5 Love Experts Reveal The Age They Got Married — And Whether Or Not It Worked Out
Some lessons are learned with time.
New Africa | Shutterstock When you know, you know — love transcends age and eras. While not every young love story ends in a fairy tale (just ask Romeo and Juliet), marriage vows made at 20 can be just as sacred and lasting as those made later in life. There's no perfect age to tie the knot; it's simply the age you are when you meet the person you want to spend forever with. Some commitments fade with time, while others truly last 'til death do you part. Research indicates that there is no single ideal age for marriage, but rather a window during which greater satisfaction and lower divorce rates are more common, largely dependent on maturity, relationship skills, and individual choices.
To dig deeper, we turned to YourTango experts — professional counselors and therapists who have both lived through and guided others through the challenges of love. Their personal stories offer valuable insights into how real-life experience shapes perspectives on marriage. From navigating the inevitable obstacles every couple faces to learning hard-earned lessons along the way, they shared what unfolded when they first married, what happened afterward, and the wisdom they gained from their journeys.
Here 5 love experts reveal the age they got married — and whether or not it worked out:
1. Married at 26, and we're celebrating 38 years together
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When I marched up the aisle at 26, I didn't know if I was ready. I just knew I didn't want to live with anyone other than my fiancé. I had set about losing weight to fit into my mom's wedding dress, then lost 10 more pounds the week of the wedding. I got no sleep the night before the big event. To say I was skittish is an understatement.
On April 27, 2023, my husband and I will have our 38th wedding anniversary. Nearly 40 wonderful years together.
We met in late 1982 and had our first date on New Year's Eve 1983. We were inseparable, compatible emotionally and physically, and were both compassionate and active listeners. Yet I didn't enjoy going to a ball game every single weekend, and he didn't enjoy driving country backroads. Just one of many differences. What kept us together this long?
- Mutual respect
- Non-judgment
- The unconditional love of foibles
- Sharing our hopes, dreams, and opinions
- Taking turns with our upward career moves
- Riding through the tough times of growth, knowing there'd be another side, but all couples have rough spots.
- Time together and time apart (we're both introverts who need freedom and space)
- Realizing early we wouldn't be the same people at 60 as we were in our 20s
- And, always, always, an open dialogue. No secrets.
One last thing, perhaps unique to us. We had more than 10 years together before we had children. I feel the maturity we had for parenting wouldn't have been there in our early 30s. And the arguments might have split us apart. But because we totally knew and loved each other, we saw the other person and not the conflicts.
—Kathryn Brown Ramsperger, relationship coach and author
2. Married at 19, but divorced soon after
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I was 19 when I married my first wife. Yes, we were high school sweethearts full of dreams, delightfully infatuated with each other, and clueless about marriage.
At 19, we saw ourselves as invincible and capable of any challenge. We were ill-prepared or trained, to say the least. And stubborn, too, which is why the marriage lasted nearly five years.
Ultimately, we were not the best match for each other, and we had much more to learn about life, partnerships, what we truly valued, and how we wished to contribute to the world. School, university education, and work-life experience pale compared to the lessons attainable in a marriage.
Divorced at 24, I was a much more capable human with a far greater reverence for partnership, and still, a ton more to learn and no reservations at all for my future education.
Yes, I married again and became a father with an entirely new set of relationships and grad school experiences. Husbands and wives may become ex-husbands and wives, but children will always be your children and perhaps your greatest teachers, no matter what their age.
I am single now with a huge reverence for committed partnership and marriage. There is truly nothing more valuable than the emergent and ongoing gifts of a soulful bond between friends, lovers, and especially a life partner.
—Larry Michel, founder of the Institute of Genetic Energetics
3. Married at 23, then we slowly grew apart
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I was married to my first husband at the age of 23. We were married for 14 years and divorced in 2010. Short story, it wasn’t a very successful marriage by the standards of “together until death do us part.” However, it was successful in the sense that we supported each other through graduate school, and completed the societal script together of jobs, house, kids, etc.
We had a beautiful son, who is now 19 years old, and we raised him amicably even though we were divorced when he was very young. In retrospect, we were much too young to think we knew anything about what marriage would call for from us, and we really didn’t know who we were yet. At least not enough to be able to foresee if our future selves would be compatible.
As we aged, we became less compatible, our values did not match up in the way we had both hoped, and we grew apart. I was also not as assertive in my communication and did not ask for what I wanted and needed, and instead shut down and turned away from my husband. So, although on the outside it looked as though we had a very “successful” relationship, the inside was missing many pieces, and eventually it crumbled.
I am now married to my second husband. We got married when I was 46 and he was 48. We are coming up on our 4th anniversary. He was not the man that I would build a life with; I had already done that. He is the man I choose to share my life with.
Getting married later in life allowed us to come together with much more self-knowing and a more mature communication style that allowed for more honest and frank conversations going into our marriage. We had both learned from past relationships, and that experience allowed us to be more selective in choosing a partner and even in the conscious decision to actually get married. We both were interested in a conscious relationship and made deep commitments to developing a marriage that was transparent, honest, cooperative, playful, creative, empowering, and balanced.
Although our life looks very simple from the outside, the inside runs very deep and creates a feeling of fulfillment and gratitude that I never thought possible.
Although I am so grateful to have my son, I feel marriage is best suited to be pursued later in life. Or, we need to be more honest with young people about what marriage will require of them emotionally and help folks to be better prepared for what it takes to sustain a marriage through the stages and phases of adulthood.
A couple must be able to grow together, not into one entity, but each partner is able to grow and evolve individually while also staying connected to each other. Marriage is not for the faint of heart, but it is for those who wish to experience how much their heart is capable of holding.
—Wendy Crane, licensed marriage and family therapist
4. Married at 21, and we've made it work
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I got married at the young age of 21 and now, after many years, my husband and I have a loving and successful partnership that has stood the test of time.
Together, we have experienced some of the most wonderful times of our lives. We have raised two beautiful children and built a life filled with love and laughter. Our journey together has not been without its challenges. Like all couples, we have gone through our fair share of rough patches.
The secret to our success lies in our ability to compromise and truly listen to one another. We have grown together over the years, and continue to work every day on making our marriage a success. I am a strong believer that marriage is not a 50/50 partnership; it is 100/100 kind of partnership. To have a successful marriage in my humble opinion, both partners need to give their 100%. Marriage is a constant work in progress, like a sculpture being carved for decades.
I may be a matchmaker, but my own marriage is a shining example of what can happen when two people are willing to put in the effort to make their relationship work.
—Ellen Scaduto, certified matchmaker, certified science-based relationship coach
5. Married at 25, but should have waited longer
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My mother cautioned me to postpone marriage until I was 25, which I did, but I should have waited much longer because at 26, I didn’t understand the intricacies of picking the best partner. By 1998, having divorced my two husbands, I created The Marriage Forum Inc. to teach all the tools I had created during my own marriages. Through my work, I've often found that where my clients need the most guidance is with intimacy, because that’s the one attribute you can’t farm out to a hired hand!
—Susan Allan, founder of the Marriage Forum Inc. and certified mediator
Carter Gaddis is a writer and editor who spent 24 years as an award-winning sportswriter for newspapers in Florida and for various online publications, including ESPN, Parenting Magazine, and the St. Petersburg Times.
