Courtesy of Leah Hope Photography
My spouse and I could be called particular, though we prefer idealistic. We had big dreams about our future partners, which meant we each needed a lot of patience as we sought the right person.
When we tied the knot, I was 33, and my husband was 44. It was our first marriages. We hit the milestone much later than the majority of our peers, and while neither of us planned for the delay, it worked in our favor.
The wait wasn't easy, but it gave us time to grow individually, shaping our commitment to each other. My husband was 14 years older than the national marrying average, and I was five above it, but neither of us would shorten our timeline.
Modern factors greatly influenced our decision to hold off on nuptials. Given the higher cost of living and current pressure to define success, it took both of us a while to establish ourselves and feel financially and emotionally ready to bring a partner into our lives.
Among Americans, 30 is the median age for men and 28 for women getting married, according to the US Census Bureau. We passed those ages while actively searching, using dating apps, and meeting people via friends or in person. But nothing felt right during those years.
Of course, there were plenty of moments of discouragement along the way, and we wondered if something was wrong with us as friends settled down.
But we wanted the kind of relationship we could see lasting lifelong before making promises we couldn't take back. I wanted a devoted, emotionally mature partner to weather life's storms with me.
In retrospect, the wait prepared both of us to be even more committed. We'd experienced the dating pool and knew what we wanted. We gained patience and perspective from our disappointments. We lived full lives before combining ours. I completed a later degree at 30, and we both lived abroad, explored careers, and traveled. We established our career and finances. We became more secure as individual adults.
My husband recently told me that eperiencing life and facing different challenges helped him have the confidence for commitment.
Humility plays a huge role in our marriage. To us, humility is the willingness to value a person with differing opinions and to try to understand their perspective. This helps us better connect as a married couple. We can only do that because we waited until we were older to commit.
I believe age breeds wisdom, and wisdom breeds humility. Disagreements will assuredly arise. Our marriage wouldn't work without having learned how to be honest about our faults and to communicate when we disagreed. This took time and individual growth before we met.
There's no set timeline for being ready. We don't get things perfectly, but I know we do so much better than if we'd met 10 years earlier because we're both humbler people now.
Not that marrying older is without its challenges. Friends are celebrating 10 or 20-year anniversaries, while we just celebrated three. Having children is also a much bigger question mark when age is a factor. Upon marrying, we also realized just how set we were in our habits and lifestyles, making integration a struggle.
But the adage that you can't teach an old dog new tricks has proven false for us. We've both adjusted drastically to make room for each other because of our love. And I owe all of that to our humility.
Marrying later is perhaps not ideal, but it worked for us, and we don't regret taking our time. As a little girl playing house, I remember repeatedly saying I didn't want to get married until at least 30. I'm so glad that little girl got her wish.
