An anniversary post three months early

I have always been a tiny bit embarrassed about the fact that I was 23 when I got married. I don't know why that is. Ha. I lie. Of course I know! Because you don't get married when you are TWENTY-THREE, are you crazy? You go to college, you travel the world, you find a kick ass big city job, you be your own fabulous woman- THEN you find a boyfriend. And if he is nice and extra good-looking, THEN you get married. At, oh, I don't know. Thirty? This was my plan. I was not going to be like my 23-year-old grandmother, for pete's sake, waiting for my grandpa to get home from the WAR, waiting for her engagement ring in the MAIL. Sheesh.

But now I live in the World and see that people make all kinds of choices. Fancy that. Twenty-three isn't even all that young! My little brother had a BABY by age twenty-three. Now THAT is crazy. (Except not. What is crazy was waiting that long to unleash this Cuteness on the universe.)

The other night Phillip and I went out to dinner with New People, people our age who just got married this past summer. They were still excited about it, showing us pictures and giving us the ceremony play-by-play. Then they asked, "How long have you guys been married? A year or two?"

Phillip and I looked sheepishly at each other and said, "Almost three."

At a St. Patrick's Day party (where I managed to choke down my very first Guinness, go me!) we were talking to a guy we knew in college and for some reason he mentioned our wedding- "and wow, that seems like a long time ago!"

In my head I was very indignant. It is NOT a long time ago. Not-even-three-years is NOT a long time. But the Guinness mellowed me out some and I came to the not-so-disagreeable conclusion that, well, it was a while ago. Now could I have some Bailey's over ice please?

So there you have it. At ages 26 and 27, we've made it longer than most celebrity marriages and I believe we've lost that newlywed glow. (Although, did we ever have that newlywed glow? I think not. We are not the glowy sort.)

But Internet, lately I've come to realize there is a distinct advantage to getting married at 23, that being that YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING.

Ah! You are wondering how this is an advantage! I will tell you!

My non-married friends, either single or dating, are all dealing with the same thing: What kind of person do I want to marry? And a lot of these people have a lot of requirements, good requirements. Things like: must be employed. Must be paying his own rent. Must be willing to buy me flowers on a weekly basis. Must have plans for the future
beyond what bar he will be patronizing this evening. Must understand the evils of pleated pants. Must love children. Must know how to use hair product and shaves on a regular basis. You know. The necessities.

Here is what I was thinking when I started dating Phillip at age 19: "Gosh he's cute. And he likes ME! MEEEE!"

Here is what I was thinking when we kept talking about getting married at age 23: "Well, it's not like I'm going to marry anyone ELSE. Might as well!"

You think I jest. Because I, in case it hasn't been well evidenced on this website, am an overthinker of VAST proportions.  There is no horse I have not beaten, no well-traveled rut I am not willing to drive through all over again. But Internet, my decision to marry Phillip (or, as my pre-Cana workbook would call it, my Decision to Love, said in the voice of the priest from 'The Princess Bride') had nothing to do with actual Thinking and everything to do with the fact that I just couldn't see myself marrying anyone else. I don't know if you know this, but dating is HARD and who wants to do it ALL OVER AGAIN? (And to show that I am not made of stone, Phillip is the exact same way. So there. Two stones in a stone pod.)

Here are the things I was totally not thinking about:

• the fact that I go to bed really early and Phillip stays up really late
• who would pay the taxes
• how we would pay the taxes
• if Phillip would be okay providing for the family if I wanted to stay home with kids
• kids!
• where we wanted to live
• the fact that Phillip loves cats and I think cats are the sneaky tools of Satan
• budgets
• that there might be someone out there who likes to read books instead of computer screens and is therefore much more suited to me (no, this did not occur to me until about a month before the wedding)
• careers
• paying off my school loan
• what we would do NEXT

Luckily, this worked out for me. We're coming up on three years people! That's longer than Nick and Jessica! Now that we are more entrenched in Grown Up Land, we may be arguing about those things on a near-weekly basis, but we're married now. We're stuck. We HAVE to figure this stuff out or ELSE. Now, I quite understand why some people would hesitate before enthusiastically advocating this particular route to married bliss, but I have to say I don't envy those friends who are trying to figure all of this out now. I have no idea what it's like to decide to get married when you are the age I am now, after you have been in the World and paid your own rent and bought your own house and been promoted and earned your master's degree and know much more about who you really want to be. You people are much smarter and thinking about all the right things. It must be really frickin hard.  I feel bad that I never went through that stuff. Maybe God knew that if we waited much longer to get married, I would clue in to all the things I was supposed to consider beforehand and oh, how he must have pitied the future Phillip for having to put up with THAT drama. Better to have her blindly stumble into the whole married thing and figure the rest out later. (Seriously. I can't even imagine what that would be like, except for a vague picture of many many empty wine bottles.)

So 23? Not so bad. Not so embarrassing after all. The unfortunate part is that you can't tell your girlfriend to rewind back to a time when she wasn't thinking about careers and futures and mortgages and the personality traits of the perfect husband and just marry the guy because he's wonderful and he loves her and that's all she really needs to know.

Comments

[Arwen]

Ooooh, I have you so beat! Get this: I'm 23 now and I've already been married three-and-a-half years. You think you feel silly when you tell people how long you've been married? They look at me and go, "And you were how old then?" and when I tell them I was nineteen, they might not say "Good God!" but I can tell that they're thinking it.

I love your description of why you married Phillip, because you couldn't imagine marrying anyone else. My experience wasn't exactly like that (and in fact we actually did hash out almost every item on that list of yours before we got married) but from what I've observed, it does seem to be the experience of a lot of people who get married young.

I'm blathering, but anyway, great post!

[maggie]

Now that I've reread this a time or two, I have to insist on a caveat: I was not THAT flaky. Really. I did not gleefully dive into the wedding planning the second he brought it up. (And one day I will write the story of how we got "engaged".) The first thing was that we had plenty of time to date. I wasn't looking to get married any time soon so I wasn't pressuring myself about Is He The One?! (Which I don't believe in anyway.) The second thing was that we hadn't been on our own long enough to have deal-breakers about where we would live, who would do what, what we would be. I have friends who want to get married sooner rather than later, with deal-breakers (or trying to figure out what the deal-breakers are). I had the luxury of time and having the major questions mostly up for debate. ANYWAY. End of wimpy caveat.

[orangepaas]

I got you beat. I was married at 21. But really, the same thing applies. I love how you described it from beginning to end -- and how at almost 4 (four!?!?!) years, being married is really the coolest thing ever, STILL.

[lee]

i sort of wonder what would have become of me had i gone ahead with what we'll call "plan a" and been married at around 23 or so. things have definitely been pretty interesting over here on "plan m" though ... or is it "plan n" at this point? i can never keep it straight.

[Antonia]

Hello! I just found your blog! Great post! It made me smile!
I'm 22 and will be getting married this summer so I can definitly understand many of the things you wrote about!

God Bless,
Antonia
-x-

[Theresa]

Just saw this! I live in Seattle too (just moved three weeks ago). I also got married at 23! Now I'm 28! We have three kids, ages 4, 3, and 1. Wouldn't change a thing.

[Sarahndipity]

Great post! I also got married at 23. We met as 18-year-old college freshman. We've been married for 5 years and have a 4-year-old daughter and another on the way. We did talk about absolutely everything before we got married, but I felt the exact same way you did, that marrying anyone else would be impossible. I guess I thought everyone who gets married feels this way, no matter how old they are, because otherwise why would they marry that person? But maybe it’s a more common feeling among people who marry young.

[Hannah]

I married my Knight in Shining Armor at age 18. He is older than me, but I am sooo glad I married an older man! I am so glad I gave God control and let Him write our love story! I see so many young couples who break up, get divorced or just diagree about so much. They wait so long to have children and are just so selfish, running their lives, instead of letting God have complete control of their lives and practicing self-control!
I believe it is good for a woman to marry young, but young men have a long ways to go. My Knight, being older already had a house that he built himself, has an income, can easily find many different kinds of income from the many things he did and jobs he had or owned growing up! And he got to serve his country in the Army! That really makes a man.
Being the mother to our two young daughters (so far) it is sad that there are not more men like him. I pray that they are blessed to marry someone older & like their Daddy.
Today's society does not like the older husband, younger wife marriage, thanks mostly to the liberal feminist movement, but not to long ago this was normal. I think women should not be so closed as to think that they have to marry someone close to their age, that they have to wait for someone to grow up and mature or get a good enough job. There is good, God fearing men out there who are older and stable, love children and women being homemakers! Women don't have to miss all those years for having many blessings (children!)!
I am going on 23 now and consider myself to be getting old! We have a better marriage than any stroybook or I could have ever dreamed up. I praise God everyday for my Knight and all the blessings we share and look forward to the other blessing God has in store for us!