It’s Often As Good As You Make It

Love isn’t a one-size-fits-all kind of thing. Take marrying young. For some, it means more years of happiness. For others, it means wasting precious years, even a whole life. Here are some of your tales of marrying young.

Becky: “I was a 19-year-old high school dropout when I married Paul. He had just started working on the assembly line at Ford. Everyone, especially his family, believed our marriage was doomed. I’m now 25, and just graduated from law school. Paul is still working on the line, but hoping to enter the skilled trades program. Now, the same family and friends think we’re doomed because I’ve ‘outgrown’ Paul, but I feel very optimistic.

“Sure it would have been nice to join a sorority, go to Cancun on spring break or France for my junior year. I missed so many experiences my friends took for granted. I hid my acceptance letter from Yale because I knew we couldn’t afford for Paul to leave his job. I also passed up a job offer in San Francisco so we could stay together. I regret these things every day because I would have liked to have had it both ways. I miss the fun and flirting that my friends had while I was doing laundry. But I would never trade because I have a husband who has given me the support and love I need to succeed.”

Mia: “I married two months after graduating from a Big Ten school and six weeks after my 22nd birthday. I know that sounds old enough, but believe me, it wasn’t. I had never had the experience of being on my own, in my own place, responsible just for me. I was the eldest of four children raised in a farm family. My childhood ended at 7 when I took over the care of the youngest two kids so my mother could work in the fields and the barn. My only way of getting off the farm was education and I got a scholarship.

“In the fall of my senior year, I started dating a boy I knew from junior high. It was a rapid and intense courtship. Both families were pleased. Within two months, we were engaged and planing a wedding. I started having dreams about the ceremony. Everything would be fine until I got to the place where I could see the groom. In my dream, he had no face. I took this as a warning and tried to postpone the wedding a year to take advantage of a job offer in Chicago. My fiance and my mother pleaded and begged until I gave in.

“I’ve spent my marriage raising two children and my husband, who is really Peter Pan. His relatives have been so brazen as to compliment me on the fine job I’ve done rearing him. Now, with children in their late teens and my 50th birthday just days away, I wonder when my time will come to be free of all the responsibility. I often grieve that I didn’t stick to my intentions and take the job in Chicago. I wonder what might have been. I feel I’m too old to begin again. But, if anyone, especially a woman, asks my advice, I’d tell them to give themselves at least a year on their own, in their own place, responsible for no one but themselves. Don’t short change yourself like I did.”

Leslie: “I was married at 20 and I got a lot of flack from friends, family, even strangers who saw my engagement ring. It was a constant barrage of ‘you’re so young, you have so much ahead of you.’ Well, it’s been five years now. There was, and is, so much ahead of me and I’m lucky to have my husband by my side. I was ready to be married at 20. I had dated other guys, had a serious relationship, my own apartment. I was working and going to school. I was an independent, responsible young woman. Marriage has not held me back or kept me from doing things I’ve wanted to do. I continued my education, I still went out with my friends. My marriage has enriched my life. My husband and I are a good team. Together we have done more than we could have ever done alone. We’ve grown, but so has our marriage.”