Did I rush into marriage?

I got engaged at twenty-three years old and married after a year and a half engagement at twenty-four. Now that I’m “so much older,” I can’t believe anyone let me do that!

I was recently reading this article, “Why women in their 20s rush into marriage,” and it got me thinking. Did I rush into marriage?

Yes, we definitely rushed into it…after all we were in our early 20s!! But we didn’t rush into it like any of these people mentioned in this article. We rushed into it because there was nothing more than I wanted to do but be with this guy every day of my life. I wanted my life to “start.” I wanted the house in the ‘burbs, the 2.5 kids, the ring on my finger, I wanted all of it. And Adam, who had grown up way faster than I had, wanted that too. It was right for us then.

Now that I’m an old married lady who has all that, I sometimes wonder why I rushed it all. But I wonder that in the same way I wonder why I rushed everything in my life. I wonder why I needed to grow up so fast when you spend the larger majority of your life grown up. I wonder why I was so anxious for a mortgage (or lucky me two), dependents and a settled down life.

That doesn’t mean I’m going to throw up my arms and go hike the Appalachian mountains. That also doesn’t mean that I doubt my marriage. I’m not sure my life would have been all that different if we had delayed getting married for five or six more years. Yes, I wouldn’t have had kids for awhile which may have allowed for more traveling and dining out. But I also wouldn’t have had the opportunity to be a super cool young mom 🙂

The bottom line is that I met the man of my dreams WAY too young. I’m sure there is a greater likelihood that we could grow up and grow in different directions than if we had met when we were established adults. Instead, we have grown up together. We have grown into each other in ways I’m not sure those who meet older do. I would never change our history because those years have been the best of my life. And as for our future, its anyone’s guess. But I definitely don’t think we are less likely to succeed because we got married in our early 20s…even if I think we were babies when we got married!