A couple married later in life to focus on their careers and finances

• In my 20s, I was focused on success, finances, and becoming emotionally ready for a relationship.
• I married my husband when I was 30 and my husband was 44.
• I’m glad we waited to get married because it taught us humility and how to connect.

My husband and I could be called peculiar, although we prefer idealists. We had big dreams about our future partners, which meant that we each needed a lot of patience as we searched for the right person.

When we got married, I was 33 and my husband was 44. It was our first marriage. We hit the milestone much later than most of our peers, and while none of us planned for the delay, it worked in our favor.

The wait wasn’t easy, but it gave us time to grow individually, shaping our commitment to each other. My husband was 14 years older than the national marriage average and I was five over, but neither of us shortened our timelines.

Waiting helped us gain clarity and experience

Modern factors greatly influenced our decision to call off the wedding. With the higher cost of living and today’s pressure to define success, it took a while for both of us to settle down and feel financially and emotionally ready to bring a partner into our lives.

Among Americans, 30 is the average age for men and 28 for women to get married, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. We have surpassed those ages as we actively search, use dating apps, and meet people through friends or in person. But nothing felt right in those years.

Of course, there were plenty of moments of discouragement along the way and we wondered if there was something wrong with us as the friendships settled.

But we wanted the kind of relationship we could see lasting a lifetime before making promises we couldn’t take back. I wanted a devoted, emotionally mature partner who would weather the storms of life with me.

In retrospect, waiting prepared us both to be even more committed. We experienced the dating pool and knew what we wanted. We gained patience and perspective from our disappointments. We lived full lives before we combined ours. I completed a degree later in my 30s and we both lived abroad, explored careers and traveled. We have settled our careers and finances. We have become more confident as individual adults.

My husband recently told me that experiencing life and facing different challenges helped him to have the confidence to commit.

Getting married later in life taught us humility

Humility plays an important role in our marriage. For us, humility is the willingness to value a person with different opinions and try to understand their perspective. This helps us connect better as a married couple. We can only do this because we waited until we were older to commit.

I believe age breeds wisdom and wisdom breeds humility. Disagreements are bound to arise. Our marriage wouldn’t work without us learning to be honest about our mistakes and communicate when we disagree. This took time and individual growth before we met.

There is no set timetable for being ready. We don’t understand things perfectly, but I know we are doing much better than if we had met 10 years earlier because we are both humbler people now.

Not that older marriage is without its challenges. Friends celebrate 10 or 20 years, while we just celebrated three. Having children is also a much bigger question mark when age is a factor. Upon marriage, we realized how set we were in our habits and lifestyles, making integration a struggle.

But the adage that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks proved false for us. We both adjusted drastically to make room for each other because of our love. And all this I owe to our humility.

Getting married later may not be ideal, but it worked for us and we don’t regret taking our time. As a little girl playing house, I remember repeatedly saying that I didn’t want to get married until I was at least 30 years old. I’m so glad the little girl got her wish.