Do you think people that get married earlier in life is because...

It's complicated of course! You might want to also say that people who have fear of commitment and other issues will resort to porn.
It's not just one thing, it's interrelated and interconnected.

Someone I know once told me that to get married you need to be 3 things: young, stupid and horny
I am not bashing marriage or anything, it's a shame most of us have been deprived of true natural relationships, and with that I include most married men, because their relationships are not the old school natural ones either.

So, yes, in short, if you are younger, you tend to overlook a lot of the faults and things that could go wrong and it's more likely you will get married a lot easier. As you get older, you start to see everything that can go wrong, additionally your personality is far more developed and unique which makes it harder to make a match.

 

Some people who get married young get divorced young. Or get used to hanging on to a bad relationship. But then, some people who get married young learn the value of commitment and loyalty, and sticking with it even when it's tough. The sole data point "married young" isn't enough to evaluate much of anything.

I married young, at least for modern times. I was 28. She was the only girlfriend I'd ever had, and we'd known one another since we were in high school, though I didn't shift out of her friend zone until I was 18 and enlisted in the Army. She was a known quantity, safe. She was also traumatized by a really weird and abusive upbringing, and it turns out I am "neural atypical*" from a family of "neural atypical" people, and a host of coping mechanisms, some of which turned out to be solid management skills and other which are all messed up. We probably shouldn't be together, if you asked experts, and our continued relationship defies statistical odds, but it's been fourteen years and we have five kids, and I'd say we've spent more time miserable than most would consider healthy but I'm on meds and have a good grasp on recovery, and she's got a better job and we're mostly happy today. I know of other couples who deal with neural atypicality and/or psychological trauma and have solid relationships, and I know statistics say most don't, and there are people who get married early and people who don't and it's all mixed results. Statistics and trends and "what usually happens" are fine for sociologists, for social engineers. You are a person. An individual. Statistically speaking, you are probably an outlier in some respect. That's ironic. That also means you can't use statistics and what usually happens to make accurate assessments and predictions about who you are and why and what you'll need to do to make life happen the way you want six days from now, let alone six weeks or years.

Watch me use what usually happens to give you advice on what you should do six days from now.

Porn, for a lot of people on this forum, is associated with arrested development. I'm one of them. My marriage is better without porn, and it doesn't matter if she knows if I'm using or not. I am better without porn. Said porn is also often associated with anxiety. Whether you acknowledge porn is entirely fictional and has nothing to do with real relationships or even real sex or real desire or not, it does establish and reinforce unrealistic expectations. These expectations apply to both yourself and your potential partners. You come away from it thinking a certain thing is what you should be, and you're not good enough and you think she should be reacting a certain way and she's not so you must be doing it wrong, so again, you're not good enough. And at the same time she doesn't look and act like a porn star, so maybe she's the problem and she's not good enough, so porn simultaneously promotes anxiety and a poor attitude toward potential mates, neither of which is going to help you be successful in securing one. Were I in your position, getting older and having never dated and thinking maybe I should start, the first thing I'd do is quit porn.
You're already in that process. Good job! You are acknowledging and facing your problems, that's something to feel confident about.
Next, I'd recognize and remind myself of what I said above; porn enforces a concept of sex, women (mostly in a sexual/romantic context, but that reaches further), and relationships, that is totally unrealistic. Since your only experience of these things is through porn, and pop culture which is essentially soft core porn, were I in your position I'd acknowledge my own naivete. Then I'd look to address it. I'd talk to and date as many women as I could, not with the expectation or even distant hope of getting laid. You're at stage 1, have a conversation, sex is like, stage 26. A lot of things have to go a certain way to even look at stage 26 as a possibility (these are numbers I'm pulling at random, I don't have a comprehensive system for classifying stages of a relationship), and honestly, you shouldn't be trying to get to stage 26 with every single woman you find physically attractive. And by the way, you should probably talk to women you don't find all that physically attractive because it turns out one of the unrealistic expectations of porn is that all value is found in appearance. If you keep porn out and experience real life more, I would not be surprised to learn you find physical attraction significantly alters the more you learn about people as a whole. So, talk to women and ask them if they want to continue the conversation, over coffee or beer or lunch or dinner. And since I'd be anticipating a lot of conversations, I'd look for free alternatives to that lunch or dinner option because that's like, stage 8, but maybe you need to drop expectations even lower and practice starting a conversation, and not being weird so they want to continue a conversation.

But I'm just one guy and, as you can tell, I have a specific, limited experience about these things so for me it's sheer speculation. You have to make your own way. But this I guarantee; navel gazing for regret is useless, doing it to understand where it all went wrong has it's place, but progress happens when you're realistic about where you are, who you want to be, and what you're going to do to change it. Don't get caught in the cycle of blaming and feeling sorry for yourself, because that misery actually feels good in it's own twisted way, but it won't help you out of your hole and change your circumstances to something you'll genuinely enjoy.

*neural atypical is the PC term for "crazy"

 

You are desirable to someone out there, bro. If it makes you feel better, know that I'm 33 and I've never been married. Recently, my cousin got married and he's a few years younger than me. There's more to life than sex and marriage.

 

The idea of getting married never really appealed to me. I always thought it better to live a more "interesting" life.
Although that can get you into trouble.

If from the time you were a small boy all you ever wanted to do was be a father, raise a family etc then yes it makes sense to get married at a younger age. I think it's mostly very religious people that get married at a younger age. They just want an excuse to be able to screw lol

 

Life can be plenty interesting, and better, with a friend and a battle buddy at your side. That said, you want to ensure your values are aligned. If you don't want kids, you need to find someone who also doesn't want kids and if you're male het, your need to be really sure she doesn't want kids. Like, she's militant about it, or medically cannot. Having kids is something women are prone to changing their minds about because fomo and the biological clock are very real. That will substantially limit your field, but honestly, if you are serious about finding a mate with similar values, your field will always be more limited than most people appreciate.

True, but there's something about getting married that elevates the man as well. Unattached, you're free to be a manchild. Whether you use that freedom to play D&D and eat cheetos and Dr. Pepper in your mom's basement, or to go parasailing in Ibiza or ice climbing in the Himalayas, or whatever you find interesting, you're still leading a low stakes, self centered life. Getting married, even if you aren't the primary resource procurement source, means you are responsible for and accountable to someone, and that changes a man. It forces him to be a man.

There are other ways. You can join the military, lead an interesting life unselfishly and be accountable. In fact, I wouldn't recommend being married and in the military. The military always comes first, and unless she knows what she's signing up for, she'll get resentful very quickly. And if she does know what she's signing up for... I'm not sure I'd want to be with a woman who is comfortable with staying in a post/base environment during my extended absence, if you know what I mean. She'd have to be special and extremely trustworthy, which to be fair, any woman I'd marry would have to be. And she is. But she wouldn't have stood for my staying in the military, either.
And then there are various pursuits that are neither martial or matrimonial that still require selflessness. I believe young men would be more satisfied with themselves if they had a challenge, and some measure of discipline and accountability. That's just how I think most of us are wired, it's the best way for us to thrive, and make something worthwhile out of ourselves.

Now that's true. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Keeping potentially reproductive activities inside a marriage relationship is a sexual ethic designed to protect children, primarily through keeping them from existing in a sub-optimal environment. Since protection is a traditionally masculine trait, and a worthy pursuit regardless of traditional gender roles, it's an acceptable practice to refrain from sex until marriage or at minimum, a committed long term relationship. On the other hand, that requires discipline and a level of sacrifice many men (or women) do not find acceptable and/or practical. Yes, hormone therapy and condoms are effective, but only when you use them correctly and even then they aren't perfect. Early marriage becomes an attractive solution to a lot of problems. One, it requires the active parties to step up and mature faster. Two, it enables the parties to enjoy sex without the ethical risk of creating an entire new person without having the resources to properly care for him/her/it. And as an added bonus, combining incomes is a smart financial move. You sacrifice freedom in how you spend that money, but a partner can curtail your impulses, and when you agree on where to spend your resources, you have more to invest. I'm thinking of living spaces, vacation opportunities, etc.

Of course, an excellent argument could be made for waiting as a man, figuring out your direction and what you want before rushing into a locked lifestyle, and establishing your career. Companies like workers who can stay late, come in early, and be flexible with their time. You might have opportunities as a single man that you wouldn't if you were accountable to a partner at home, opportunities that could set you up to be more available and better provide in the future. Basically, I don't care what you do, as long as it's intentional and you have a plan to build a meaningful life.

Honestly, I don't care if you don't either. It's just, I think you, we, would be more content with ourselves if we did.

 

I think there is some truth to your post… but more along the lines of certain people maybe just more naturally desire relationships, so they spend more time seeking one out. Could also be due to upbringing as a child, maybe the child was exposed to more positive emotions regarding marriage/relationships and felt good about these and sought after them himself/herself.

I know for myself my parents, who are now divorced, they didn’t show much affection towards each other, and my dad is a little bit cold-hearted and my mom is a little bit fake of a person. So I don’t think I was exposed to much genuine love between a married couple as a child. My parents were great to my brother and I though

And I have been the type to not have relationships, or to have a dysfunctional view/experience with relationships. Could be due to childhood experiences, or maybe just biologically wired this way, not sure

 

I wouldn’t be rushing to get married anytime soon as a Man now in modern times, especially with the laws heavily biased against men and women are totally incentivized by the government to break the contract. Until the laws change, saying no to marriage as a man is the most rational decision.

 

Many get married due to societal pressure, we've been conditioned into thinking that it's something you have to do and if not, you're not doing life right. You can have a loving relationship without getting into bed with the government, in many cases it's far less messier. I don't see why a ceremony and a document is needed to validate the love between two people but if that's something you wish for then that's great, we should all do what we feel is the best for us, not for other people.

 

I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had married in my 20s. I expect I'd be divorced by now if I had. I've changed quite a lot since then and I don't think the women I liked in my 20s would have coped with my changes. I was in a relationship in my late 20s when I was questioning my beliefs and I shared some of my thoughts with my girlfriend at the time, she got a bit freaked out and told me I was thinking too deeply. When I lost my faith I lost my desire to get married. I don't really understand why people who aren't religious get married since you can cohabit or have a civil partnership.

 

I'm here and trying to fight PMO. I started dating my wife when were sixteen. Were now 26. PMO has at times hurt our relationship. And I believe that being long distance in college helped my habit develop. But at no time do i think that it made me scared of commitment. In fact, its my commitment to my wife that makes me want to shed this habit.

 

I hope that isn't the only reason you're doing it.

 

Are you telling me that working towards being more faithful to my wife is poor reason? All the talk here about super powers etc. is all ridiculous

 

No, I'm not. I just think it's a bad idea for it to be the main reason. I think we should get clean for our own sake. I mean sometimes relationships fail so what will happen to our recovery if it all depends on a relationship?