People Who Didn't Marry Until Later In Life Are Sharing Their Thoughts On Whether Or Not It Was Worth The Wait
They say there is no right time to get married. Some marry young; some marry late. While finding the one as early as possible is the dream, not all of us are that lucky, right?
Although, as we get older, the impending doom of eternal singlehood scares at least a few of us. While statistics about the success of delayed marriages argue between themselves, it truly is to each their own.
I asked the BuzzFeed Community for stories from couples who who married later in life who believe it is worth the wait.
Here's the best of the responses:
1.For this couple, "worth the wait" means the ability to appreciate your partner.
"So my husband of four months is actually my high school love! We broke up about a year after high school, and kept in touch here and there — but we had our own lives, relationships, and experiences. We did eventually find our way back to each other, but I could have told you in high school that he was it!
“'Worth the wait' to me is the ability to be able to appreciate your partner and to have healthy communication. We both needed to grow and learn through our journeys to be able to appreciate what we have now — but if you can manage it at a younger age, go for it!! Don’t ever waste time wondering if you’re too young — just live and enjoy the person that values you!"
2.For this couple, "worth the wait" meant marrying the best friend.
"Got engaged at 21, and it ended in disaster. She literally started cheating on me the day I gave her the ring. I had to take a second job to pay for it. Fast-forward nine years. I start a new job at a restaurant and am to be trained by a woman with the most amazing chocolate-colored eyes. We spent a year as friends, but when the restaurant renovated and fired all employees, I shot my shot. In six months, we were engaged, and it has been the greatest thing to happen to me. We have four amazing kids (all adopted) and have fostered 53 more. She is the most incredible woman imaginable."
3.For this person, "worth the wait" meant being ready to be in a relationship.
"My now spouse and I started talking three days after my 30th. I had always been terrible at relationships and avoided them, and he had just gotten out of an awkward engagement. We ended up living together right away due to a weird blight of tragedy that I had. After 6 years of getting to know and love and trust and understand each other, we got married. There is no way my punk ass was ready for a serious relationship before this. I'm still in hardcore therapy, and I often feel super guilty for all the things I put my spouse through, but he's also my absolute best friend. I feel like I wasted my 20s dealing with trauma, homelessness, addiction, and trying to get my hands on my mental health conditions, but I spent my 30s building the person I was intended to be. It just so happened that I found my ideal match when I started to drop all the bullshit I had accumulated."
4.For this person's parents, "worth the wait" meant meeting the right person.
"My parents met at 35, married at 37. My dad was engaged previously; my mom had numerous long-term relationships. By the time they met, they knew what they wanted. No bullshit. They got engaged after 9 months. I was born when they were 40. From things they have both told me and what I’ve observed, IT WAS WORTH IT. They are absolutely soulmates. My parents do not fight. They love each other to pieces. Their marriage is so ridiculously healthy. I really grew up in the presence of a happy, healthy marriage, and I believe that’s what lead to me finding the right person (albeit much younger than they did; I’m 27 and just got married). If either one had married young, they would likely be divorced. My mom will say that the wait SUCKED (she was frequently the single friend at weddings), but she would do it all over again to find my dad."
5.For this person, "worth the wait" meant not settling for anyone.
"I was 31, and my husband was 39. He hadn’t ever considered marriage because he hadn’t met the right person. Fortunately, none of my three serious boyfriends had wanted to marry me! I still have nightmares they did, because I would have married them, and I would be miserable now!
We will be married 20 years this August, and we are still so happy, with two almost-grown sons. My advice to single people: Don’t settle! It’s worth the wait!"
6.For this person, "worth the wait" meant letting go of the pressure.
"I felt a tremendous amount of pressure to get married right after college, and I did. We were not in a great partnership and were divorced after 18 months. I didn’t marry again until I was 38 and my husband was 40. My only regret is we didn’t meet a few years earlier. We got pregnant right away and have a son who is wonderful. It would’ve been nice for my husband and me to spend a year or two just enjoying each other without kiddo, but I wouldn’t have it any different. It was definitely worth the wait to find the right person, and if I hadn’t met him, I was fully prepared to just be single."
7.For this person, "worth the wait" meant finding the most compatible person.
"I got married in my mid-30s. I had decided I was happier being single and really just wanted to pursue my own happiness all the time. I didn’t need to be in a relationship. My older friends called it entering the Dirty 30s. I had a lot of fun! A few years after that, I met my now-husband, who was mentally in the same kind of space I was in, and we knew in 10 days, that we were forever and no one else would ever compare. Nine years together and seven years married now."
8.For this person, "worth the wait" meant learning how to be in a relationship.
"I got married last year. I was 36, and my now-husband was 43. We had been together for four years at that point. I'm glad I waited. I had been in a few LTR with the wrong people, and it took many years of dating to finally get to the point where I really understand how to communicate maturely with my partner. I've never been with someone who communicates so well, and in turn, that I communicate so well with. We really mesh, and I feel like I'm at that age where I'm ready to be an adult and actually act like one, too.
I've also seen a lot of my friends who had gotten married early on (in their early-mid 20s) break up and get divorced because of communication skills they hadn't had time to develop. I don't know, I'm not mad that I was in my mid-30s when I got married. I'm happy I waited and married the right person."
9.For this person, "worth the wait" meant being sure about a person.
"I was 28, and my husband was 31. Not super late by today's standards, but we were both in serious relationships that almost/could have ended in marriage in our early 20s, and we are both SO GLAD we didn't marry those people. 1000% worth waiting until you're really sure about a person."
10.For this couple, "worth the wait" may be a little sad because their child didn't have cousins the same age.
"I am 100% grateful I got married later. Most of our friends got married at 22-24. We got married at 28 and 31, respectively. We knew how to communicate better. We knew more about who we were. We both had careers and money available. We also knew each other (not as a couple) for a long time (eight years). Essentially, our friends say that the first couple of years were so full of fighting because they were still learning how to talk to people and who they were. We stepped into marriage with limited strife.
The only thing that makes me a little sad is that our son doesn't have cousins his age, as our siblings had kids at 18-20, so everyone is, at least, a decade older than our son."
11.For this couple, "worth the wait" meant building a life together.
"Idk if this is 'later in life,' but to us, it felt later since most of our friends had started dating after us and married before us (some were married and divorced before we tied the knot).
I was 34, and my husband was 37 when we married. We dated for over 10 years, bought a home, started a business together, and merged our lives as a married couple.
I’m glad we took the time to grow up, learn to live together, and thrive together. Had we married in our 20s, our priorities would have been way different. This year, we will welcome our first child, and we are so up for the journey."
12.For this person, "worth the wait" meant learning about themself.
"I was 38; my husband was 40 (my first marriage, his second). I didn’t exactly have the best examples of marriage in my family, so it never appealed to me, and I was pretty sure I would never get married. I had been in a 10-year relationship. When that relationship ended, I was single and dating around for a couple of years. I really got to know who I was and what I would and would not put up with in a partner.
My husband and I were friends when we were teenagers. We had drifted out of each other’s lives but picked up when we were in our 30s. I felt at ease with him that I had never felt with anyone else. I was never going to settle for marrying the wrong person, and I’m so glad I listened to myself about that. It may seem like an obvious thing, but I’ve seen so many marriages begin and end because people were pushed into it or felt like it was something they had to do. Marriage is a very listen-to-your-heart decision. If it doesn’t feel 100% right, don’t do it."
13.For this person's aunt, "worth the wait" meant being free.
"My aunt didn't marry till she was almost 50. I remember people always making her feel bad for being single and old as they so kindly put it. Or her single life being the topic of conversations amongst my aunts. But the reasoning behind my aunt's choice was that she wanted to live her life as she wanted. She went to school and is a judge, she's travelled, bought a huge piece of land, built her home to her specific vision.
She is married now, but I do truly believe the real reason that she didn't settle before was because she was looking for someone to add to her already amazing life, not drag her down or limit her. They both make an amazing team, they both have very rewarding careers, and have done so much in their lives before they met. He helps my aunt when she can't carry herself and vice versa."
14.For this person, "worth the wait" meant finding a mature person.
"I met my husband at age 30 (seven months after breaking up with a long-term boyfriend). We got married three years later! I'm glad that I didn't marry earlier, since I found a man who could grow with me, unlike my ex. I also was able to have a richer life, exploring myself through traveling, getting a great education, practicing more healthy relationships, and exploring careers. This maturity is something that I can now share with future kids, so they will grow up happier."
15.For this person, "worth the wait" happened organically.
"I married at 39. I wasn’t waiting for anything. Getting married was never a goal. It just happened organically."
16.For this person, "worth the wait" meant finding stability.
"Married at 32 and expecting a baby now five years later. I can’t imagine having been married and a mother any younger. I wouldn’t have felt as financially stable and at peace in life. When you meet the right person, you meet the right person. I don’t know if it’s the age that matters, but I know when I was in my 20s, I was incredibly desperate to be with someone and would try to force something out of relationships that weren’t truly fulfilling or meaningful, just for the sake of not being alone. When I was 28, I decided to take a year to be celibate and focus on working on becoming the person I wanted to be and attracting/manifesting the person I deserved. I met my husband a year and a half later. It felt effortless and right, and from the very beginning, we knew we’d finally found one another. Being single is rough if you are craving someone to love and love you, but patiently waiting for the right person to come along is absolutely worth it."
17.For this person, "worth the wait" meant facing life together.
"I was 38, and my husband was 47 when we met — first marriage for us both, and we married 13 months after meeting. I'm really glad I waited because I was a different person in my 20s: At that time, I was pretty caught up in evangelicalism. I didn't really get a lot of trauma settled in my mind and come into who I really was until my mid-30s. My husband and I both had our education done and our growing up finished, so marriage was not really that difficult to navigate. We know not to get worked up over small issues, and we had the maturity to tackle things well. Life, in general, was pretty chaotic our first few years (pandemic, my mom dying of cancer, work stress), but we got through it together!"
18.For this person, "worth the wait" meant waiting for the real thing.
"I was a very late bloomer when it came to relationships. It wasn't until I was 30 that I even had a year-long relationship, but it was more 'friends with benefits' than anything. The second (nine-month) relationship ended when he ghosted me. BUT: The third relationship I had, starting at age 36, turned out to be the real thing. He had also had a couple of relationships that weren't love-fests, but when we met, it was obvious we were supposed to be together. (I joke that we did not fall in love at first sight — it took four hours before we came to that realization.)
We each married for the first time two years later: I was 38, and he was 45. We're still married and have just had our 22nd anniversary."
19.For this person, "worth the wait" meant being sure about wanting what everyone wants in life.
"Totally worth the wait! I met my husband at 32 and got married at 34. We both had careers and stable incomes, and knew we were looking for a stable, long-term relationship leading toward marriage. There were no games, no long drawn out are we/aren’t we? We both knew what we wanted, and we felt like we found that person, so we went forward. Engaged after a year, married before our second anniversary, and happier than ever, expecting our first child two and a half years into marriage. There is something to be said for waiting until you’ve lived some life and learned exactly who you are and what you want in life. Definitely glad I waited."