I got married at 20. I was not ready. I didn't know who I was, and I gave up my goals and dreams because, even though we had agreed that I would continue my education, and that I needed to have a career, it got too hard. And we had all of those things that you listed, and we were willing to work hard, and did work hard. Eighteen and a half years later, we are still married, and we have three great kids, and I am just now trying to launch my career. A lot of doors are closed to me that would have been open if I had made other choices. Five years ago the stresses of being a SAHM (stay-at-home-mom) and not knowing who I was or having direction in life for myself as an individual got so bad that it nearly killed me. I'm still trying to recover and find my direction.

Maybe some people are ready at 19 or 20, but I know that I wasn't, and if I could do it again, I would have waited and figured out who I was before getting married. I think that it is important that you know that you can be independent and take care of yourself and stand on your own before you begin a relationship in which your identity merges with someone else's and if you don't have enough clarity about who you are, you can be lost.

I wish that I had had someone to talk all of that through with, that I could have trusted and felt that they had my best interests in mind. My parents wanted me to wait because it was inconvenient for them for me to grow up, and I saw going ahead with it as a way of establishing my independence. But it was jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. I was also in therapy then, and my therapist told me that getting married was a bad idea for me, but I didn't listen to him either because there was no trust in that relationship and I didn't think that he understood me at all. If you have someone in mind to marry, talk it out thoroughly with someone you trust who can be completely objective before you make a decision. It is a life-changing decision.