Why did you get married?

pratt1

As a young dub in the 80's me along with many of my friends got married, either in our teens or early 20's.

In my area, if you were over 25 and not married, it was percieved that something was wrong with you or you were probably engaging in sex with a "worldly" person.

By why did so many of us feel the need to get married so young?

I believe it was because of one of three reasons.

1. You wanted to get out of your parets home.

2. You had already gone "too far" with you girlfriend or boyfriend.

3. You were just an average normal teenager and you knew this was the only way you could legally have sex.

Was this true in your area?

Yes I think so, I knew so many young marriages that have since ended in divorce. For me it was mostly because of reason #1. I'd already had sex with someone else to know that sex wasn't worth getting married over
but I was still too young to know better than to get married in the first place.

jaguarbass

I think it was 1 and 3 for me. Although my father, who was not a witnoid, threw me out of the house when I was 19, probably because I had no direction. I was waiting for armegeddon.

Marriage has been a double edged sword for me. It has been as good as it has been bad. I love my wife and find her very attractive. The down side I think Life would have been easier and more comfortable with a college education and a career.

Dragonlady76

I married for love, mind you I married a non-JW years after leaving the borg.

Most of the young couples and even some older ones married so that they could have sex, at least that's how I remember it.

stillajwexelder

I was in Lust

ex-nj-jw

I was in love! Mind you, I had already been out of the BORG since around age 10 mentally (this is when my oldest brother left home because of the BORG and the elder dad) and 3 years physically, living on my own. My husband although raised in the org, was never baptized and a rebel - just like me except I was baptized.

nj

the dreamer dreaming

I was Horny and she said yes (^_^)

Frequent_Fader_Miles

In my area, if you were over 25 and not married, it was percieved that something was wrong with you or you were probably engaging in sex with a "worldly" person.

I guess that's the category I fell in ... I only got married recently (to a non-JW) at the ripe old age of 34.

Looking at the choice of reasons, I believe my mom was partial to the first reason. When I left home to live on my own, she gave me a long lecture about her vision of me leaving when I got married. I was already in my late twenties, and completely fed up of having someone privy to my every move. Besides, what if I never got married? Did she expect me to stay in my parent's house forever? I was ready for independence!

When the time came and I was ready to settle down, my reason was companionship.

lisavegas420

Answer would be 1, 2 and 3

lisa

lonelysheep

All 3 for me, and # 4: I thought I was doing right by Jehovah. I married at the ripe age of 22.

It's a shame that a cult can really swing you their way when a person is in certain stages in life. At that time of young adulthood, and as defined by Eric Erickson's stages of psychosocial development, we battle with intimacy vs isolation, where we struggle to form close relationships and gain the capacity for intimate love, or feel socially isolated.

Our brain section responsible for making decisions is not even fully developed until our early-mid twenties!