cougarguard.com — unofficial BYU Cougars / LDS sports, football, basketball forum and message board - View Single Post - Do you all ever feel shortchanged by your culture's insistence on early marriage

Travis Henry · 08-04-2008, 12:16 AM

I wish I had met my wife earlier and got married when I was around 25 or 26. If you're going to live some of the basic standards of the church (no pre-marital sex, no alcohol and experimentation with drugs), then it's really quite pointless to continue to go out and "experience" more once you reach the age of 25 or 26. What are you going to experience exactly and how bad does it suck to not have sex in your mid-20s?

In some of my weaker times I think it would have been great to have not been a member in my late teens, early and mid-20s and had the typical young male fun. But being an active mormon, this not really a regret I have often.

I'm not sure if I would have been ready to have been married when I was 25. Nevertheless, I look at my years between 25 and 28 (when I met my wife), and there was little emotional development, IMO. And there wasn't anything I did career and school-wise that I couldn't have done with a wife (and I certainly would have waited to have children).

I'm a strong proponent of people waiting a few years post-mission to get married. You need to date a lot of people, unless you somehow find that one mature wonderful person early on (and this doesn't happen very often when you're 21). There was a poll on cougarboard about the age that people got married. I was, for some reason, surprised how 21 was the most common answer (excuse me if it was actually 22, but it was one of the other). Then I think about the mission reunions I went to right after my mission and how a majority of my mission got married REAL quick. I went to a mission reunion about a year after I got back, I was only 22 and I already felt like the weird uncle. But, the girls these guys married resembled your average Wal-Mart patron so I felt fine not falling in with the crowd (and I could swear some of these guys worked harder than I).

With that being said and as alluded before, I also think 24, 25, 26 are good times to get married. But I think the bigger problem is not so much early marriage but having kids too dang early. If you want to get married at 21, fine. But hold off on having kids, get your bearings, and then when you both feel you can give the kid a solid shot at life then go ahead. I've never been a fan of the vagina as a clown car mentality that people seem to have where the guy is 21, the girl is 19, and the first kid comes at 20 for the girl and 22 for the guy. Without having wealthy parents, I simply don't see people in this position consistently get the education and foundation they need to be successful.

08-04-2008, 12:16 AM	#222
Travis Henry Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 63	I got married when I was 29 I wish I had met my wife earlier and got married when I was around 25 or 26. If you're going to live some of the basic standards of the church (no pre-marital sex, no alcohol and experimentation with drugs), then it's really quite pointless to continue to go out and "experience" more once you reach the age of 25 or 26. What are you going to experience exactly and how bad does it suck to not have sex in your mid-20s? In some of my weaker times I think it would have been great to have not been a member in my late teens, early and mid-20s and had the typical young male fun. But being an active mormon, this not really a regret I have often. I'm not sure if I would have been ready to have been married when I was 25. Nevertheless, I look at my years between 25 and 28 (when I met my wife), and there was little emotional development, IMO. And there wasn't anything I did career and school-wise that I couldn't have done with a wife (and I certainly would have waited to have children). I'm a strong proponent of people waiting a few years post-mission to get married. You need to date a lot of people, unless you somehow find that one mature wonderful person early on (and this doesn't happen very often when you're 21). There was a poll on cougarboard about the age that people got married. I was, for some reason, surprised how 21 was the most common answer (excuse me if it was actually 22, but it was one of the other). Then I think about the mission reunions I went to right after my mission and how a majority of my mission got married REAL quick. I went to a mission reunion about a year after I got back, I was only 22 and I already felt like the weird uncle. But, the girls these guys married resembled your average Wal-Mart patron so I felt fine not falling in with the crowd (and I could swear some of these guys worked harder than I). With that being said and as alluded before, I also think 24, 25, 26 are good times to get married. But I think the bigger problem is not so much early marriage but having kids too dang early. If you want to get married at 21, fine. But hold off on having kids, get your bearings, and then when you both feel you can give the kid a solid shot at life then go ahead. I've never been a fan of the vagina as a clown car mentality that people seem to have where the guy is 21, the girl is 19, and the first kid comes at 20 for the girl and 22 for the guy. Without having wealthy parents, I simply don't see people in this position consistently get the education and foundation they need to be successful.