I’m in Love But Feel Like I’m Too Young to Get Married

I am 25 and my amazing girlfriend is 30. We have been together for 10 months now. But before we started dating we were just friends – strictly friends for about 6 or 7 months, there was no attraction at all, until I made a move on her. We met at a mutual friend’s birthday party and I had gone on a few dates with her best friend. Long story short, her best friend was not for me. We found out that we were living just a few blocks away from each other and began to hangout on regular basis. It was like I was hanging out with one of my boys, we would talk about our dates, sex, Ex’s, etc. As I got to know her more and more, I fell for the person inside. I made a move on her and it took her a week to agree that she wanted to give this a try and we did.

She is the BEST I’ve had in regards to everything I want in a woman. Everyone in my family loves her and vice versa. The puzzle fits perfectly. The problem is not her, it’s me. She’s 30 years old and if she’s in a serious relationship she wants to get married and she has all the right to. She doesn’t want to waste her time and I totally understand that. I spoke to her and told her how I felt and we are currently taking a break because I need to figure out what I want to do. I am truly divided down the middle. On one side I feel that I’m 25 and too young to get married and have my whole life ahead of me to live and explore. On the other hand, I have the best of the best and I know I would have an amazing life with her and I don’t know if I would find someone as good or better. This is my dilemma. I don’t want to get married to get divorced. What should I do?

Thanks for your help!
David

Thank you, David. I appreciate your question and am extremely sympathetic to you. This is the side of the dilemma that women need to hear more often — a good guy, who fell for his girlfriend for the right reasons, wrestling with his conscience, with no obvious path ahead.

The hardest part about this is that you’re attempting — at age 25 — to project how you’re going to feel in a few years. And, if life experience teaches us anything, it’s that this is next to impossible to do. In other words, you don’t want to waste your girlfriend’s precious time, but you don’t want to throw away your future marriage out of fear. I feel you, bro.

You don’t want to waste your girlfriend’s precious time, but you don’t want to throw away your future marriage out of fear.

I remember being 32, having a 38-year-old girlfriend, and being wracked by anxiety because even though I was madly in love, I wasn’t emotionally ready to be a husband and father yet. It’s not that I had more oats to sow. It’s that I was just starting my new career and hadn’t really gotten my feet under me yet. I wasn’t ready to buy a house or support children; I was barely supporting myself. My girlfriend didn’t understand and dumped me. It was for the best.

Some 25-year-olds ARE ready for marriage, but it doesn’t matter what everyone else does. It only matters how YOU feel. I think the best thing you can do is to have an open conversation with your girlfriend — and tell her everything you just told me. You love her, you love her family, you don’t think you can do better, and you want to continue to explore the relationship. Then see if you can come to some sort of compromise.

Hopefully, she will see the value of letting you come to your own conclusions instead of pressuring you to make a decision (which never ends well). Which is to say, that you can ask her for three more years to grow up, get on your feet career-wise, get to know each other better, move in together, and try the concept of marriage on for size before proposing. She should have every confidence that this gives her the best chance of marrying the man she loves instead of imposing arbitrary ultimatums on you. In return, you promise to let her know if, at any point, you can’t see getting married to her, so she can move on to the guy who will. Insecure women may scoff at this, but this is exactly how to handle a good, sensitive, conscientious boyfriend who is committed to doing the right thing.

If your girlfriend wants a ring fast, she needs to dump you.

Her alternative, of course, is to demand that you know for certain, at age 25, that you want to get married in the next 18 months — and force you to propose before you’re ready.

In other words, if your girlfriend wants a ring fast, she needs to dump you.

But if she wants to marry YOU, this is the most effective way to ensure you’re equally bought in to the lifetime commitment she desires.