I’ve taken a lot of math classes. And political seminars. And biology labs. I checked off every “Gen Ed” credit from my list, including the always-useful Greek Literature and Calculus classes.
I interned at magazines for years before jumping into the professional world — partly because I wanted to, but mostly because “they” made me.
I took prenatal breastfeeding classes and pored through books and articles and blog posts before becoming a mom.
But when we, as a whole, get married — or even talk about getting married in the future — the conversation swirls around rings and dresses and color schemes. We have a ritual ceremony — sort of like a Sweet 16 or graduation, but with more fanfare. And money. We congratulate and throw confetti, with well wishes and tears.
No prerequisites, no lectures, no financial or legal preparation.
And although a divorce can take thousands of dollars and years of legal struggles, I’m pretty sure my court-house elopement cost less than $100 with next-to-no planning. Our marriage happened so fast, so easily, that it took awhile for it to feel real. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Shouldn’t it be harder to get married than to get divorced?
If my Facebook feed is an accurate trend tracker (and, let’s face it, it is), the mid/later-20-something years are the wedding years. They’re the I-need-a-commitment-or-I’m-walking years. They’re the we’ve-been-together-for-5-years-so-now-it’s-time years. I can’t help but think: Are you prepared for the real changes that come with a marriage? Are you prepared to be a wife?
I’m not saying people shouldn’t get married, and I’m not saying that I regret getting married at a young age. But isn’t it silly that we don’t prepare ourselves for marriage as much as we do every other life change? Especially a change that affects our money, our family, and our happiness?
What about you? Did you feel prepared for the realities of marriage?
***
Part of the soon-to-launch Early Mama redesign will include a section on Early Marriages. If you have a story to tell — advice, reflections, regrets — feel free to shoot me an email.
Also see:
- 15 Ways to Better Wifedom
- A Reason to Wed
- Those Young Relationships; They Never Work
[photo: Flickr/adwriter]
10 Comments to Are We Prepared Enough for Marriage?
Julia
August 9, 2012 at 8:11 pm
I love this post! My husband and I have been married for 3 years. He was 23 and I was 22. We went through marriage counseling through our church, and I believe totally set us up for years of success. The pastor had us talk about money, kids, and our expectations. I think that we are communicating well because of the pre-marital counseling. After our baby was born, we already knew how we were going to handle everything, because we already talked about it! We still get comments though, about how we married too young and had a baby too young. But I think we were more prepared for marriage and babies then some people 10 years older. I am always so inspired by your posts!
michellehorton
August 9, 2012 at 8:44 pm
Thanks Julia! I’m glad you brought up the counseling — that’s through the Catholic church, right? — because I thought about that when I was writing this. I think pre-marital counseling is a really smart idea, but I didn’t know how useful it really was, having never married in the Church. (And, not to attack your religion, I never fully understood how a non-married priest could give marriage advice.) But I’m really glad to hear that it helped you so much. I think that’s something that should be recommended more often.
Jess
August 9, 2012 at 8:50 pm
I couldn’t agree more! Of course, I’m a 24 year old newlywed myself…but I feel like so many young brides get swept up in the ‘wedding’ then they aren’t really prepared for the ‘marriage’ portion of it.
My husband and I went through standard pre-marital counseling and our pastor told us how “completely NOT concerned” she is with our future and love for one another. WHEW! I can’t imagine being with someone I wasn’t sure about. Or tying the knot and then thinking ‘What did I do?’ I’m an old soul at heart, and my husband is 7 years my elder. We lucked out and found each other. My heart hurts for all the young love that doesn’t make it.
Ms. Future PharmD
August 10, 2012 at 5:27 am
I’ll give an amen to the pre-marriage counseling. I met my spouse when I was 18 and we got married just shy of two years later. Our religious leader(and nope, not Catholic, although I hear they have a bigger, multi-couple counseling deal in addition to the one-on-one couple stuff) had us do a whole bunch of counseling (maybe 10 or 15 hours total) and it was valuable. I’d also say that sometimes “being ready” is as ridiculous as waiting “until the time is right” to have a baby. If you know yourself and you know your partner and you both know your love and willingness to commit to that, then what’s with the waiting? I feel like a lot of folks in the late twenty something age group are waiting in this holding pattern to get married and have babies and there’s no reason why, other than feeling unprepared. Yep, I felt totally unprepared, but I knew that we were both rookies and both willing to work at a relationship because of the love we share. I worry when we are so obsessed with the material “we are now ready to get married” stuff. What if you never afford a house? Should you skip marriage and children?
Stacey Smith
August 10, 2012 at 8:19 am
Marriage is a big commitment and with the right person, every day you wake up feeling like you can take on the world together effortlessly.
Julia
August 10, 2012 at 1:42 pm
I know! I’m not Catholic, I am Lutheran. So the Pastor was married, and it was nice to know that he went through the same struggles we would have to go through. We are not super religious, and I think he understood that and made the pre-marital counseling more day-today life stuff. So it worked out really well.
Megan
August 12, 2012 at 12:09 am
I was prepared for marriage. Marriage with kids? That’s a whole other issue. A lot of my friends are waiting for the “time to be right,” and all of that good stuff, but I don’t see the point. If you’re committed as a couple, why not take the next step after some time?
I’m Catholic and went through “pre-caana” classes. Normally, it’s a number of classes (or an “engaged encounter” retreat…no thank you!). We ended up having a deacon do our classes since our schedules were so weird. Our deacon was married, so it completely changed the tone of the classes for us. It really helped, but ours was such a unique experience.
Clare
August 27, 2012 at 1:17 am
I was also married in the Catholic church (I was 22 my husband was 23). Where we were married, deacon and his wife always lead the pre-cana sessions together, and they did cover a lot of useful (and non-religious) topics. For example, we had to talk about how much money we would be comfortable spending without consulting the other person, how our families dealt with conflict, balancing careers and children, communication styles, etc.. We also had to take myers-briggs personality tests (the E/I N/S F/T P/J test: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator) and talk about how our different personalities could affect our communication and emotional expression.
I think my husband and I had already had most of these conversations before the sessions, so I can’t say I learned anything surprising. But I do think it’s a good policy to have couples (of all ages) talk about potentially touchy subjects before marriage.
Chaunie
September 25, 2012 at 1:53 am
This is a really good point. I do wish there were more talk about it. I struggle the most with the frustrating parts of my marriage–I have the tendency to want to vent about my marriage, but I wish I knew how to celebrate the joys of it too.
Amanda
November 5, 2012 at 9:41 pm
I know I’m late on this post, but my husband was 24 and I was 20 when we got married. We met December 21, 2010. Had our daughter November 15th, 2011. You do the math
Got married ONE year from meeting each other and planned an amazing wedding in 6 days. We didn’t want to do the “get married while pregnant thing”, but as soon as we had Lillian, we knew we would do anything to be together forever. Now…from the horrible newborn stage until about 9 months, we had no idea if ‘forever’ was even a realistic thought. We weren’t prepared at all to understand that if we fought, we still had to sleep next to each other that night. We couldn’t slam doors. We couldn’t get mad in front of our baby. It was hard. It felt impossible. And now…Lillian will be one next Thursday and we have never been more in love. It was like a light one day that we just switched on. We wanted to be happy together. We wanted to enjoy our family. And now we do 
We did prepare as much as we could though (6 months of marriage counseling while pregnant, lots of marriage books, research, etc.) What I will say is that we wouldn’t be where we are today if we hadn’t done that counseling, honestly. But all in all, I don’t feel like people are as prepared as they ‘should be’ to get married.