Why Its Not The End of the World to Get Married Young

I have seen several things posted to Facebook lately about things like "26, Unmarried, and Childless" or "14 Reasons You Shouldn't Marry Young" telling people, and women in the 20's that they shouldn't get married until they have their life settled, saying things like "You'll miss having male friends" or "marriage sort of freezes your development." But the problem I have seen with all of this is that no matter what you do, someone is going to tell you what you're doing is wrong.

My boyfriend and I have been together for over three and a half years and we are only 22/23, and I plan on being married in the next year and a half (DISCLAIMER: No, I'm not engaged yet, but we are still planning on things going in that direction). I have heard over and over from people to "wait until you get your life settled before you have to be responsible for someone else" or "you need to enjoy your life before you get tied down" or my personal favorites "what about your career?" or "you don't want to be dependent on a man for your whole life!"

As someone who has been in a longterm relationship for several years, I am tired of hearing this stuff and being shamed for wanting to be married young. Yes I understand that marriage is hard work and it is a team effort to make it work, but that is something I want. Yes, I want a successful career, but I want to have children and be able to spend time with them and be at home. Yes I don't want to be completely dependent on a man, but I do want to have someone that I know will take care of me.

Why does it have to be one way or the other? So many people think that the only way a woman can be successful in her career is to wait forever to get married and not have a family till their 30's and if a woman decides that she wants to get married in her early 20's that she cannot have a successful career or even care about her career. I personally think that there is no reason that a woman (or man) cannot have both; a successful career AND a

Some women don't want to get married at all or want to wait until they are in their thirties to get married, but I am the exact opposite. I have set my goals for my life before I get married; one of the first things that I told my boyfriend when we started talking about getting married was that I would not get married until we had both graduated and how our degree and really that was my biggest requirement because I knew that once I found the person that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with that I would want to do that and spend my life with him and as much of my life as I can.

I got lucky that I got to meet this amazing guy that I know is who I want to spend the rest of my life with at such an early age and that I will get to, Lord willing, spend the rest of my life with him. I want the internet to accept that. Don't pressure people one way or the other; to think that it is a horrible thing to get married before you're 35 or that being single in your 20's is an awful thing because these things are that are good about both things and people need to be able to figure this out for themselves without feeling pressured to do it one way or the other.

What are your thoughts about getting married? When did you get married?

Picture from my senior pictures