Thursday, June 2, 2016

Three Things Thursday... Getting Married at 25

Getting married was always a day that I dreamed of when I was a little girl.
I couldn't wait for the dress,
the flowers,
the ring,
and for always having my best friend with me 24/7.


What hadn't occurred to me,
was that it might not happen according to my time.
I am a Mormon.
And Mormon's tend to get married a little bit younger than the average person.
Most of my friends were married between 19-22,
and most of them already had 1 or 2 kids before I even got married.

I got married when I was 25.
Well...
25 1/2 actually,
but who's counting right?

Here are 3 things that nobody told me about getting married at 25.

1. You will have a lot of stuff.

I had always heard stories about people getting married and having nothing.
I heard stories about sleeping on only a mattress with no bed frame.
I heard stories about eating ramen for days because they couldn't afford anything else.
I heard stories about no internet or TV's because they couldn't afford it.

Well...
When Spencer and I got married,
we had A LOT of stuff!
We had more than enough to fill our apartment.
We were blessed!
We were both 25 when we got married and had lived on our own for a while.
We had accumulated a ton of stuff during our single years.
I wouldn't say that I'm a hoarder by any means,
but I do tend to neatly collect things.
We had 2 TV's when we got married.
We had a nice dining room table,
a bed with a bed frame,
we had furniture,
and we had about 1000 DVD's between the two of us.

We it came to registering for gifts,
I already had all of the kitchen essentials and cooking supplies.
I didn't get 1 crock pot when I got married,
but it didn't matter because I already had one.

We had already started our lives before we got married,
and so we were set.
It was kind of nice.


2. You will feel incredibly lonely at times and you will be stubborn.

I felt so far behind in life because I got married at 25.
It was weird to hang out with all of my friends because they were married.
I was the 3rd wheel,
all
the
time.

While my friends,
and even my younger sister,
were preparing for their families and having dinner with their spouse,
I was hoping for a date and eating pasta in my bed.
I was lonely.

When the other coaches had their husbands coming and supporting them at games,
I had no one.
I was lonely.

Holidays were lonely.
Church was lonely.
Night time was the worst!

Getting married at 25 also really allowed me to develop myself.
Once I got married I found that I was really firm on a lot of things and not so willing to compromise on the life that I had created for myself.
It made marriage a little more difficult.
It's hard living by yourself for 25 years and then have a live in husband.
There are a lot of adjustments to make,
and numerous compromises.
I was so set in my ways,
that sometimes it was really hard to change my actions and ways of thinking.

It takes a lot of work to let down your ideals and your traditions and to make them smoothly work with someone else's.
But it's so worth it!

25 years of being alone wasn't always enjoyable.
It wasn't always the worst thing ever...
I never had to ask for permission to spend money,
I had the whole bed to myself,
and I could eat Taco Bell whenever I wanted.

But all of those things,
didn't ever outweigh the loneliness.
Especially since I found a man who would eat Taco Bell with me on our wedding day,
in our wedding clothes,
in-between photo sessions.
#winning


3. Everything happens for a reason.

I was engaged twice before Spencer.
I had set two other wedding dates before Spencer.
They both ended in disasters.
Like the worst thing ever!

I can look back now and see why those relationships weren't working,
and never would have worked out,
but it was really hard to see then.
But nobody ever really reassured me that everything happens for a reason.
Nobody ever really told me that something better was out there for me.
Maybe I needed better friends...

If you don't get married until you are a little bit older,
that's okay.
There's a reason for it.
I was dying to get married at 19,
and everyone thought that I would,
but I didn't,
and now I can say,
thank goodness for that.
I was so young.
I didn't know who I was or what I really wanted.
I was lost.
Getting married younger for me,
would've have been a HUGE disaster!


The Lord chose to teach me patience when it came to marriage,
and that was a lesson that I definitely needed to learn.
it was difficult at the time,
but it was so worth it to me to wait.
Marriage is something that must be thoughtful considered,
and not rushed into just because you desire to no longer be lonely.
Although it took me what seemed like forever to finally get married,
it was 100% completely worth it.


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