Mother of Princeton men tells women they'd better get to marrying

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by Kevin

On the other hand, I waited until after the first year of law school to get hitched to my now wife who I had been seeing at that point for 5-6 years and we've been married 7 years since then and are just fine.

Different strokes/different folks... and a 1/2 success rate for marriage in this day and age doesn't sound too bad. In fact, as a divorce attorney, I am very happy with that statistic.

I think it's this: you can't really know who you are, as a real life, out-in-the-world adult until you are out in the world as an adult. The amount that people change in their mid-late twenties is substantial for most college grads. So, if you get married before that, you might get lucky, and change in ways that are compatible with how your partner is changing, and you can grow together and be terrifically happy.

But you might not get lucky, and you might find that your version of self-actualization doesn't fit with theirs, and you aren't happy together, and so on. And if that happens, of course you are going to look back and think "I never should have done that, I didn't know shit at 22".

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by DeltaBetaBaby

I think it's this: you can't really know who you are, as a real life, out-in-the-world adult until you are out in the world as an adult. The amount that people change in their mid-late twenties is substantial for most college grads. So, if you get married before that, you might get lucky, and change in ways that are compatible with how your partner is changing, and you can grow together and be terrifically happy.

So you change together and steer the relationship in a compatible direction. Relationships (long term ones anyway) take a lot of work and compromise, and if you disagree with that, I don't care how old you are, unless you marry someone who has zero ambition or goals for himself, then you're never going to find anyone to make you happy.

Yeah, you go through changes from 22-30 and trust me, after 30, you don't just suddenly arrive at a "this is me and always will be me" stage. You're always changing and the sooner you figure that out [and I mean you in the generic sense, not as in DBB], the sooner you'll be able to have a successful long term relationship.

But you might not get lucky, and you might find that your version of self-actualization doesn't fit with theirs, and you aren't happy together, and so on. And if that happens, of course you are going to look back and think "I never should have done that, I didn't know shit at 22".

Well hell, that's as likely to happen in the 22-30 bracket as afterwards. Most of my divorce clients don't file until at least after they've had kids, which you must admit is a pretty big change which mostly doesn't happen until someone is 30+, so are you from the camp which believes you should also wait until you have kids to get married? And if so, what exactly is it about marriage which would make it still relevant?

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by Kevin

So you change together and steer the relationship in a compatible direction. Relationships (long term ones anyway) take a lot of work and compromise, and if you disagree with that, I don't care how old you are, unless you marry someone who has zero ambition or goals for himself, then you're never going to find anyone to make you happy.

Yeah, you go through changes from 22-30 and trust me, after 30, you don't just suddenly arrive at a "this is me and always will be me" stage. You're always changing and the sooner you figure that out [and I mean you in the generic sense, not as in DBB], the sooner you'll be able to have a successful long term relationship.

I'm not disagreeing with any of this; I think that if you find someone and you are certain that you two can work through anything together, there is nothing at all wrong with getting married. Heck, even it it ultimately doesn't work out, there can be a huge amount of value in this, for both parties.

I just also think there is value for some people in living alone while you make the big giant transition into adulthood, and the social norm that treats marriage as some type of end goal does a disservice to people who need more time to figure things out.

To put a finer point on what I said upthread, I didn't mean that all my friends who married in their 20's are getting divorced, I'm saying that of the ones who are getting divorced, most have admitted to having a feeling that it wasn't what they wanted at the time, but did what was expected of them.

I'm happily unmarried, but it's definitely a "different strokes for different folks" kinda thing; I just don't think that this Princeton woman should be coming in and trying to scare women into following a script that may not be right for everyone.

[SWTXBelle]

FWIW, I snagged my Yale man at the age of 36.