I got married young.

Today is my fourth wedding anniversary.  Here in Oklahoma and where I'm from in Texas, marrying young really isn't that unusual.  But when I meet people from out-of-state and tell them how long I've been hitched, I get bewildered looks.  "Wow, were you like, 12, when you got married?!"  (It probably doesn't help that I'm 25 and I still look like I'm in high school.)  "Ugh, don't you feel so tied down?"  Some people don't even try to put it delicately.  "I'm sorry, but that is just too young."

Everyone seems to have an opinion about what age is too young for marriage.  I don't think there is a right or wrong age.  (Sometimes 18-year-olds are more mature than 30-year-olds.)  I'm pro-marriage in general, so whether you're young or old, I say go for it. I had just turned 21 when I walked the aisle, and my now-husband was 23.  For us, those were the perfect ages.

We didn't rush into our marriage.  We had dated for three years, and we just knew the time was right.  I'd like to offer a few reasons why, for us, marrying young was the best thing we could have done.

1.  Sex.  In light of our culture today, I realize that our decision to save sex for marriage is rare and probably weird to many, but it was important to us.  And let's be honest, three years is a long stinkin' time to wait for sex.  The solution?  Get married and have as much sex as we wanted.

2.  We knew that we would never really be ready.  There are always more goals to accomplish, more places to travel, and more items to cross off the bucket list.  If we waited until the "right time" to get married, we probably never would have.  There is no "right time."  We didn't throw caution to the wind, but we also knew that we couldn't delay our decision until our uncertainty was 100 percent gone, because that day would never come.

3.  Our commitment to love each other, regardless of the situation, has held us together.  When we were dating, we always had the choice to break up if things weren't going well (and we almost did on multiple occasions!).  Now that we are married and divorce is not an option, we can do nothing but work through trials, arguments, and annoyances.  Because we promised to love, we deal with circumstances as they come instead of allowing those circumstances to break us.

4.  We could have spent forever searching for the perfect person and never found him or her.  I am not naive enough to believe that I am the perfect wife for my husband, and neither is he the perfect husband for me.  We are both seriously flawed.  We fight.  We make each other angry.  He leaves his dirty clothes on the dresser.  I get my shave gel all over the shower.  He doesn't wash his dishes after lunch.  I eat the last piece of cake without asking.  He farts too much.  I fart too much.  Another man might not annoy me in the same ways, but he would annoy me nonetheless.  I didn't marry Andrew because he is the perfect man for me; Andrew is the perfect man for me because I married him.

5.  We do more fun things because we are married, not less.  "Life as we knew it" didn't end when we said "I do;" it truly was just beginning.  We are bumps on logs without each other.  Living together allows us to open up our home to others more often.  Having combined incomes lets us travel more.  We never have to worry about finding dates to weddings, parties, etc.  We shoot guns, see movies, play board games, watch car races, go hiking, run marathons, attend concerts and sporting events, look at Christmas lights, work at camps, hang out at the zoo, and the list goes on.  We do those things because they are more fun with a best friend than alone.  I would never hike in the Wichita Mountains without my guy blazing the trails and warning me about rattlesnakes.

6.  Burdens are cut in half when someone shares them with you.  The last four years have not been without heartache, but Andrew has helped me through everything.  He cannot remove the circumstances, but he can listen and encourage me during them.  My first year of teaching, surgeries, and loss of loved ones have all been easier because my husband has carried part of the load.

7.  We have become more independent because we are married.  This seems counter-intuitive, but hear me out.  There is nothing wrong with living with one's parents or with having roommates, but being married has allowed us to make more decisions on our own than if we had continued with our separate living situations.  "With great power comes great responsibility," but I actually enjoy being able to pay our own bills, own a home, have separate health insurance from my parents, and plan our meals.  We are our own separate family unit, and we wouldn't have it another way.

8.  I'm not the first person to say this, but we get to grow old together and grow up together.  We spent our first year of marriage in a dumpy duplex that backed up to a high school parking lot, we drove an old car with a huge dent in the side, I was still finishing school, and we budgeted like crazy just to make ends meet.  But we were happy.  I guess what I'm trying to say is this: Marriage doesn't require a huge savings account, perfect jobs, or a fancy house.  It requires two people who are committed to making it work.  Our story may look much different in twenty years, but the main characters will always be the same.

I got married at 21, and I have no regrets.