/karen/

“You’re much too young to get married.” - Plankeye

Sunday, 09 February, 2003

I was pleasantly surprised when I first found out that you and Ben are such a young couple. I mean, I just turned 24, and I am nowhere near marriage! Has it been difficult, being married so early? I have nothing against it, but I'd like to know your side.

(from the Comments)

In hindsight it hasn't been difficult but it probably felt difficult at the time. Our biggest problem was the opposition we faced when we told people we wanted to get married. Part of it was circumstantial (we hadn't known each other for that long, among other things) and part of it was your typical parental objections to young marriages:

1. "You're too young; you should live a little first before you settle down—travel, see the world, make sure this person is really the right one for you."
2. "You don't have any money and you should probably be financially secure first before you get married. How else are you going to be able to afford a house?"
3. "You haven't established your career yet."

I think we've managed to overcome each objection over time. When we got engaged, Ben was 19 and I was 20. I think Ben's parents had a lot of trouble getting used to the idea of their eldest son getting hitched and leaving the family so soon. Both our parents got married when they were in their late twenties/early thirties and, though I have no idea what my parents expected of me, I know that Ben's parents didn't expect him to marry until he was at least 25. We decided that, for their sake, our engagement would go for a whole year. That was very hard because we couldn't be together the way we wanted to and people kept saying, “When are you guys getting married again?” and kept forgetting the answer. It was a very LONG twelve months.

The money problems I've already talked about. They starting disappearing once we started pulling in a double income. Living out of home, we found we were able to save more as married people instead of single people because we shared everything. We just lived cheaply for the first year and many people were very generous to us in their hospitality and gifts.

And with regards to career, I think our respective families are getting used to the idea of us one day going into full-time paid ministry. Perhaps they were worried before that we didn't seem have any set goals or direction in life. But now they know that we've been saving for Bible college and we've taken the first steps on the MTS road so career hasn't been much of an issue anymore.

Any other difficulties in addition to this were just the standard getting-used-to-marriage stuff. People told me that the first year would be hard and they were right; there's all that getting used to living together stuff—getting used to each other, getting used to being married instead of single, etc. Everything that you don't want him to know, he'll find out; everything he doesn't want you know about him, you'll find out. You both knock the corners off each other. All part of becoming one flesh, I suppose. And once you get over that, it gets better. Every year.

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