How it is to get married at 21

Hi! My name is Grace and I just got married two months ago. Yes, I am 21, and yes I realize I am probably younger than most people think you should be when you get married. But no, I am not religious, and I did not rush into this relationship or marriage. I met my husband when I was seventeen, and today marks our fourth anniversary of meeting one another.

I want to preface this by saying this is just one opinion of getting married young, and many other people have different opinions, on either side of the topic. Either way, I would love to hear your own experiences on the matter.

I am not what you would call the traditional person when it comes to getting married young. I just had no reservations about getting married because unlike many of my peers, I came from a very healthy family, and from parents who stayed together throughout my young life (and who are currently still living happily together). My husband, Andrew, also has parents who stayed together throughout his life, so we both had good examples of what a happy marriage looks like.

Often, in our society today, we see most people who get married young are doing so because they are religious and believe that there should be no sex before marriage, and once they find the person they like, they don't have a physical relationship with them, or discover that part of themself until they are married, and therefore there is "no reason to wait."

For me though, I found that there was another reason I didn't care to wait ten years, or however many years down the road. I found my best friend, the person who I grew with in every way over time. I wanted to be connected to him in every way possible, so for me and him, that jump felt so small in terms of what we had already done together. We knew it was going to happen eventually, so why wait? We could have, it's true, but we knew it wouldn't have changed anything.

And you might ask, why get married at all if it doesn't change anything? And I'll be honest about this, it is truly because we felt that that was the last step to being tied together as much as we possibly could be. Our relationship will always grow, but to know that I will always be known as his wife, is really what I wanted, and what he wanted in turn. So in a way, it did change something.

I know that many people wait until they are around thirty now, and that makes sense to me if you are not wanting a serious relationship. But I always had the mindset that if I found my person young, I would not let them go just because I wasn't "ready." There is a time for everything, and yet, if you find the person who you know you could live with and be happy with for the rest of your life, what's the reason for waiting to commit?

I won't lie, I can't quantify the time someone should wait until they get married. I think you should wait how long it takes you to know, with absolute certainty, that this is the relationship that you, and your partner, want to be in forever.

And for some people, this might be easier said than for others. I always knew I wanted to find my person when I was young, probably because of the number of love stories I read when I was growing up, and the fact that my Mother met my Dad when she was seventeen. I was never a very independent person, but I found that I became more independent in my relationship now than I have ever been.

The safety of a healthy relationship gave me the freedom to feel okay with being myself and finally take some independence inside my life. I am still growing with this, courtesy of my anxiety disorder, but I know that my husband will always support me in growing to become a better version of myself.

And that is the most important part, you have to be okay with growing together, and in different directions when you get married young because there is still so much growing to be done. I am in no way under the illusion that I am done growing or striving for more in the slightest. I know that we both have so much to still accomplish, and I am ready for all of it.