| First Comes Love, then Comes Marriage By: Tala al-Husry Sheri Stritof was 19 years old and a junior in college when she got married. Married life kept her busy, and her husband thought there wasn’t really a point to continuing her education. So she dropped out. Eight years later, she and her husband divorced. Teen marriages often result in this unfortunate end. According to a 2001 Center for Disease Control and Prevention study, 48 per cent of couples who marry before they are 18 divorce within 10 years. Only 24 percent of people who marry at age 25 or older get divorced within 10 years. A year and a half later, now in her late 20s, Sheri remarried. Sheri and Bob, her husband of 44 years, are now the marriage experts for About.com. In most states in the US, you have to be 18 to get married without parental consent. But many also allow 16 and 17 year olds to get married with parental consent and younger teens if they have parental consent and a court order. It is generally easier for teens to get married when they are expecting or already have a child. Sheri advises teens that have a child to hold off on marriage. “Pregnancy is hard enough on adult married couples,” she says. Times have changed and it’s very difficult to juggle a marriage, a baby and homework. She recommends that expectant teenage mothers take care of themselves physically and find support from their family or community. She wouldn't advocate for abortion, but she says that giving the baby up for adoption is a good possibility to consider. Taking a few steps backward from pregnancy, Sheri still won’t advise teens to marry if one or both of the people in a relationship believes in abstinence until marriage. “There are other types of intimacy, other than physical intimacy,” she said, explaining that while she was enduring a difficult pregnancy, doctors told her to refrain from sex but she and her husband felt very intimate and close at that time. She says that teens who get married just to have sex, “aren’t going to make it.” Statistics say that when a couple is under the age of 25, the marriage is more likely to fail. According to some studies, the “Age of Reason,” when people reach intellectual maturity, is also 25, making younger people likely to make large mistakes in judgment. It is probably no coincidence that clouded thinking about getting marriage could result in a divorce. One of the biggest sources of stress on relationships comes from dealing with finances. In fact, according to Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman’s “Will This Marriage Last?” article in Time, most couples that get divorced say financial issues were a main contributor to the divorce. If the couple is making under $50,000 a year, it increases the odds that the marriage will fail. Most teens aren’t qualified for jobs offering salaries at this level. The first question Sheri asks teens who write to her asking for advice about getting married is “why?” She says that from her experience, many teens want to get married to escape their family home. She says teens can leave home by going to college and getting jobs. Leaving home to start a family will be even more pressure on teens who are trying to escape their own families. While there are many reasons NOT to get married, AMG asked Sheri about reasons to go ahead and tie the knot. She responded that the couple has to love each other. Fifteen year-old student Andrew Moscowitz has a serious girlfriend but won't consider marriage until he is much older. He told a story about his surprise when two seniors at his school came into homeroom and announced that they were going to get married. He said that he initially thought it was a joke because he found the fact that a marriage was announced at school jarring. He agrees teens should marry only for love, not “if they just got drunk and got married in Vegas.” Teens that do want to marry should attend pre-marriage courses, Sheri says. “It gives [the couple] time to focus on possible red flags.” Seemingly small issues like where couples spend their holidays and who does the dishes can really blow up over the course of a marriage and cause conflicts. A pre-marriage course can help couples identify and deal with potential conflicts ahead of time. While on a break from marriage, Sheri learned a lot about herself and her ability to communicate with a significant other. Bob, her current husband, is the same man she married at 19. |
 | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
