Advantages:
- You have enough time for self-discovery
It’s important to know the ‘self’ before deciding to share your life with someone else. It gives one time to introspect and understand what one is. By delaying the marriage age, women can now explore what they want, what their dreams and aspirations are, and what goals they want to achieve. They understand how many kids they want or what kind of a life they envision, one with or without in-laws! Knowing yourself leads to having a good sense of what one is looking for in a relationship!
- You get time to grow and change
With age, our perspectives change, we mature and start seeing shades of grey rather than white and black. We understand why people do what they do and have in one sense more tolerance. As we move through the years our likes and dislikes change too. We may be impulsive at 20, but learn and control our actions by 25. We may question everything our parents tell us at 19 but understand their reason behind it at 27. Our personality grows and we become more patient and understanding which helps us make better decisions as we cruise along with life. The 20s bring many firsts, the 30s brings a new kind of confidence and assurance based on all that you’ve learned throughout the 20s.
- You can enjoy personal freedom for a longer time
With marriage comes a truck-load of responsibilities, but if you take your time to go down that road, you get enough time to live life on your terms and do the things without looking for validation from your spouse and in-laws and be able to explore life just the way you like it. Time for personal hobbies, trips with women friends add memories for life.
One of the major side effects of late marriage is that you truly get to focus on you. Kylie was 33 before she got married, and she’s thankful for it. “I spent my 20s working, travelling, dating, and really figuring out who I was and what kind of life and life-partner I wanted. By the time I took the marital leap, I was confident and clear,” she says.
- You get wiser and find maturity
As we age, we get to have more experience in life, and with that comes wisdom and maturity. One of the most beneficial effects of late marriage is that when you do decide to tie the knot you become more capable of a successful marriage since you have matured enough.
- You become surer of what kind of a life partner is right for you
With that wisdom and maturity, you build a clearer idea about what kind of life partner is most suitable for you now that you have had enough action in the dating zone. Do both of you like adventure sports? Does the ambition level match? Are you both okay with working full time? Are you both outdoorsy or indoorsy people? It greatly reduces your chance of marrying the wrong person for the wrong reason.
- You find financial security
If you’re contemplating the financial advantages and disadvantages of late marriage, consider this. For millennials especially, finances have been tough, making it harder to buy a home or make investments in a stable future. Now that you are financially independent and live life on your terms, you can pay off that educational loan, invest in a car or house, and make investments for your future without thinking of how your new family might look at it. By marrying late, you find enough financial security for your future.
- You can pay undivided attention to your parents
Even though you have your heart in the right place, after marriage your attention gets divided between your parents and your in-laws. But as one of the most significant effects of late marriage, you can have more time to look after your parent’s happiness and their future security. Why is marrying late an advantage? You get more quality time with your parents and your family, the people who shaped you the most.
- You will be more appreciative of marriage
If you have enjoyed your time as a single girl and had the most fun time, you will no longer feel like you have missed out on anything, as and when you do decide to get married. You could give yourself enough time to take the plunge. Annie says that she had loads of experience living as a single in a world designed for couples. Sometimes it was annoying to be the one to show up at weddings without a plus one especially when others were slow-dancing with their partners!
Disadvantages
- You find it difficult to make adjustments
An advantage of marriage at an appropriate age, if there is such a thing, is that it’s easier to adjust to another person when you’re younger. Now that you have been single and self-dependent for a long time, you find it difficult to adjust after marriage to another person’s needs and likings. It becomes impossible to adjust to someone else because you have been living on your own for too long now.
- You are no longer as zealous as you were in your youth
In general, with age, our zeal and enthusiasm fade. If we look at the pros and cons, it’s important to spend your youth with the utmost freedom, but marriage also needs a lot of crazy enthusiasm to build its foundation as happy and strong. Most people in late marriages have had all the fun earlier and are now too busy to care for their spouses and make their marriage strong from the beginning. This is one of the side effects of late marriage that you’ll need to work on.
- You start giving too much priority to finances
Finances are always important, but if you decide to marry too late, it means you have been taking care of your finances for a long time now; in such a case most often money matters take precedence over a lot of things and your married life takes a back seat. So, again, if the financial advantages and disadvantages of late marriage are on your mind, think about this point long and hard. Money is great and much needed, but so is connection.
- You don’t have enough time to spend together
Now that you are overly focused on your career, it becomes hard to shift career lines and find enough time to spend with your spouse. You have deadlines to meet, meetings to attend, and are pretty much busy leaving you with very little or no quality time with kids.
- You have to rush for kids
One of the major late marriage problems women face is about rushing into the ‘kids discussion’ soon after the marriage. Babies are one of the most discussed concerns of delayed marriages and it’s impossible to ignore the topic.
Many people will suggest you not to wait and have the baby as soon as possible, leaving you with little time to enjoy the ‘just married’ phase. Another issue could be the possibility of dying off while your kid is too young to be independent. An advantage of marriage at the appropriate age is that you can enjoy some time with your spouse before having kids. You’re also physically healthier and more able to run around after little ones than you would be in your 30s and 40s.
- You might face complications while conceiving
Even though science now allows for various methods of conception, if you want to go for it in the all-natural method, some complications could arise. Women who marry late panic often fret about having children. Their anxiety can also delay achieving pregnancy. Plus it’s more likely to cause genetic problems in the kids once you are over your prime biological time for conception. However, both of you may decide to be childfree too and there are benefits to that too.
- Your sexual activity is compromised
As a result of the diminishing zeal and enthusiasm and pressure of balancing your life, your sexual activity also often gets compromised. Imbalanced sexual zeal among the two partners could lead to issues in the marriage. However, there are many ways you can spice up your life though.
- You start questioning yourself
When you look at your friends from school and college with kids of school-going age you start feeling strange about your life-choices. You are also the odd single out who everyone is wary of. In our culture being married means normal and hence the looks you get from relatives which are annoying and start influencing the way you see yourself. There are harsh truths to singles living of women who are in their 30s.
