So, I’ve been responding to common objections that people make to early marriage: that young marriage results in poverty; that young people are too immature for marriage; that they’ll end up with poor matches; and they’ll be encouraged to marry just for sex.
I’ve got one last objection to address.
A final argument that people frequently make is that young people shouldn’t get married too early because they don’t have realistic expectations about marriage. In their short life spans, young people often don’t have an adequate understanding of how love and relationships (and the world at large) really work. Young people often don’t realize what they are getting themselves into when they marry too early. They may walk into it blinded by idealism, and then fall into the first pothole of reality they stumble across. They’ll realize too late that marriage brings with it just as many problems as it solves, and that it takes commitment and hard work and patience and maturity. So they should wait until they’re older and wiser.
Once again, I think this is a very valid concern. We shouldn’t encourage young people to enter marriage without fully understand what marriage and adult life are really all about.
My thoughts on this, however, are twofold.
#1) That’s what Project M (and other blogs and books) are here for.
It’s true that many young people don’t have a clue about marriage. But that’s why we can — and should — teach them. We need to share our stories and help them to understand. That’s part of the reason I started Project M: because I thought young people needed to see what marriage is really like.
#2) While it’s true that many young folks have unrealistically high expectations for marriage, my generation also faces another unique problem: unrealistically low expectations for marriage. Many people my age experience a pervasive dread and fear of marriage.
Marriage had a pretty bad rap amongst folks my age. Many young people are disenchanted with marriage because they have seen so many bad ones. They don’t want anything to do with marriage. For every idealistic adolescent out there who falsely thinks marriage will fix everything, I’m pretty sure there’s another one out there thinks that it will be horrible and boring and ruin everything. I’ve met plenty of folks my age who are delaying marriage because they think the good life ends at the altar. I myself thought it would totally suck as a teenager and dreaded the thought of becoming a married woman. And this is also false.
So we also need to show young people that marriage isn’t all bad, either. In fact, I have found it to be pretty friggin’ sweet.
So, while unrealistic expectations are definitely a problem among young people who marry early, I don’t think it is an insurmountable problem. We can fix it. I would love for you to help me do it.
What are your thoughts? How else can we correct young people’s false expectations regarding marriage? Do you agree that with the proper education and training, young people could potentially pull off marriage at a younger age than we’re accustomed to? Do you think they ought to? Do you have any lingering thoughts or apprehensions about my defense of early marriage as a whole?
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
I used to think the biggest problem with people who get married young, is selfishness. Looking at failed or failing marriages amongst people I know, I used to think that they didn’t wait long enough, until they were old enough to realize that the world didn’t revolve around them and that their partner better see that too. Now I see that some people just don’t grow up, or will always put themselves first instead of approaching a marriage like a team effort, a give and take. It makes me so thankful I have a great “no i in team” marriage! If both partners are selfless, it doesn’t matter how young or old you are. In fact, marrying to old can be a bigger problem, since then you have developed a routine, or a way of life that can be hard to fir another person into.
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I agree that education is key to entering marriage with realistic expectations. This is one reason that I’m so glad my wife and I went through premarital counseling, and that I encourage others to do so as a vital step. We were forced to discuss some topics that we hadn’t considered, and were able to gloss over others that we had already discussed. Though we already had healthy expectations, we still touched on (and reconsidered) others that might not have been quite realistic.
I love this series and have shared it with many of my friends. Thanks, and keep up the good work!
Kathleen, this has been a very interesting and eye-opening series for me. I’ve enjoyed reading your thoughts and exploring the comments of others.
As for expectations, I think the best thing young couples can do before they get married, in addition to formal pastoral pre-marital counseling, is to spend time with a few married couples that you admire and respect. My wife and I have been approached on several occassions to do just this sort of thing. We are very honest about the delights and difficulties of marriage, and I think the couples come away with a pretty fair and clear picture of a good but “real” marriage.
That sounds like a great idea, Scott!
I love this series Kathleen!
“While it’s true that many young folks have unrealistically high expectations for marriage, my generation also faces another unique problem: unrealistically low expectations for marriage.”
So sad, but very true, I hope that at some point in our lifetime, we will see this come full circle and even out.
Thanks for sharing.
I also wanted to note that I don’t think “older” couples are guaranteed to go in with more realistic expectations either. My fiance’s boss married at 30 and had been living with his parents up until that point. I hear from my fiance how big a transition it has been for his boss and his new wife, because his boss had expectations based on how he was raised and what his mother did for her husband and her two sons. He still stays up some nights until 4 am playing video games, and wonders why his wife doesn’t see that as okay anymore. Sometimes when we have a longer amount of time to do things “our way” we have a hard time remembering that it isn’t always going to be “our way” in a marriage relationship.
Unrealistic expectations, both mine and my fiance’s, have led to some conflicts throughout our long engagement. We express our expectations in different ways (me sometimes feeling sad that they are not being fulfilled, he being angry that I’m not doing things the way he was raised to see them done). But it has also given us an opportunity for immense growth, individually and together. We’re committed and open to becoming better versions of ourselves, and admitting neither of us is a finished product. I don’t think any couple gets married knowing exactly what they are getting themselves into, but it is the commitment to work through those conflicts that makes them successful.
Hah – wow, good point, Kristen. “Older” married couples can go into it with just as unrealistic expectations as younger folks. What a perfect (thought sad) example!
Thanks Kathleen. I sometimes think holding off on getting married gives us too much time to get set in our ways, which then still makes the transition from single to married, from “I” to “we”, difficult. At 26 I’ve had a hard enough time changing some of my bad habits, so I can only imagine how much harder I would have fought against it 3 or 4 years from now.
I agree that this probably isn’t specific to young marriage and as I read, I found myself thinking “Of all this objections, I think this would be the least of my worries.” Not in a disparaging way, but as I tried to analyze and remember my own experiences.
I think we’re bound to have uninformed expectations no matter what. Maybe not unrealistic, but until we’ve had certain experiences, we really don’t know what we want/expect. Well, we know, but I admit that my priorities changed pretty quickly in the beginning of my first marriage.
We simply don’t have all the facts to make a decision, but we’ll never collect the facts until we have the necessary experiences. Many (most?) things about marriage are learned hands on. At any age.
And heck, everything changes. Originally, I wanted to be a career woman and now I find myself drawn to being a homemaker. The two of us are going to have to be flexible to figure out how to make that work.