Questions I Wish I Was Asked Before I Got Married as a 24 Year Old

Every year, the week before classes begin, Abilene Christian University invites freshmen and a host of other students to campus for Welcome Week. Think of it like camp for 18 year olds, minus the alcohol consumption. (Or, at least the alcohol consumption was underground.)

My freshmen year, the steering committee for Welcome Week organized a game night, complete with tests of will that are hilarious to 18 year olds and make my current 38 year old digestive system tremble. The gallon challenge. Happy Meal in a blender. I’m surprised they didn’t import Gak or slime from the Nickelodeon Studios.

The contestants were asked a series of questions. Where are you from? What’s your major? Why did you pick ACU?

One woman answered the third question spunkily, “I’m here to get my MRS degree.”

The crowded responded with a mixture of laughter and knowing grumbles.

This was my introduction to the ACU Marriage Factory. (I’ve since learned that you can replace ACU with any other Evangelical or conservative Christian university.)

This woman, who did in fact get married before she graduated, proudly announced one of the most tragic tropes of Christian universities: You become a successful adult when you get married.

24-year old Jeremiah celebrating being just married.

I bought into it, although my ex and I delayed getting married until the ripe age of 24 after spending years fiercely fighting off questions about when our wedding would be.

Julia bought into it. She got married at 22, though outside the confines of her undergraduate campus.

The (insert Christian college here) Marriage Factory is a direct result of Deadly Sin (According to the Church) #1. Don’t Have Sex Before You Get Married.

University administrations at these schools punish students who are sexually active, either overtly through disciplinary procedures or loss of on-campus work, or covertly through shaming messages and metaphors from teachers, administrators, and other students.

Marriage, a legally binding contract that merges assets and identification (the concept of maiden name, for instance) of two people, was the only socially sanctioned context for sexuality.

To be fair, a lot of folks either rejected these claims altogether and left the universities and religious structures that organized them, or created a psychological dualism where they were able to participate in religious structures and have sexual experiences, divorcing their sexuality (and themselves) from the shaming messages of the academic and religious institutions.

My ex (and I, to a lesser extent) fell into a third category.

People pleasing. Perfectionist.

This led it its own significant challenges around sexuality, which has been discussed in other podcast episodes.

For the sake of this blogpost, these were the folks who also most commonly got married at 21 and 22.

Which creates two questions:

1) How many of the people who get married at 21 or 22 understand the work that marriage requires, and as a result, actually want to get married?

2) How many of the people who get married at 21 or 22 get married either because they want to have sex or are eager to perform the culturally-defined rite of passage into adulthood?

My guess is that for many 21 or 22 year olds who get married in religious schools, question 2 plays a moderate to significant role in their decision to get married.

Which then creates two more questions for consideration:

1) How many of these marriages were wholly consensual, meaning that two people made this decision strictly because they wanted it for the relationship, as opposed to a decision made because it’s something you “should do”?

2) For that matter, how do you determine that two people are choosing to get married strictly because they want to and with minimal influence from moral-centric institutions, like the church?

I grieve on behalf of my 20-something year-old self. Upon reflection, my eagerness to please the religious structures to which I was dedicated significantly informed my decision to get and stay married, and prevented me from seeing the negative interactions that, were they to happen today, barring participation in couples therapy (which my ex refused to do), would encourage me to walk away.

This last question deserves some deeper consideration. Marriage is a culturally expected norm in the US (and most countries), inside and outside of religious structures. How do we know that people are choosing to get married on their own terms, with minimal external influence from other institutions?

We turn to the research of Brian Willoughby, Scott Hall, and Heather Luczak on marital paradigm theory.

Quick note: These three folks are professors at BYU, where the Mormon faith places an extremely high cultural expectation of marriage and childbearing. It’s easy to write this off as three religious folks arguing for an institution that may or may not have sociological relevance in the 21st century. I would argue that the fact these researchers are from BYU makes this research all the more significant, because differentiation—the ability to make a decision on your own terms while also staying some form of connected to the larger culture—is extremely difficult in high-control spaces, such as the Mormon and Evangelical Church.

Willoughby, Hall and Luczak write, “Each individual holds a marital paradigm comprised of both beliefs about getting and being married.” The marital paradigm involves these six factors:

1) Marital timing: When is the best time (either age or stage of life) to get married?

2) Marital salience: How important is marriage?

3) Marital context: Under what circumstances “should” marriage occur? What’s the role of religious expectations? What’s your image for a wedding or other demarcation of marriage? How do you know when you’re ready?

4) Marital process: Once you’re married, what are the gender roles you want to practice? How do you want to solve problems? How do you want to navigate sex?

5) Marital centrality: What’s the importance of the marital relationship compared to all of the other relationships in your life?

6) Marital permanence: What’s the exit clause, if any?

From the outside, this looks like a glorified version of the consulting process W4H. Who? What? When? Where? How? As such, this process is good for addressing all sorts of topics, from the inclusion of children to the decision to move or start a new job or educational venture.

However, an item, such as marriage, becoming a cultural expectation reduces the likelihood that a person will ask critical questions about what role they want that cultural expectation to play, if any.

It becomes extra difficult to answer these questions together with a partner. There’s a likelihood that two people may answer these questions differently. And because of the cultural expectation of marriage—marriage and safety/security are linked for a lot of folks—there’s a higher likelihood of emotional volatility when those differences come about.

I wish that my ex and I, as 22 year olds in premarital counseling, or at any other point, had been asked these kinds of questions, and that we were held (rather than coddled and functioned for) when the natural emotional reactivity that came up.

For those of you who are considering getting married, please find someone (preferably a licensed psychotherapist who specializes in couples work) that can facilitate conversations about the role and meaning of marriage with you.