What It’s Really Like to Get Married Young

I’m 29, and I’ve been married for over a decade!

Let that sink in for a minute…

Sometimes, even after all this time, I still get taken aback by that!

Sometimes, the memories of riding around in one of Shane’s many trucks, having fires at the river, dates into the big city (Vancouver), seem so distant, other times they seem like they were actually just yesterday.

Since we just celebrated Valentine’s Day last week, and I actually wrote this for our tenth anniversary back in August, I thought now would be a good time to share… ;)

Here’s just a quick overview for those of you that don’t know… Shane and I met in high school through mutual friends and we started dating when I was 15 and he was 17. He asked me to marry him just a couple of weeks after I graduated high school (I was just 17!) and we were married just over a year later. In the province of British Columbia you have to be 19 to get married without parental consent so, a mere 6 days after I turned 19, we tied the knot.

From the moment I laid eyes on him, I thought he was just the best looking man I’d ever seen! And as soon as we stared spending time together, I literally had fluttery feelings. Shane has always been full of integrity, genuinely kind, and so incredibly practical, that even at 17, he was a “man.” I have felt like we were a team, and that, once we were married, he lead our household with compassion and authority, right from the very beginning. Our friends even called us “Shanex” so there’s that. Hahaha

So often, young love is portrayed as childish, painfully optimistic, naive, and fleeting. I am here to say that is simply not true. While we have, thankfully, learnt lessons along the way, I truly believe that there is great happiness to be found in finding the love of your life as a teenager or young adult. While it’s a topic for another time, I believe that we need to be raising our children to be responsible adults much earlier than we currently are.

Now, don’t get me wrong, getting married young hasn’t been without its growing pains, but I don’t think that young marriage has the monopoly on that. Marriage is a learning curve - learning to put someone else’s needs before your own, how to be a team, and how to create a life that honours God. All I have to say is that I’m SO thankful for the process and the growth that has come from it!

Getting married young has afforded Shane and I the opportunity to “grow up” together… We get to learn to navigate all the logistics of being adults, and having a family, and a business, and a household together! We are far from perfect, but this has allowed us to create a united vision, and not be set in our ways. All we know about being adults, we know together. And as Pooh bear said, “together is my favourite place to be!”

Until I blog again,

Alex

P.S. I turned to good old Facebook to find a picture from our dating days and this is what I came up with. lol