Recommended resource:

• thenewsisgood.com

Ryan: Marriage is an awesome thing. Do you agree?

Selena: Yes. It feels like a trick question.

Ryan: Good answer. Yes, marriage is awesome. We spend our days, in fact, helping couples walk in the awesomeness of marriage as God designed it unto His glory for our good. There’s so many wonderful things we realize within marriage our society does not agree.

Selena: Surprise, surprise.

Ryan: Our society happens to think that marriage is more or less arbitrary. When you get married, it doesn’t really matter. In fact, our societies, as statistics show us, they’re pushing marriage out. A study just came out, the median age of people in their first marriage is the highest… well, almost the highest it’s ever been. I think it peaked like maybe last year. So it went down slightly.

Selena: So the age is like the oldest…

Ryan: At what age are people when they first get married? For men, 30.2 years old. Okay. For ladies, it’s 28.4 years old.

Selena: As compared to…

Ryan: In the 60s.

Selena: 50s and 60s, I think the men’s age was 22 years old and the women’s age was 20 years old.

Ryan: That’s a wild ocean of difference.

Selena: Right.

Ryan: So yeah, 20 versus 28. So think of that in terms of percentages. It’s, you know, when you are… what’s eight years out of 20? That’s 40%. You’re waiting 40% longer.

Selena: So I think we’re all wondering the question, is it better to get married earlier or is it better to get married later?

Ryan: Is it better? So you might know where we’re going to land on this based on what we started with. Marriage is awesome. Why would you put off an awesome thing?

Selena: Well, but what if you get married too young and you marry a not-so-great person? There’s a lot of questions around this.
Ryan: There are questions to be had. So we’re gonna have this conversation. When is the right age to get married? Now you’re listening to this, you might already be married, you might be headed into marriage. Still, we hope to make this relevant to you, whether you’re married or headed into marriage or are marriage hopeful. You will find this encouraging, helpful, and relevant in your real life. So we’ll see you on the other side.

[00:02:08]

Ryan: All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Fierce Marriage Podcast. I’m Ryan. This is my lovely wife, Selena. It is our joy to be here every Tuesday with the Fierce Marriage Podcast and many Thursdays with the Fierce Parenting Podcast. So, if you’re a parent, check that out. Fierce Parenting Podcast. It’s where we share all of our expert advice. We know everything there is to know. [both laughs]. I’m kidding. What we do with parenting is we try to just point you to Christ.

Selena: Guys, we’re pointing our own hearts to Christ.

Ryan: We’re pointing ourselves to Christ. Yes. So, anyway, thank you for joining us. We pray that this podcast blesses you. If you want to join the Fierce Fellowship, that’s one of the main reasons the Lord has seen fit to provide for the Frederick household, go to fierce marriage.com/partner. That’s the fierce fellowship. That’s our tight-knit community of people that are just on mission. Mission. They think this is important and we happen to agree.

All right. So is it better to marry young? I’m just gonna come out with it is, yes. I think it’s better to marry young. And we’re gonna lay, lay out a case for that here. If you’re already married, why would you continue listening to this? It seems like a moot point. Because, you know, you probably have kids, you probably are going to have kids. You probably have people in your life that are considering marriage.

And I think as a Christian culture, when I say Christian culture, I mean the people that are Christians who are listening to this, who we are the ones that are building out a Christian culture in our immediate vicinities, I think it’s far better for us to cultivate a Christian culture of young marriage, with of course, obvious caveats. Like, don’t be idiots.

Selena: Best advice Michael ever gave me. [laughs].

Ryan: Trusting Christ.

Selena: Don’t be an idiot.

Ryan: Those sorts of things.

Selena: I think even if you are married… you know, we’ve been married since the ages of what? 20 and 21.

Ryan: Yes.

Selena: And there’s things that we’ve learned about our marriage that, oh, maybe this was a problem because we got married so young, and here’s how we’re growing in this. It doesn’t matter if you’re married or not. Like it helps you see more clearly where you’re at.

So if you’re married, keep listening. If you’re not married, keep listening. We’re grateful to be in your space today.

Ryan: I’m actually gonna use a tweet from a friend of mine. His name’s Michael Foster. He’s an author of a book called It’s “Good to Be a Man”. I think he’s got a few other books in the works, Lord willing. He will be a Lion Press author at some point along with us.

So anyway, Michael gave me permission to share this, but I wanna make sure you know that it came from him. He gave kind of four benefits of-

Selena: Marrying young.

Ryan: …marrying young, because he, like us, him and his wife got married young as well. And he’s got an articulate way with words. And so I said, Hey, I’m just gonna share these, and then we’re gonna talk about ‘them, and then we’re gonna add a few of our own and also talk about some downsides to marrying young and how we can overcome those.

Selena: Right.

Ryan: Here’s what he said is. I’ll start with how he started the tweet. He says, “Marriage is to be entered into with great care, especially these days.” And amen. “But don’t unnecessarily delay it. There are benefits to marrying young.” You’re a four that at Miss… This is Mrs. Foster, that’s his wife’s handle on Twitter that they’ve experienced. She was 19 and he was 23 when they got married. You were 21. I was 20. You’re six months older than me and you’re a cradle robber.

Selena: He never lets me forget it. It’s true. I get all of the benefits and he gets none of the blame. [laughs] Or he gets all the benefits of none of the blame.

Ryan: Yes, that’s true. All right. So Michael said this, the first benefit of getting married young is that they dried together. In other words, they were still wet cements as individuals. Here’s what he said. “Our opinions and habits weren’t quote, “set”, so they were formed in the context of us. Older marriages are like company mergers, younger marriages are like startups. Each have their challenges.”

Selena: That’s very well said.

Ryan: Yeah.

Selena: Very well said.

Ryan: Yeah. Does that resonate with you in terms of our experience?

Selena: Yes. And we’ll get to a little bit more of that con part of the conversation, but I think… I mean, wouldn’t you say it’s… I think he puts words to our marriage and the experience that we’ve had together.

Ryan: Yes, no. When he talks about being wet cement, I think he’s talking about kind of your… in terms of your emotional kind of… I’ll say even life philosophy development. In some ways, even your theological-

Selena: Yeah. Your maturity on like every level is still…

Ryan: Yeah. It’s all wet cement.

Selena: Yeah.

Ryan: So you’re basically like mixing your cements together [both laughs], and you’re, and you’re hardening together into this whatever the form it’s gonna take. So that was absolutely our experience. And the idea of a younger marriage being like a startup, it’s very… That’s honestly one of the… that’s one of the appeals to me as a young man of getting married young, was I felt like we were embarking on this adventure together and it was a completely blank slate, as opposed to the alternative.

Now, as you watch this episode, as you listen to it, please don’t hear us saying, if you got married late, then you somehow made a mistake or that you somehow-

Selena: Right. Don’t read into it.

Ryan: We’re not trying to condemn you, we’re not doing any of that. But we’re just saying, if you are in a place where you’re having to make this decision or help someone else make the decision, take these into consideration.

Selena: Well, and if you did get married late, you probably would agree that there’s some like… yeah, it’s more of a company merger than a startup. And both of them have their own problems and their own, you know, struggles that they have to deal with. I just think… you know, you wanna say they’re different, but I do think growing together is a wonderful thing. Unnecessarily. He says, don’t unnecessarily delay it.

So what would you define as unnecessary? Right. Culture would say, you need to have your career, you need to be self-sufficient, you need to, you know, be successful in A, B, C, and D. And then, you know, you can think about maybe doing some of this stuff like having a relationship.

Ryan: Maybe it’s worth articulating some of those as assumptions we’re making. Imagine you know somebody, or this was you back when you started dating, and you have found the right person. They check all the right boxes. They-

Selena: Which from Christian perspective this would be a different… I feel like this a little bit-

Ryan: No, this is a Christian perspective. So they love the Lord. You share the same vision for reality in terms of who God is and what He’s calling you to do as believers.

Selena: I know.

Ryan: You want the same things. You want to build a life together. You wanna build a family together. And young, well-meaning college students will have this happen and it’ll say, Oh, I know I’m gonna marry this girl. I just need to wait. I’m not gonna propose because we’re gonna graduate and then I gotta find a job and I wanna make sure… So I think that’s what Michael’s getting at here is don’t unnecessarily delay it.

And here’s some reasons why you might take that leap and say, even though we haven’t finished school, even though we don’t have that career yet, even though we’re not yet established, if you’re staring into the face of a woman or a guy who is the right woman or guy, these are encouragement for you.

Selena: Right.

Ryan: Okay. That’s kind of the assumption we’re making here. So the first one is they got to dry together. We get to dry together. Go from wet cement to not-so-wet cement together. Number two we got each other’s best. So here’s what Michael said. He said, “Our quote, “prime years” were spent on each other and not on strangers. Marrying young meant our past relationships were few. I love this. We have a history, not histories.”

Selena: It’s well put.

Ryan: We have a history, not histories. And he said side note, and this is the caveat, God can and does redeem misspent years, but skipping that unwise spending is ideal. So please don’t hear that… again, God will redeem as God sees fit to redeem and He is faithful to redeem. But again, we’re talking to a young couple, or if you’re talking to a young couple, this is what to keep in mind.

Selena: And that’s very much I think our experience. I mean, you had many girlfriends in elementary school, it sounds like in middle school.

Ryan: I had a grand total of three girlfriends.

Selena: Well, that’s three more than I had boyfriends.

Ryan: They were all in middle school.

Selena: No. I had one boyfriend. One and a half. Two. [Ryan laughs] What is it? You’re going out in like six… I don’t even know what that means still. I’m just-

Ryan: Who knows.

Selena: But anyways, there’s not a lot of history. Because as you get older and your relationships mature, clearly there’s gonna be just this natural progression towards intimacy. Whether that’s emotional, physical, or spiritual. Like there’s this pull for that. Right? We don’t have anything that we need to kind of hash out or go through because we were kind of each other’s it. Like you’re it for me. I don’t have anybody else. I haven’t experienced anyone else. Like you are it. And I love that.

Ryan: So that singularity of mind, I remember as a young man being aware of it and thinking, are we unwisely committing too soon? And I dunno if I’ve ever articulated this to you.

Selena: I don’t think you have. I’m like, nah. Never.

Ryan: Well, because as a young man, you’re like, well… I just remember thinking… well, I went back to the objective truth that like, I know I love this woman. Because there are a lot of young people… it’s a real thing these days. They have this real fear of missing out. Meaning that they never quite commit to the relationship because they’re always kind of thinking, well, what if there’s someone just a little bit better?

Selena: Right. And ironically, they’re missing out [laughs] in the relationship that they could be not missing out on in because they are focused somewhere else.

Ryan: Now, we have daughters. And so the reason why that angers me is because I think it’s usually driven by young men because they’re trying to get to the ideal.

Selena: Sure.

Ryan: Whatever the ideal girl is. Women will do this too. Because they’ll say, I’m waiting for the six-two guy who’s making six figures a year, who… by the way, the statistics on those guys being available, like that’s above average height, that’s above average income. And if they’re single, there’s like 0.08% likelihood that that guy exists truly because most guys aren’t that. So on both sides, you are waiting for the ideal. Like these are from worldly standpoints.

Selena: Worldly standards. Yeah.

Ryan: Wordly standards. So the reason why this angers me is because you get a young guy who maybe is dating a quality girl, which by the way, dating, it’s not a thing for us. We’re not teaching our daughters-

Selena: It’s courtship or nothing.

Ryan: Courtship is the word. So these young ladies are holding out, waiting. So they’re giving their prime years to this young guy. Tragically, a lot of times these young ladies are not virgins and they’re sexually active with these young men as well. So they’re giving their sexual prime years away. And along with that birth control, God forbid, abortions, things like that, because they’re not in a committed relationship yet. They are committed, but he’s not.

And so they spend, we’ll say their mid-20s into their early 30s with men like this and he just on a whim says there’s no commitment. He finds maybe a better thing. He moves on.

Selena: Right.

Ryan: Well, she’s spent… Now, the Lord redeems, but like she’s spent all that time investing in her mind this is the man she’s building a life with. In his mind he’s happy, but he’s not… Anyway.

Selena: Right. And the problem is that we’re placing value where God, I think didn’t intend value to actually be placed all the time. I just think back to our years, like the 20 through 25 range, we put value in certain things that we thought God was valuing. And I don’t think, you know, I wouldn’t say He doesn’t value career, but He values your heart. And what is your heart orientation towards all of those things.

Ryan: I come back to us in our pre-engagement, dating relationship. We dated for four years, two in high school and two in college. And I remember reading that passage where Paul says, it’s better to marry than to burn with passion. And I thought, amen, brother

Selena: Amen, brother. I’m gonna put a ring on it. [laughs].

Ryan: But did I have that sense of I might be missing out on someone else if I put a ring on this girl. And to be honest, I saw that and I said, I’m willing to take that chance.

Selena: Oh, that’s funny. I didn’t see it. I think I was just head over heels for you. I’m just like, yes.

Ryan: And that’s what I’m trying to say is that it was a no-brainer. I’m like, yeah, that could be the case, but I want Selena [laughs]. So I’m not missing out because that’s right. She’s the one for me. She’s the one I want. And I knew that you were an amazing woman and were going to continue being an amazing woman.

Selena: That is true.

Ryan: In fact, you’re more amazing than I thought you could ever be because I was just an idiot. [both laughs] So that’s the second one. So they dry together. We got to experience each other’s best. We have a history, not histories of previous partners or previous boyfriends, girlfriends, whatever.

Number three is, they got on with life faster. Here’s what Michael said. He said, “The added responsibility of marriage and family forced us to step up and mature faster than many of our peers. We missed out on some get-togethers and traveling, but in exchange we grew in wisdom and maturity at a faster pace.” I see this among young fathers. So when I see a young guy getting married, he has his first child, there’s like a switch that flips in that guy’s mind.

Selena: It has to, yeah.

Ryan: And you realize no one else is coming to the rescue. Like, I am the one that needs to step up to this task. Now some guys get crushed under that and they run, it’s just not right.

Selena: Right. I think for women and wives as well, becoming a mother, it’s a huge, a huge transition. And so yeah, you’re either crushed by it or you rise to it. Right? I don’t hear this language as much as I would love to hear it being just shouted from the rooftops of, you know, we missed out on some get-togethers and travel but in exchange we grew in wisdom and maturity at a faster pace.

Like the world, the culture is just screaming, like, get yours, go travel, do your thing. It’s all about you. Very, of course, yeah, humanistic. And it’s message. But this is not the same… I wish I would’ve heard more of this in my-

Ryan: Same.

Selena: This is what you’re growing and this is what, when you decide to do something, when that switch flips and you are in charge, the buck stops with you, you’re not really thinking about the peripherals anymore. You’re now thinking about someone else and the demands and the needs of someone else, which, wow, what a picture of love and grace. It doesn’t seem beautiful and problem-free. It seems hard and…

Ryan: Yeah. I wouldn’t say you’re not missing out on adventures so much as you’re trading one type of adventure for another.

Selena: Sure.

Ryan: You’re trading one type of experience for another because you could equally say everyone who foregoes marriage, given the opportunity at a younger age, everyone who foregoes that is missing out on, you know, get-togethers, they’re missing out on whatever.

Selena: Right.

Ryan: So you could say the same on the opposite side.

Selena: That’s true.

Ryan: It’s just a different set of… it comes down to values. And so if you do value these things that he’s talking about, wisdom, maturity, if you value those things, this is why we’re advocating for younger marriage when it’s a possibility.

The fourth one that Michael said is, “We saw each other’s potential realized.” And here’s what he wrote. “We were just kids when we met. I had a goal for my life but didn’t have a defined path to get there. We got to watch each other come into our own. We saw potentially in each other, wow we see much of it realized.” I can echo that.

Now, I will say I had pretty big lofty… what’s the word? Vague ideas of what our life would be like. And truly no idea. Not only just no plan, but no earthly idea how [laughs] anything was gonna happen in real life.

Selena: Right.

Ryan: A lot of dreams to be honest. But it’s been so cool to watch as we go and see how the Lord is using kind of in some sense, blind ambition,-

Selena: Oh yeah.

Ryan: …but blind faith-

Selena: Absolutely.

Ryan: …To mold. And here we are. Marriage ministry. I would’ve never envisioned this when we got married that, “Hey, let’s do a podcast. In 20 years, let’s be doing a podcast. Let’s be writing books.” No. I had some other… I don’t know. Other ideas. But yeah, it’s been fun to watch each other come into that.

Selena: Agreed.

Ryan: What might the Fredericks add to this list? I had this idea… Because this was… here’s what I wrote down. If you marry young, you get to experience life/adventure together in real-time. Now, of course, there’s some overlap to what we’ve already said. So I used to work painting apartments. Have I told you this before? You don’t know what I’m gonna say.

Selena: I don’t know.

Ryan: So I used to work painting apartments for a commercial painting company. I remember going to these big apartment complexes and I’m… I don’t know. I was probably 18, 19 years old. We were dating clearly. And I’m masking off stuff, I’m painting, I’m going in, I’m seeing these young couples living their life like independent. You know, they had their… I don’t know. It was just something about having an apartment. I was like, I couldn’t wait to start that adventure with you.

Selena: Right. Same. Yeah.

Ryan: That was to me… like getting married young, I was like, I loved that we had nothing. Now I didn’t love that we had nothing. [both laughs] You know?

Selena: Right.

Ryan: You had to work hard. I had terrible jobs and worked too many hours and-

Selena: Yeah. But that’s how you grow, right? That’s how we grow.

Ryan: But to me it was the idea of we’re going on this adventure together. All those moments were experienced in the context of us.

Selena: Just like he said, yeah,

Ryan: You know, not me graduating college and you graduating college, and how’d your graduation go? I can have that memory alone. You can have your memory alone. Instead, we’re having those experiences together.

Selena: The second one is not burning with passion. And you mentioned this. You know, we were both virgins when we got married, but there was some passion to be… well, there was some burning and some passion to be-

Ryan: This was a serious motivation because I was like, it’s not getting any easier.

Selena: It’s either break up or we get married. That’s kind of where it was because we just were playing with some fire and it was not good. We’re getting too close to get burned. [laughs].

Ryan: And so this brings into view a whole different line of questions, which is, okay, why is… culturally speaking, people are getting married in the late 20s and 30s. What is a Christian to do if that’s the mindset that we’re buying into?

Selena: Yeah. I mean-

Ryan: Never before in the history of humankind have people waited that long to get married.

Selena: So they just burned with passion for eight more years.

Ryan: I think it was far more common that… Yeah.

Selena: Right. They didn’t. Clearly.

Ryan: It’s far more common for… if you want to live a life that is… you know, before the face of God, you’re honoring the Lord, you are following what he’s commanded us to do… I mean, dating and waiting until you’re in your 30s is just a recipe for sin. It’s a recipe for having sexual history before you enter into your marriage.

This was a huge motivation for me as a young man, for you as a young lady. And it factored in. So yeah.

Selena: Huge motivation.

Ryan: Huge benefit. Huge motivation, especially for her. [Selena laughs] Another one, logistics. Think about-

Selena: What do you mean by logistics?

Ryan: I mean, if you go to college, you graduate college, you have to figure out life. So you’ve gotta get a job. You’ve gotta figure out where you’re gonna live. If you get a job outta your hometown, you’re not gonna live at home. So what are you gonna do? Get a roommate? Are you gonna rent a studio apartment by yourself? Logistics of living on your own is expensive-

Selena: Especially… yeah.

Ryan: And so if you’re living with your young bride and you know, you’re building a life together, theoretically, you can have, as you begin, two incomes. Now, obviously, if you become a mother sooner, then that’s gonna factor in. You’re not gonna want to work, you’re gonna wanna be home. So just logistically speaking, it’s a consideration.

The fourth one that we would add to this is benefits to extended family. Now, if you get married young-ish and you have children young-ish, you’re gonna give your parents grandchildren, which that’s awesome.

Selena: And it’s such a blessings. I mean, children are a blessing to their family, their parents as well. But to be able to spend as much time with their grandparents, possibly even their great-grandparents, to hear the stories, to be familiar with, you know, family backgrounds, it’s just a beautiful thing.

I feel like the longer we wait, you know, parents are dying off and there’s not that time that your kids get to have with them. You don’t get to experience them being grandparents and the blessings that come along with that. I used to be the person that was like, man, they got married so young and they’re already having kids. Ah, that totally came outta my mouth. Thinking back, I’m like, man, why did we wait so long? You know? Why were we so intentional about that? And I think it was unnecessary. I mean, looking back, I think we both were like, nah, it was unnecessary.

Ryan: Yeah. We definitely have learned and embraced some different lines of thinking that we didn’t have early on in our marriage.

Selena: Yes. God is gracious and sovereign in it all.

Ryan: Okay. So the elephant’s in the room here. So let’s talk about downsides of marrying young. Okay?

Selena: I don’t know if you’d call them downsides. I’d say just identifying the struggles with marrying young. Because downsides sounds like there’s a downside. And I don’t think there’s a downside.

Ryan: There’s potential pitfalls that maybe need to be avoided. One of them was, and you brought this up Selena, is that, yeah, we get married as wet cement, but do we actually allow each other to cure or to dry into something. So in other words, are we actually growing out of immature-

Selena: Being 20 and 21.

Ryan: …or is there a sense of arrested development that we stopped kind of developing because we never really become adults because we’re always perpetually immature with one another?

Selena: Right?

Ryan: Now, what that can look like is you maybe have unhealthy communication tendencies, you know, you never grow out of because you just build habits that don’t facilitate growth. Or you have maybe immature humor or you have immature ways of thinking about the world, immature ways of thinking about money, and perhaps immature ways of thinking about sex.

Selena: Right. Which is one of the reasons why we have the Fierce Marriage podcast. These are all things that I think we wish someone would’ve said to us or shown us on some levels. I mean, we did have a sense of these things, but looking back now, we’re like, man, I wish I would’ve had a book about this or I wish I would’ve had an influencer, a voice speaking to me kind of laying out those guideposts of here’s what you do when you’re doing this, here’s what you want do with this. Like, here’s the path we took. Here’s what we advise, here’s what we don’t advise. You know?

And so there’s just that we’ve been together for so long, did I allow you to grow up, did you allow me to grow up? Or “are we just like, why is he acting so blah, blah, blah? It’s not like him.” Well, maybe he’s trying to grow. Maybe she’s trying to grow.

Ryan: Or maybe you just stop pushing. As a couple you stopped pushing to move your life to the next phase.

Selena: Well, pushing, I mean, just doing the uncomfortable, I think is like-

Ryan: Sure.

Selena: Right?

Ryan: Yeah. Or you never stop… you never-

Selena: You stop looking ahead. You’re just kind of content with where you’re at. Not that contentment’s wrong. It’s a resignation of-

Ryan: But there is a real sense that I think we should have a godly ambition to move the ball, so to speak, in society, in our lives, in our generational spots that God has-

Selena: We should be growing. Absolutely.

Ryan: And so sometimes that can be the case. So what’s your way around it? Well, just open your eyes, look around, start having questions.

Selena: Start to read the Bible. [laughs]

Ryan: Yes, of course.

Selena: And go to church.

Ryan: But talk about these things and pray that the Lord would waken you from your slumber, so to speak.

Selena: Yes.

Ryan: Another potential pitfall here is, or I guess maybe a question is what if you make a mistake? You get married young. We’ve all heard this horror story. So someone who got married young, the shotgun wedding, they eloped in Vegas, and in hindsight they’re thinking, man, that was, that was a mistake. It was just kind of like an impulsive thing.

Selena: Right. which speaks to the weight of marriage. It speaks to the choice, the power of choice that you have, especially as a woman. Right? And so if you are not approaching it with some understanding of the weightiness of it, then I would say weight, you know? Because it’s not like it’s eating a chocolate candy bar or something. It’s like there’s a lot to be had. Not that you know everything going into it, but that’s where you… as young women, I hope that our daughters will come to us and they’ll trust us and we’ll be able to talk through some of these concerns that we might have and that they’ll be able to apply wisdom in their life as well.

Ryan: I think this one is a… it’s always a function of the people and what you said the understanding of the weightiness of covenants more than it is a function of marriage itself. And so when we say get married young, the big caveat is get married wisely young. Find a godly spouse, understand what marriage is, understand what covenant is. We talked about the kind horror story, got married young, didn’t realize who he was, who she was. Horrible mistake. Ruined my life. Yeah, that’s horrible. Right. You weren’t being wise.

Selena: But there’s also-

Ryan: There’s also the fo… I’ve heard couples where they’re like, yeah, you know, I met my husband a month before he deployed, so we got married, then he was gone for a year. Now we’ve been married 75 years and we’ve had this wonderful marriage. Marriages that struggle at a young age it’s a function of the people, not marriage itself.

Selena: Right. And I do think it’s the anomaly to… if you’re a wise Bible-believing Christian, it’s the anomaly to have married the wrong person impulsively, I think. That is not the norm. So we’ve also done a podcast on the myth of the soulmate. You know, that kind of plays into, you know, sifting through, am I marrying the right person or not? Well, like God has a lot to say about who you marry. And if you don’t know what He has to say, go read your Bible because it’s very clear, the foolish person, the wise person, how… you know, who has the heart of your future husband, or where is his attention drawn, where are your priorities and values?

I think that all those things can happen at a young age, and they can click and say, yep, that is the person. We were talking about this earlier. I asked you what you saw in me or what you… did you see our future together? Did you want me to be the mother of your children? Those kinds of things. And you said, no, no, not really.

Ryan: I didn’t say that. I said, I hadn’t envisioned it.

Selena: You hadn’t envisioned it.

Ryan: I do want that though. [laughs]

Selena: I know you wanted that. I should say that. You wanted it, but you didn’t envision it. Whereas me, I envisioned those things with him. I was like, I want him to be the father of my children. I know that he will take care of us because he works hard and he’s very smart. And I know that he loves me and I know that he loves the Lord first and foremost. Once that box was clicked, I was just like, yeah, the rest is gonna follow without a question. I think it’s just a personality thing.

Ryan: Well, I had no earthly appreciation for children as a teenage boy.

Selena: We didn’t. We never discussed how many children. We just were like, yeah, we’ll have kids. [laughs]

Ryan: You watched young kids. You did like the nanny thing.

Selena: I was camp counselor nanny.

Ryan: Camp counselor nanny.

Selena: Yes, did all the things.

Ryan: I was the youngest in my family. I was never around babies. I was never around young kids. I got the kids in theory were good but like… So I didn’t have like this framework within which to place our family and say, yes, I want that woman to be the mother of my children.

Selena: And we’ve grown in that. We’ve grown into understanding the framework and the value of that and hello, Fierce Parenting and like family worship and all those types of things. Like there’s… So anyways.

Ryan: The final, I guess pitfall would be the potential for familiarity in a bad way. When you get married young, you’re immature. Immaturity takes time to grow out of. And so if you are not patient with each other, as you’re growing out of your immaturities and you’re not mature enough yourself to see the big picture… big changes happen over tiny increments.

Selena: Good.

Ryan: And so if you forget that those tiny increments are happening, you’ll be embittered toward one another. You could grow contemptuous toward one another. You could be very impatient because your spouse is not growing up. Well, he’s only 24 years old. Like you’ve been married two years, he’s 24, he’s still maturing.

Selena: Right. And it’s not an excuse for enabling, you know, childish behavior.

Ryan: But he’s not the same man he’s gonna be when he’s 34.

Selena: Hopefully. Right?

Ryan: Hopefully, yeah.

Selena: Ideally, yes.

Ryan: Or when he’s 40

Selena: It feels like a parenting podcast right there. Because these are things we’ve been talking about right now. I’m like, we’re like, do we have too high of expectations of our five-year-old like cleaning the entire house? Talk about. no, I’m kidding. Of course, not. But there’s been some conversations like this. We’re not letting them develop and have that maturity.

Ryan: Yes.

Selena: You know, something’s stunting it.

Ryan: Or if he’s not able to provide the life that you want him to provide. Well, he hasn’t reached his income potential yet. If he’s a hard worker and he is wise, that will increase.

Selena: Well, and as a wife, I would say find some content and joy and gratefulness in the season that you’re in.

Ryan: Your happiness should not be contingent on what you have. It should be on the Lord and contentment and trusting Him. Other areas where this could be causing problems is even in your sexual maturity together. You think that when you’re young that your sex life is supposed to be this passionate-

Selena: It’s so funny.

Ryan: …spontaneous, always amazing-

Selena: I had no idea. You had visions for that I was like, I don’t know. It’s just gonna come with the territory. Like, that’s so funny [both laughs] the things that we both had envisions for.

Ryan: But young couples they fall into this where they think their sex life should mirror the most passionate visions of sex that they’ve conjured in their imaginations for one another. And you realize, wow, it’s actually pretty routine sometimes, pretty mundane, maybe not as spontaneous, maybe not as adventurous, maybe not whatever.

And so the encouragement to a young couple is you just wait, [laughs]. It truly is one of the best-improving aspects of marriage is your sex life, because you grow into it together. And this is why pornography is so insidious, because it’s always importing filth into your mind and into your marriage from filthy places.

Now, if you cut all that off, which every couple you shouldn’t… pornography should not be part of your life as an individual or as a couple. Cut it out and say, we are gonna just grow into our sex life together. And wherever that takes us, I’m along for the ride, baby. [laughs] And just begin to enjoy one another and wait 5 years, 10 years.

Selena: Well, just up Honey. [laughs]

Ryan: I’m telling you it’s great. It’ll only get better so long as you stay the course, you cut off the toxicity from outside and just enjoy one another and focus on loving each other and talking about it and talking through it. It’ll get better.

Selena: We’ve done many episodes on sex and intimacy. So go check those out.

Ryan: It’s what the people want.

Selena: It’s what the people want.

Ryan: Okay. So we’ve covered some reasons why getting married young is-

Selena: A blessing.

Ryan: …awesome and it’s a blessing and some things to look out for as you maybe head down that road. We pray this episode helped you. But we don’t like to end these episodes without a call to the gospel. If you don’t know who Jesus is, we want you to know Jesus. We want you to respond to the good news that He has offered salvation to anyone who places their faith in Him. That can be you, friend.

And so if you want to place your faith in Christ we wanna help you do that. Our first encouragement for you is to find a friend who is a Christian and say, help me become a follower of Christ. What does this mean?

Selena: Yeah, that’s good.

Ryan: Ideally along with that, you can start going to a church, that’s number two, that preaches out of the word. If you don’t have a friend or a church nearby that you know of, we have a website for you that could help. It’s thenewsisgood.com. And that will point you to a church finder but also show you a little bit more about what it means to follow Jesus.

Let’s pray. Lord God, we love You. Thank you for the gift of marriage. I pray that this episode would help people. I pray that young couples who are on the verge of marriage or considering marriage, I pray that you would give them a heart of wisdom, help teach ’em to count their days, that they might have a heart of wisdom. Lord, help them to trust you, help them to walk wisely with prudence and with diligence. Lord, I pray that you would bless them. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Selena: Amen.

Ryan: All right, thank you for joining us for the Fierce Marriage Podcast. If you want to become part of the Fierce Fellowship, go to fiercemarriage.com/partner. We would be honored. Other than that, this episode of Fierce Marriage is—

Selena: In the can.

Ryan: We’ll see you again in about seven days. Until next time—

Selena: Stay fierce.