Marrying Young

This is another topic that is near and dear to my heart, like education and vocation (see my last post).  I met my husband at the age of eighteen, and we were married just before I turned twenty.  He was almost twenty-one.

Our plan to marry young was met with mixed reactions from our family, friends and acquaintances.  Most of the people closest to us were very supportive and encouraging.  Some of our family compared us to older, "more settled" adults they saw marrying--people in their thirties, out of college, holding steady and well-paying jobs, owning their own house.  (Unfortunately, a few couples like that were living together before they were married.)

Joshua and I believe that following God's directives for our lives is always the best idea, and that includes marriage and relationships.  We wanted to remain virgin till marriage, which we did, by the grace of God.  We did not intend on living together before marriage, which we did not.  We wanted to live our lives in a way that would best honor and glorify God, and we believe that they best way to do that was to marry sooner rather than later.

It was difficult enough for us to wait as long as we did.  We both strongly desired to be married for a variety of reasons.  We both feel that we can serve God better together than apart.  And we wanted to honor him with our bodies.  For those and other reasons, we chose to marry young.

Now, there are several good reasons why we should have waited to get married until we were older.
-We would have been out of college and (at least mostly) done with our education
-We would have had careers, steady jobs, and a more substantial income than we do now
-We would have been free to explore other activities and opportunities that college offers
-We could have enjoyed the benefits of remaining our parents' dependents for longer
-We could have become more mature and sure of ourselves

But there are many good reasons why we did marry when we did.
-We did not want to risk falling into temptation
-We can "finish growing up" together instead of separately
-We can begin learning how to be a good spouse now instead of later, when we might have learned bad habits
-We can enjoy the comfort and companionship of marriage now instead of desperately desiring it for any longer
-We can support each other in our faith and our walk with God much better
-We can start early in being independent and self-sufficient
-We can enjoy having relatively few responsibilities while we are still in college, and yet have the benefits of being married and independent
-We are learning responsibility, resourcefulness, and selflessness much better than if we were single
-We are saving money by living together off-campus and having jobs to support ourselves
-We have more years to enjoy as a married couple before children come to bless us
-Most importantly, we can serve God better together and seek to honor him in new ways that have become available to us

I could go on!  I will never regret the decision we made.  Our parents supported us completely, and we felt totally at peace with the decision we made.  That was enough to make me sure that our choice was the right one.

I have several friends and acquaintances who also chose to marry before they finished school.  I am so proud of them.  But please don't take this post to mean that I think it's wrong to wait to get married!  Every couple has to make the choice for themselves, and whether it's right or wrong depends on the couple.  I just believe that it's often beneficial to marry young, rather than waiting to finish college/grad school/whatever.

And I wanted to write this in order to be an encouragement to others, and to explain why we chose the life we did.
I wouldn't have life any other way.

{8/10/12 edit: Linking to the Perspectives on Life and Love Carnival at Modern Mrs. Darcy!}

{Linking up with all these fantastic blogs!}