question about med school and marriage

Hi all!

I know that there are lots of posts on here about when everyone started to get married, and the majority of the ones that i've read said either after their first or second year of med school. My boyfriend will be going to med school next fall, and in one of our conversations i mentioned that maybe we should get engaged after his first year and married after his second. We've been together for five years, so we know we are going to do it eventually, but he thinks we might be too young, and since he won't be working he thinks that we should wait until after he graduates from med school. I was just wondering what everyone thought about this and how old they were when they got married?

-Jessica

[SueC]

I was only 23 when we got married (actually I turned 24 a few weeks later), and my husband had just graduated from med school. We had only been dating less than 2 years at that point, so I can't say for sure what we would have done had we dated all through med school. From a convenience stand-point, I wouldn't have wanted to wait that long, I don't think, if we were in your situation. We got tired of trying to figure out where we were going to eat dinner, whether we were going to stay at our own apartments or together (yes folks, we did "bunk up" but don't tell our parents!) and I was just relieved after we got married that we both went home to the same place at the end of the day.

[PrincessFiona]

marriage

We got married during my husband's intern year in Germany....(We did 8 years of residency...repeating intern year for a total of 3 times as we moved from Germany to N. Ireland to the US!) It worked out fine for us...I did all of the wedding planning though...which from what I understand is how it does anway 8) ....

Do what feels right for both of you, and don't look back. I don't know that there really is a 'right' time to do a lot of things...marriage, motherhood....I was 23 when we got married...March 1994...and 24 when I became a first time mom December 1994

Kris

[PrincessFiona]

also

We didn't have much money either...but we made it work...
we are celebrating 9 years in March...

[Auspicious]

I've known 21 year olds who were genuinely ready to get married and 32 year olds who were very much in love but still felt they needed to take just a couple more years before they were really ready to get married--and they all seem be having roughly equally successful marriages. I think everyone has a different age at which they sort of "stabilize."

I think if someone is saying to you, though, "I'm too young," that's defintely a message that should be heeded. Of course you wouldn't want to be strung along for years by someone who had no intention of actually marrying you in the end (I've seen that happen, too), but if he's like "I won't be ready in two years, but I believe I will be ready in four years," that sounds pretty reasonable to me, especially if you're both still in your twenties. I wouldn't want to get married unless we were both 100% sure we were ready.

[DCJenn]

My personal opinion, although I have one or two friends who have made it work, is to wait until at least your mid-twenties to get married. I think back to some of my decisions that I made in my 20's and just laugh. I was 33 (this time!) and it was definitely the 'right time'.

Jenn

Thanks for the advice. I know, it's hard. My boyfriend just thinks that we just aren't really independent from our parents and we might be too young for that reason, not for the reason that we arent emotionally ready to commit. I dont know, I just feel like we've been together for 5 years already, and I think it's silly to wait another 5 to get married just because he's not living on his own yet. We still have a while to talk about it, and see how everything goes, but once I get an idea in my head I always feel like i have to talk about it right away!

Thanks again!

[mommax3]

I am late to chime in on this, but for whatever it is worth, my husband was 19 (a month away from being 20) and I was 21 when we got married. I was done with college and he had just finished his freshman year. We had known each other for 9 years at that point. Our families were close and we were closer. We were both the oldest and not nearly as independent of our families as we thought we were! But that came over time. It is now 12+ years later and we have made it through the rest of his undergraduate years, med school, residency, and a year and a half of "life on the other side" -- oh, and several moves (away from said family) and the births of three boys. It can be done if you are both absolutely committed and fairly mature and responsible. When I look back, I can't believe our parents were okay with the whole thing! But they were sick of dealing with us when we had to be apart. One good thing -- we have never ever been a two income family, so when I began to stay home with our first son, there wasn't a huge financial adjustment to make -- we went from having hardly any money to having hardly any money! HA!

Best of luck to you!

Sally

[Vishenka69]

We have been together for 5.5 years and will be getting married in about 3 months. My FH didn't feel comfortable getting married and not being able to provide for his family. So when I graduated from college we moved in together and the wedding will be a month before his graduation. Our parents do help a lot but it can definitely be done. We got subsidized housing from his school and I started working right away. His parents still pay for most of his expenses (vacations, clothes...) but we take care of the living expenses ourselves (with the help of his loans).

Personally I wouldn't have the patience to wait another 5 years to get married. If you're both emotionally ready, I'd say go for it.