Getting Married Young

In which I become your obnoxious auntie and tell you to do it!

I was looking at our engagement photo the other day, thinking about how much life has been lived since that spring afternoon on Sweetheart Circle, and it suddenly dawned on me:

The baby beard! The still-blonde hair! The accidental color coordination!

We are almost two decades into this thing. On November 1st, we’ll celebrate seventeen years of marriage. The two kids in that photo were straight out of the postsecondary womb with little to no real world experience except for the four wonderful years of insulated hard work and fun they’d just left behind at university. Honestly, who did we think we were, getting engaged before we were even off our parents’ health insurance?

The same month that photo was taken, Pierce graduated from Georgia Southern (#TrueBlue) and I, having graduated the year prior, was hired full-time as a library manager at a local for-profit university. Weeks before the wedding, the Dean of Academics where I worked—a formidable woman from Poland who was as abrupt as she was good at her job—looked me straight in the eye and said, “You’re making a mistake getting married this young. You have so much left to do!” Bristling, I replied, “Yeah, well, I want to do those things with Pierce.”

When we got married in the fall of 2008, Pierce was working an unpaid internship with the Georgia Force (a now-defunct arena football league) and I was making $30k—a decent salary for a fresh-faced graduate in the same year that launched a recession—feeling as rich as the Queen of England. At first, anyway. My beloved Camaro finally gave up the ghost that year, and I had to buy a new-ish used car with a payment that ate up a quarter of my paycheck. Then we planned a wedding. Then we bought our rings, with credit cards 🫠. Then we rented an apartment in Atlanta with extra utilities and monthly fees and cell phone bills and groceries and, suddenly, that $30k was barely cutting it. There were weeks when we’d have ten bucks left in the account until pay day and I would watch those dollars like a hawk, convinced they’d disappear if I so much as glanced at my debit card. When pay day arrived, we’d celebrate with a $5 DVD from Best Buy and dinner at Chick-Fil-A.

They were some of the sweetest years of my life.

When my boss panned my decision to marry fresh out of college, I didn’t realize then just how much my response to her would carry me through the next seventeen years. “So much life to live?” I thought. “Why would I choose to do that on my own when this wonderful man is standing here right beside me?”

I wanted to build my life with Pierce. Our life, together.

Not much has changed.

There are a variety of reasons for why people get married later in life. For some, the right person hasn’t come along. Others are pursuing a variety of personal and professional interests solo before they walk down the aisle. All of that is fine and valid and, most importantly, not at all what I’m writing about in this post. What I’m speaking to, specifically, is the value of marrying young when you’re in a position to do so, and really want to, but aren’t at all sure if you *should*.

Gather ‘round, young chicks. I’d like to tell you something:

Marriage

*pauses to take a deep breath*

is wonderful.

Ugh, I know. Not what you were expecting, right? You were probably expecting “Marriage is hard, but worth it” or some other platitude, but I want to get this out of the way first because you’ve heard all that other bullshit enough by now.

Marriage—between two people who pursue virtue together and view the relationship as the spiritual, physical, and emotional covenant that it was designed to be—is wonderful. Full stop.

I can hear some of you now: “But marriage is hard! It takes so much work and sacrifice.”

Right. That’s absolutely true. But when did wonderful and hard become mutually exclusive?

This tendency we have to couch what we really want to say with justifications and asides is unnecessary. You and I are thinking, rational people who can hold more than one thought in our heads at a time, so forgive me if I don’t do the justifications right now. We are adults. And marriage is good. Not all MARRIAGES are good, or healthy, or right, but that fact does not undo the reality of what marriage itself—the covenant partnership—was made to be. It was created good and it remains that way, even when the execution of that good falls short.

That’s because marriage wasn’t designed as an opportunity for us to achieve something, but as an opportunity for us to participate in the Kingdom of God here on earth. It isn’t the only way to do that, certainly, but marriage is unique because it’s an intimate, lifelong collaboration, one that provides for the building of a family unit, for the creation of new lives who reflect the imago Dei, and for the daily sanctification that results from choosing to wake up each morning to a person you love deeply but might not like very much at times. Marrying young means marrying with a little bit of ignorance and then growing in wisdom together. If Solomon was right—and I’d like to think the man once considered the wisest in the world can be counted upon for truth—then “with much wisdom comes much sorrow.”¹ The older we grow, the more life we experience and the more hardship we inevitably face. We discover the limitations of ourselves and deal with the challenges of knowing what we didn’t, and couldn’t, know in our youth. That wisdom is hard-fought and hard-won; facing it with another person committed to helping us bear the weight of that triumphant sorrow is what helps us both endure and thrive.

When I was first sketching out some thoughts for this piece, I posted a Note asking for people who had married young to share how that choice had impacted their faith and what they believed had been the biggest benefit to them as a result. The replies pointed overwhelmingly in the same direction:

“I was 22. Many benefits. But I think one of the top things is building a life TOGETHER.”

“I don’t think getting married young is objectively good or bad - though in many ways I think it’s been easier for us to settle into life together having grown through so many phases together…”

“We dreamed together…”

“We’ve grown up together in so many ways, especially in faith and through the challenges of life. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“I think one major benefit was growing up together. I realize now how many things we didn’t really know about being adults, but we got to navigate those things together and make decisions (and mistakes) together. All those things are ours to own together.”

“We were shaped together.”

I could go on, but you get the gist. Other than the possibility of becoming a grandparent while they’re still able to run and jump and play, this notion of growing up together was far and away the most common benefit readers shared. I had suspected people would touch on this idea, but I was quite moved to see just how poignant the experience of building a life together—growing, changing, and learning—had been for these couples.

This has been my experience, as well.

When Pierce and I first married, we were deeply conservative, both theologically and politically. We’d grown up in towns about an hour outside Atlanta (east for him, west for me) and then attended college in a mid-size town in coastal Georgia. We shared a similar view of the world and how to operate within it. With the exception of a staunchly atheist college buddy and a few college professors, this view hadn’t been challenged very much in our twenty short years of life.

But it wasn’t this shared view that pulled me towards Pierce every time we hung out at our friend Sam’s apartment. It was his steadfastness—in work, in relationships, and in faith. Even when we were “just friends,” we weren’t. I was attracted to Pierce in a physical sense, of course, but I was always drawn deeper by his character. He called me to higher things no matter what our status and I knew that whatever he built with a person would last. I had been in love before, but Pierce was the only man who saw beyond that present moment and recognized who I was becoming. He noticed where my life was pointed and realized that he was going the same way. So why shouldn’t we go together?

When we moved into Atlanta—where we would live, worship, and raise our children for fourteen years—Pierce and I were both challenged to see a world we hadn’t known existed before. We came face-to-face with a diverse range of people and life experiences that shifted our thinking about what it meant to be faithful Christians and how it looked to love our neighbors in real time. While we didn’t always agree on every issue, Pierce and I underwent some serious theological, emotional, relational, and political transformation right alongside one another. We called each other higher, together in daily pursuit of what was true, good, and beautiful.

It hasn’t always been easy.

It has meant learning to be more diligent about our finances and giving, answering each other honestly about where our hearts are tethered.

It has meant suffering through a series of mental health challenges, job loss, family conflict, and the disconnected days of early parenthood when spouses can feel more like roommates than lovers.

It has meant partnering well in the sacrificial care of two young children who need both of their parents fully engaged.

It has meant changing churches—and denominations—after more than a decade of helping to build a ministry we loved.

It has meant recognizing the cracks in our moral high grounds and having the humility to confess our sins to one another.

No, it hasn’t always been easy. But it has always been good.

When older adults in your life voice their concerns about marrying young, these are the concerns living behind their words. Our old pastor Andy Stanley used to say that marriage won’t solve a person’s problems; it will just take two broken people and combine their problems together. Most people have good intentions when they caution against marrying young. They foresee the changes and challenges ahead and want to make sure you have sturdy legs to stand on when those days inevitably come. What they forget—and what I witnessed over and over again in the comments of my Note—is that two pairs of legs are better than one.

Are there valid reasons not to marry someone you love? Of course. There are plenty of people in the world with whom you could find some measure of happiness, but it doesn’t mean they are the wisest choice. Ew, wisdom again! Yeah, it keeps popping up. That’s because wisdom is what keeps romance alive long after the honeymoon phase has passed. Don’t thumb your nose at it. A wise man—in this economy—is one of the sexiest things on the planet.

Does your partner cultivate faith, hope, and charity in both his or her own life, as well as in your relationship? Are they intentional about what they choose to do with their time, their money, and their gifts? Do they practice humility and listen well? Do they snub thoughtful critique or do they embrace the opportunity to learn? Do they keep their word? Imperfect, virtuous people are gems to be treasured, not cast aside in the hopes of securing “The One” who, in the end, is not actually a soul mate but the person who shows up and gives himself again and again in love.

So if you’ve found that person, marry them.

Build a beautiful life together in the grace of God. Grow up hand-in-hand. Lose, win, celebrate, and mourn with the man or woman who understands both the cost of marriage and the countless, ever-multiplying rewards.

You might be surprised to find that, seventeen years later, you’re more in love than ever before.

Same location, better beard, new photographer. (👧🏼)

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1. Ecc. 1:18, NIV