place 1 day after turning 19 and it only lastd 6 months. I thought for sure it was what I wanted.

Both of you need to be in prayer about this. Do either of you know a youth pastor you can talk toabout this. I know that you are both to old for youth but the youth pastors at our church have young adults come back them often for counsel.

 

[Breetai]

Is God at the center of your relationship? I think that is very important for a mature relationship. If you are willing to move to a new place if your boyfriend moves, then you must care about him a lot. When my parents married, my mom had just turned 20. They just celebrated their 29th anniversary. Only you can decide if you are ready to make the kind of commitement to your boyfriend that marriage required. Pray about it.

 

[Unix]

No offence, but

In two years, (we will be twenty) he wants to move to another college very far away from ours right now to finish his schooling and i want to go with him and finish mine as well. I think before we left I would want to get married, but am i too young!

it seems like you could get married later. If you two really want to marry each other, then you should be able to wait for each other. I am aware that living apart can unnecessarily be very sad, but still, it is a very young age to get married at 18, and 20 is also a very young age for that. I got married when I was 22, but my wife is a bit older than me (9 years) so she has made sure that I'm grown up. Because of my own experience, I must say that it's wasn not easy to have a deep relationship at 21 and be married at 22, it's very demanding, at least it was for me

 

[msjones21]

It *appears* to me you two want to get married for all the wrong reasons. You want to get married because he wants to move away. Are you prepared to be the wife of a man who is in school full-time? Where would you live? Could you live without your parents' assistance? Do you have peace about being married this young?

Personally, I think that you should wait until he's out of school and can secure a job. Why rush if you know you'll get married some day? Just know that over 50% of all marriages end in divorce. Most of these marriages were teenage marriages (15-19). People change as they grow up and I can assure you, I'm not the same person I was at 18. You still have a lot of growing to do. Just go with God and listen to your parents/pastor/elders you respect. If they say you two seem too young to be married then listen to their advice. They can usually see attributes that could damage the marriage better than you could.

 

[Hopeful]

if he is in pre-med, then i really think you should wait. you can visit www.studentdoctor.com in the couples forum and ask fro advice there but i think the general consensus is that you should be prepared to be neglected a great deal while your husband is in school, undergrad and medical school and then residency, thats about 8 years of school and 4 years of minimal paying job before everything settles down, just my 2 cents, i cant really decide for you if you are ready, good luck though

 

[Hopeful]

i dont know if i am allowed to post websites but i am not spamming so if you have to remove it, feel free

 

[katelyn]

It's a good idea to give yourself time to get used to being at university before you make any decisions like that. It's not just about age, but life experience, maturity, maturity of your relationship, financial situation, etc. It's obvious that you care a great deal about him, but give yourself time to be a college student and figure out what you want in life before you take this next step in your relationship, especially if you are worried that you are too young. If waiting will help you feel more secure in your decision to marry, then it is worth doing.

 

[erinm]

it looks like, if God is in the center of your relationship, then in the next two years--while he is still at the same school--you could be getting yourself ready for marriage. There is nothing wrong with wanting to get married, even if you are younger than most people who are getting married.

I am moving closer to my boyfriend next semester too. I looked at every angle of it, and got nothing but positive reasons why i should be closer to him. I'm 19, i'll be 20 in February, and my boyfriend will be 21 real soon. We love each other deeply and see ourselves getting married. While we haven't really discussed when we'd like to make that next step, we both don't want to be waiting for another 5 years just to make sure we'll be ready for marriage. We are mature in our faith and for our age, we have also made the promise to stay pure and not to kiss until we are married--those factors also make it harder to wait as long.

I want to encourage you to pray and build your relationship God and with eachother. a lot of people our age sometimes do not know how we feel when we are in these relationships, because not everyone makes some of the committments to God. sometimes you have to see all the points to understand why you'd want to get married, like i said, assuming you are waiting for intimacy, that is so hard to do when you love someone.
Good luck, I'll be praying for you, I sort of know what you are going through,

God Speed!

 

[BlueKnight]

If God is in the center, marrying young can be absolutely awesome. If the couple stays committed to eachother and committed to God, then they will each grow and learn how God wants them to interact with eachother. Going through all those life changes together can be a great blessing if they keep focused on God and learn from them. The experience gained through it can be a wonderful thing. And the best part is that they have gone through those things together, and gotten through them. The best relationships aren't usually the ones that have smooth sailing, but rather the ones that have survived through tough times. Any couple can survive through tough times if they keep God centered and put the other person above everything else (besides God).

 

[Warrior Poet]

From the flip side IMO women tend to be more prepared then men to get married. It is quite the adjustment, there is so much more that comes with the terriotiry then simply being together. I am not an advocate of young marriages, but they have and can happen and last. Your man has a long road ahead of him and it will be time consuming as well the next few years will be more critical then you may realize. Let him establish himself, pay his own bills, shop for himself, live on his own, do his own laundry, pay rent, things like that can and will have a huge impact on him and your relationship, you want to marry a man not a boy. Make sure that you are your own person and have established yourself as such, the power and beauty of marriage is when two indivduals bring what they got to the table and floursh together yet indivdually with the others help, love and support. Still young and no need to rush, take it for what it is and continue to grow in the Lord and let him remain in the center when the time is right you wont have to make the chioce it wil be made for you.

Warrior Poet

 

[sowellfan]

I'm surprised that no one else has asked this, but how long have the two of you been dating?

I see that you're at the end of your first semester of college, and it appears that he goes to college with you. I hope that you didn't just start dating this semester and you're already posting to forums asking about marriage. If that's the case (talking about marriage after 3 months of dating), then I'd say that you're definitely getting ahead of yourself.

Even if you've been dating before you went to college, I'd say 18 is too young. Yeah, there are testimonials about how it could work, but I think the statistical fact is that short dating/engagement periods correlate to higher rates of divorce. Also, younger marriage correlates to higher rates of divorce. Everybody thinks that they are the exception to the rule ("But we're really in love, I just know it.")

No matter what you do, though, get yourself a *useful* degree in college and make sure that you have some useful skills to get a job if need be. Even after the womens lib of the 60s, there are lots of women nowadays who get divorced in their 40s and have nothing to fall back on because their husbands brought in the money and they only had experience of being a housewife. And remember, nearly all of these women thought they were in love, as much as you do, when they married their husbands.

BTW, your boyfriend may make it to medical school, but it's a very tough and competitive road, and he could very well end up just getting a bachelors at the college that you both are currently at.

 

[IslandBreeze]

Okay, I have a couple of comments. First of all, I would consider myself a definite advocate of young marriages. I would much rather see people (who are ready) marry young than date 5 or 6 years just so they aren't married "too young" (by someone else's standards). And based on the 50% divorce rate, IMO, I think that people who get married later in life are more likely to get divorced. Older people get so set in their ways that they aren't willing (a lot of times) to do the compromising and adjusting it takes to get used to being married.

Secondly, for everyone advocating college, I'm sorry, but I have to disagree. COLLEGE ISN'T FOR EVERYONE.

Just a couple things I wanted to throw out there.

 

[katelyn]

Cammie,

She said in her OP that she is in her first year at university. I don't think anyone is trying to tell her that she needs to go to college (well, maybe sowellfan was ), but it just makes sense that if she's there, that she probably wants to be there. I don't know about the others, but the reason I mentioned college at all is that I know that your first year of college is a big adjustment and a lot of change can happen in that first year. I just think it's a good idea to get used to your new lifestyle before making any major decisions like that.

 

[katelyn]

I would much rather see people (who are ready) marry young than date 5 or 6 years just so they aren't married "too young" (by someone else's standards).

The problem with this is, how do you know you are ready? I have known some young people (myself included ) who naively thought they were ready when they weren't. I agree that dating 5 or 6 years just to prove that you're not too young is a little extreme. But more than once I have run into couples who either hadn't been dating very long or were in a very transitional stage of life, and then I feel the question needs to be asked: what's the rush?

 

[erinm]

we can all agree that some young people are not ready for marriage...that isn't to say all aren't. everyone is different. If God places the desire upon your heart and he brings you someone, then why not? It is up to each person and their relationship to eachother and to God.