When teenagers marry
I visited a friend this past weekend who got married when she was 19 or 20 and now has an 8-year-old and a 5-year-old daughter.
When she had her first daughter, years back, I thought what just about everyone did: "Whoa." She wasn't going to college, she wasn't dating, she wasn't going to parties and playing the field, she wasn't doing anything any of the rest of my friends from high school were doing. But what she wants out of life is to be a mother and have a big family.
Visiting her kind of threw my priorities for a loop.
She runs a growing company and her husband has always had a good job that has provided for the family. They were just eager to get started, so they did.
Suddenly I feel like I'm really far behind: I want to have a family, I want to raise daughters as great as hers are, but I'm almost 30. Her kids will be in college when mine are in middle school -- even if I start today.
And I'm not amazed that she is happy and successful; I wouldn't expect anything else from her. But I am amazed that anybody could be so happy and successful following that path. I have other friends who married at that age -- they are my 20-something divorced friends.
What do you think it is that makes some young relationships work and others become complete disasters?