DW Community Catch-up Thread
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I’d say most of my friends got married in their 30s. At least in my groups of friends, relatively few got married in their 20s. I have four weddings coming up in the next year or so, three of which are for women who are 33-34. This seems normal to me. I know some of what’s normal varies by things like region, level of education, etc.
I still remember going off to law school at 22 and being shocked that my classmates were thinking about marriage and trying to find husbands. I’d never given marriage much thought at that point. Some of the things said at the girls nights we used to have blew my mind. Even the boyfriend I had at this point wanted to be married with three kids by 30 and I remember telling him that I wanted a long-term partner, but didn’t think I cared if I ever got married. I lived in this state for maybe 10 years between school and my first job, and people did tend to marry younger there. By the time I was 26, I was the only person I knew in my age range who was unmarried and not living with a partner. I guess it all did rub off on me because I remember thinking, when I became single again at 28 (different bf at this point), that I was so old and had missed my chance. Which is absolutely absurd! But, younger marriage was the norm there.
As an aside, the friends I have who did marry younger are mostly divorced by now. Not all, but quite a few. A few have remarried. Some are discovering the mess that is online dating in your 30s. The one who took her divorce the hardest dates casually here and there but hates it and doesn’t think she’ll ever have a serious partner again.
Nearly all my friends here were around 35 when they got married. Give or take a couple years. I think most were 35+.
All of my college and high school friends, except me, were before 25.
I love reading about wedding drama. It cracks me up.
And LOL @Copa. I used to say that I was going to do the “Goldie Hawn/Kurt Russel thing” and have a life partner. Marriage didn’t interest me much.
Another edit: In my mid to late 20s, I did fall into the “I want to get married” trap. I think I was more interested in a wedding than the partner. After I called off that engagement, I quickly reverted to the life partner mentality and stopped thinking as much about marriage. I also stopped thinking about more traditional wedding shit. I didn’t want any future decision to be made based on one potential party. Or diamonds. Or whatever other trappings that weddings entail.
Obviously, I know everyone is different. This is just where my headspace was/is at and what I needed in my life so I could make better decisions.
Oh also meant to add. In June my company had a conference and my boss, who is mid-40s, brought his wife. So at one of the dinners, a few coworkers (women) and I were talking to my boss’s wife, I’m assuming also mid-40s. Somehow it came up if that if she could pick the age her daughter, who is maybe 11, gets engaged/married, it’d be in the 30-35 range.
I really hope that one day women will stop feeling so much pressure to marry by a certain age or like their worth/value is tied up in how desirable they are to men. Literally nobody bats an eye at a 30-something groom.
It’s not a race. If it was, I would have won, I got married right after I turned 21. Except I didn’t know shit about myself and neither did he, and we got divorced after 7 years.
Mmhmm there were a cluster of weddings around 26-27. And now just scattered so far from 30 to 34. I was into wedding tiktok and most of those brides are in their late 20s so I felt a bit older. I would say that the main “pressure” is having children if one wants them.
Just an observation—- two of my husband’s friends and engaged/married to women who have kids. Everyone is in their early 30s.
From what I can gather I think military marriages have everyone beat. Bunch of 18-21 year olds marrying weeks after they first get together.
Ah damn hit submit too soon.
When we lived up north and the marines came in for their rotation it was really shocking how many men in their early 20s already had a divorce and/or a kid or two behind them. Some were even on marriage #2 already.
@ktfran I credit moving to a big city with resetting my feelings on marriage back to my factory settings, haha. It took a couple years, but I’ve felt for a long while again that it’s not something I *need*. At this point in my relationship I think marriage would feel more like tightening the knot, not tying it.
@hfantods The one thing that has never really wavered is my ambivalence toward procreation. For how devastated I was that things didn’t work out with specifically two boyfriends I had in my 20s, I’ll occasionally hear what’s up with them from mutual friends or look on social media and feel glad we parted ways. Both settled down in small towns, got married, had kids. Great for them if that makes them happy, not the life I ever dreamed for myself. I’ve been reading some books about being childless by choice or about the decision to have kids lately (Selfish, Shallow, & Self-Absorbed in the spring, currently about halfway through Motherhood)… if you’re feeling pressure, maybe some of those kinds of books would help. I find them interesting.I don’t think I really know anyone who got married before our 30s, other than military marriages that didn’t really last and one couple that married right after high school and are still together. They’ve never had sex with anyone else, (just guessing but I think it’s a good guess.)
I was just at my sister’s bachelorette and her friends around her age are all getting married now, in their mid 30s. And they are all pretty wild, but more “traditional” I’d say, from rural smaller towns in upstate NY/VT
I got married at 31, but more for the immediate legal/tax benefits and we had just had a baby, not for wedding purposes. Although we did have a little party, I got day drunk and took a nap.
I never planned on marriage or kids. I seriously thought I’d be lucky to make it to 30 with the way things were going sometimes. I’m really happy to be where I am, though. I never, ever thought I’d have kids! It’s a crazy world.
By the way, I did recently go on an awesome date. My SIL took my kids for three days and my husband and I went to a concert at The Mann in Philly, had sex a ton and ate like kings. It’s was his birthday weekend.
Also, skin and hair-
I think the LRP Vitamin C serum has salicylic acid in it. Which is why I avoided that one and bought the cerave. It has the vit c penny smell but has really brightened my skin. I do use LRP moisturizer, sunscreen, the cicaplast baume and probably a couple other products.
The gloss Wendy used to use, not sure. She mentioned the kristin Ess at target a couple months (maybe it’s been longer? Time is weird) and I personally really like the dpHue color gloss “strawberry blond.”
So one of my friends who is engaged, I don’t really care for her fiancé much. I think he’s self-centered and there has been some behavior I’ve really not liked (e.g., she’s been in in-patient treatment for anorexia several times, most recently in 2016, and I know of at least one instance where he told her the way she ate something was disgusting… he also once dumped her by text after two years and they were living together…). Anyway, their wedding website made me LOL. There’s next to no practical information about their wedding (no venue, time, etc.), but there’s an entire weirdly self-congratulatory page dedicated her ring. And how big and beautiful it is. Since they got engaged, she’s admitted he proposed on an ultimatum. I sincerely wish them the best but I have known a few ultimatum couples, none of whom made it longer than a few years.
