Almost exactly four years ago, my fiancé walked out on me and I haven't seen him since. To say this broken engagement rocked my world would minimize the destruction it caused not just to my daily life, but to my overall perspective on relationships. I'm someone who has wanted to be married since I was old enough to understand the concept—likely due to some combination of my parents' wonderful partnership (a rare thing, I know) and the sense of loneliness that often comes with growing up mentally ill. When I got engaged at 30, I felt I was finally safe. I would no longer have to be alone because we had made a public commitment to each other. And people have an obligation to honor their commitments, right?
How naïve I was. In fact, marriage is increasingly seen as something to opt in and out of—whether you're in one already or not. And these days, the choice for young people largely seems to be: opt out. The average age that adults are getting married in the United States has significantly increased since the 1950s, with marriage rates in general on the decline. Meanwhile, Pew Research Center found that in 2021, a record 25 percent of 40-year-olds had never been married, up from just 6 percent in 1980. These stats suggest a growing number of young adults in their 20s and 30s are delaying or forgoing marriage altogether. |
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