According to modern culture, I did everything wrong.
I didn’t wait until after college to get married. My husband and I didn’t wait until we had a stable income. And we didn’t devote years to planning our wedding.
Our culture insists young adults should have life perfectly pieced together before they get married.
This narrative treats marriage as a “destination” or an “achievement.” The pressure to achieve this idealized vision is a heavy burden on couples, and at its core, is fueled by fear.
Sadly, that fear — of choosing the wrong person, losing independence, facing financial instability, not being “enough” yet and simply fearing the unknown — keep many people from pursuing marriage at all.
And when you’re convinced you must wait for the “perfect” moment to get married, you chase something that doesn’t actually exist. Every uncertain decision, every uncomfortable feeling, every difficult circumstance becomes evidence in your mind that you’re “just not ready” to tie the knot.
This week, writing for the Institute for Family Studies, Dr. Brad Wilcox and Maria Baer explain that this so-called “conventional wisdom” isn’t wisdom at all, but rather “a high-stakes hypothesis” that has already been disproven.
Yet many still fall for the “stability myth,” believing they must secure the perfect career, income and financial footing before ever considering marriage.
The reality is we will never have things figured out, and just when we think we do, new obstacles will appear in our path.
Our world’s unhelpful way of measuring readiness for marriage stems, in part, from a culture of convenience, where we make decisions based on the question: “What’s easier for me right now?”
While it’s important to steward wisely what the Lord has given to us, there’s a unique beauty in rejecting the narrative that life must be perfect before you get married. Getting married younger allows you to build a life together, not once everything is already established, but from the ground up, side by side.
Instead of looking to the culture to define readiness for marriage, young adults need to look to the Lord. The best indicators are spiritual, not material.
Instead of comfort, we as young people must start prioritizing what matters most to the Lord: to treasure spiritual wealth above material gain, to walk in sexual purity, to cultivate humility instead of selfishness and to value perseverance through trials over easy living.
When a young man and young woman are committed to the Lord and each other, God, who is love, provides them with grace and strength throughout the journey of marriage — even when life isn’t perfect.
As the Apostle Paul wrote, “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:7).
Charlie Kirk encapsulated this philosophy on Facebook less than two months before his assassination:
Charlie lived what he preached. He was 27 years old when he and his wife Erika got married and was just 31 when he was murdered. They were blessed with two children, a daughter and a son.
That was good advice then — and now.
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