Young love is both exciting and complicated.
Emotions are high and everything in life for a teenager is high stakes. That’s why there are a plethora of TV dramas that take place in high school. Young love simply makes for good television.
But how much of that angsty teenage passion actually translate into real life?
Redditor brorealitycheck is a 30-year-old married woman who had some news to break to her 19-year-old brother who is dating a girl the same age.
The resulting real-life drama led her to the “Am I the A**hole” (AITA) subReddit, where she asked:
“AITA for telling my brother the reality of getting married young?”
The Original Poster (OP) promised to “keep it short.”
“My brother is 19 as is his girlfriend. The two are currently engaged. She wants a quick wedding and he asked me for advice.”
“I (30F) got married at 18. My husband and I are still together so I assumed my brother thought we were perfect to ask.”
“My brother asked me what getting married so young was like as he assumed everything would be exactly the same as it is now except he’d be married. I told him no, everything changes.”
“I basically told him that being married no matter your age is hard and even more so when you’re young. Every decision you make isn’t just about you, but also your spouse.”
“You combine more things such as money and you sacrifice a lot so you can reach a comfortable compromise.”
“I said yeah, there are a lot of positives but being married is a lot different than being engaged or just dating. I said he needed to be prepared as it was a life commitment and to only do it if you really think you can make it work.”
“I guess he wasn’t expecting my brutal honesty as all of a sudden, the idea of him and his fiancée getting married was shot down by him.”
“Now, I’ve got my parents and her family telling me how much of an AH I am because I’m preventing them from doing what they wanna do.”
Strangers on the internet were asked to declare one of the following:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH – No A**holes Here
Most Redditors sided with the OP as NTA and shared their own anecdotes on the relatable topic.
“NTA – Anyone who can be talked out of marriage in a couple of conversations about the realities of commitment and responsibility should NOT be getting married.” – HowardProject
“Yea, I was gonna say. What OP wrote in the post isn’t even bad. If they’re engaged, ideally they should already be thinking of themselves as a unit and making decisions for the good of both people.” – jkjwysa
“Yea a lot of this struggle she’s describing is basically just growing up. He’s barely out of highschool and teenagers are notoriously self absorbed.”
“And they have the freedom to be because they basically live in a bubble. When you become responsible for your own life everything becomes more complicated.”
“I don’t think marriage is so different from being engaged or dating if you’re both already adults that understand how to have an adult relationship.”
“But lets be honest, 19 year olds are still figuring out how to manage basic peer relationships like having a roommate, and marriage has a far higher bar for cooperation than that.” – placeholder737
“Agreed totally. But brother needs to learn some discretion. If he doesn’t want to get married that’s fine, but throwing his sister under the bus as the reason why is lame.”
“People need to take responsibility for their own choices. It doesn’t matter if OP influenced him or not, he still made the decision on his own and there was no gun put to his head.”
“He also should know better than to say ‘well, sis was telling me all the bad things so I reconsidered’, like….really? You couldn’t have just said ‘I’ve realized I’m not ready to make this commitment at my age’ and leave the sister out of it so she doesn’t have a bunch of phone calls from nosy family?” – Icy_Obligation
“NTA. He asked and you delivered. Getting married at that age is something that shouldn’t be rushed into and it’s good you told him straight.”
“It sounds like if that’s the parents reaction, they expected your brother and his girlfriend to rush into a marriage he clearly doesn’t want me isn’t ready for.” – scottishgirlsymphony
“Yeah I’m really wondering why the parents are so keen for their kids to be married so young!! Definitely NTA you were honest and gave balanced advice it sounds like he had a romanticised idea of marriage and you gave him some much needed clarity” – ComparisonSuper9492
“’Three daughters married! Oh Mr. Bennett, God has been very good to us!’ -Mrs. Bennett (Pride and Prejudice) and OP’s parents probably.”
“NTA. Getting married is a two yeses one no scenario – and OP’s younger brother can change his yes to no at any time based on how he feels about it! OP gave him her opinion, but she didn’t remove his agency to make his own decision.” – aSeaPersonByNight
Some of our Athiest Redditors disagreed when a Redditor mentioned religious reasons could have caused the parents’ resentment towards the OP for preventing the wedding.
“I would say that’s humans not necessarily religion, and this is coming from an atheist.” – cynicaldoubtfultired
“Also an athiest, it’s unfair to give religion a pass just because people are also often bad. Religions have been a very powerful force to motivate people to do evil (crusades, terrorist attacks…) and to live in ways that cause pain to themselves and others.” – psswrdistaco
“Aside from the straight ‘zOMG living in sin!!!’ flavor; I read an interesting hypothesis(can’t place the source now I’m afraid, if anyone can find it I’d love to know, not deliberately non-citing) concerning the differences in style between conservative and liberal approaches(in broad strokes, obviously) when it comes to family formation:”
“There is the ‘families make adults’ position which essentially posits that having responsibility thrust upon you is what makes you grow up and take said responsibility; which, by implication(sometimes explicitly stated, sometimes more felt than understood), makes holders of this view judge people who ‘avoid responsibility’ as childish and irresponsible.”
“Then there is the ‘adults make families’ position; which is that major responsibilities, like family formation, are something that you ought to do your best to only walk into prepared; and that ‘avoiding responsibility’ until such time as you are prepared for it is the responsible and mature thing to do; while doing things that put you at serious risk of incurring responsibilities you aren’t already prepared for is the irresponsible and childish thing to do.”
“This situation sounds like a clash between proponents of the two styles: the parents on both sides appear to want the prospective couple to rush in to a stiff hit of responsibility, eyes more or less shut, on the theory that it will make adults out of them; while they(the brother at least, OP doesn’t give us direct access to girlfriend’s perspective) appears interested in better understanding the responsibility involved so he can decide whether or not he’s ready to take it on rather than being forced to step up or sink by surprise.” – fuzzyfuzzyfungus
Overall, Redditors said the OP was NTA and agreed that getting married at a young age is not an ideal scenario.
Since the conversation, the OP said her brother “has been completely fine. He hasn’t really been talking about it though.”
“I said to him it is obviously entirely his decision to get married but it is not a decision to be made lightly.”