Waiting for Marriage

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I just heard about some new research that asks why millennials are waiting to get married. The reasons seem to be that the younger generation is less religious, facing a tough economy, the high cost of weddings, and fears of joining finances with another.

Please allow this 60 year-old to add her two cents on this issue.

I believe waiting to get married or choosing not to marry are brilliant choices for all. The reasons we marry are fascinating to me. The timing of both of my marriages had something to do with my need for health insurance. I do not recommend that way of making decisions, although it can tend to be a major factor.

The most important part of the decision is why you want to get married. Religion, a tough economy, the high cost of weddings and fears of joining finances were not a part of my decision to marry my new husband Mike at age 50.

We had already worked out religious questions, our finances were good, our wedding costs were very low, and we had already joined our finances by the time we married.

I knew I had the kind of person I had been looking for my whole life. Unfortunately it took most of my life to find him and know what I had. Marriage was in the end a solid financial decision.

I had recently been through a long process of figuring out how I really felt about love and what that meant to me. In that process I decided that finding genuine love was my only goal at age 49. And if that was true I had to find a way to believe in love again.

Now I know believing in love is your first step towards finding true love. The next step is deciding love is your highest priority. What you focus on does grow! Marriage is not the issue.

Do the necessary work on yourself, trust your intuition and heart, and then love will take care of itself!

Laura Lee Carter, MA Counseling Psychology, the writer behind the popular online blog How to Believe in Love Again, has been helping others turn midlife difficulties into opportunities for personal change since 2007. Besides working as a psychotherapist, Laura Lee has authored a number of books and e-books on midlife transformation.  Don’t miss her new book: Find Your Reason to Be Here: The Search for Meaning in Midlife. Follow her on Twitter: @midlifequeen.