OK! So, maybe your ideal of marriage included Shah Rukh Khan riding in on his white horse, who would then fight for your hand in marriage  (and win), and together you would run through fields of marigolds and fall deeply and madly in love and marital bliss forever after.

Ok maybe not.
But, Lord knows I did.

If you married young, you probably thought that was how marriage was going to be--all singing and dancing until you came to the crashing realization that it wasn’t anything like that at all. If you have married older, or (gasp!) never been married at all, maybe by now you've figured out more of what you want in a partner and marriage. When it comes to marriage, how is it that our perspectives change so much with time and years under our belt--and what is it, exactly, that changes? When do we make the shift from ideal to real, and why?

When women marry young, many idealize marriage, buying to the whole idea that after university, it is the next logical step in life; that marriage will bring together this perfect union of two souls. Well, many can tell you right now that that ideal is a huge let-down waiting to happen. Marriage is not like that at all. In fact, it requires more work and compromise than any other relationship you may ever have. According to Dr. Anita McLean, a clinical psychologist in New Jersey, “Marriage is the most important personal relationship in adult life. It absolutely requires a tremendous amount of work, but it also offers a tremendous amount of support, potential for growth, compatibility and companionship. It is something you have to continually work on so that it works for both people.”

“Marriage is not all roses and butterflies,” says 39-year old financial analyst Anjali Dilawri, who has been married for over 14 years. “It’s about companionship, compromise, and something so much better. I got married in my early twenties with this media-created idea of what my life was going to be like. At first, I was so disappointed when it didn’t turn out that way; my idealism was crushed. Over the years though, I learned that marriage is actually so much better than that! It’s about being with, growing with, suffering with, and loving someone in spite of everything.”

Marrying Young
When you marry young, you don’t know yourself too well--you may think you do, but just wait a few years. If you choose to enter into a marriage at a young age, then potentially, you and your spouse can grow up together. If you stick through the good and bad times (and inevitably, there will be bad times), you can become more united; you’ll have a past to share with someone who understands it because he/she went through it with you. However, at the same time, marrying young presents a unique set of circumstance where the both of you have to also grow as individuals while also growing together as a couple. You have to make a concerted effort to make sure you two don’t grow apart.

“There’s no right age to get married,” says Dr. McLean. “Marriage is a relationship that you should keep for the rest of your life. Both people need to be able to grow together in it. The right time to get married, perhaps, is when you feel that you are ready to make a commitment to work on a relationship, and that both people feel that what they can get from marriage is worth the investment they need to put into it.”

Dr. McLean further explains, “The two people in the marriage may want similar or different things, but both people need to feel that they can be themselves, and be able to grow and develop from this relationship. Questions they should ask themselves are: Will this relationship provide the stage to do better things in my life, and can I provide the support to help my partner do better things in his/her life?

“Some think that the people in a marriage need to want the same things out of life to be in a relationship, but this is not necessarily true. What they need is to want to have a relationship in which they can support each other, and be supported back.”

“I married older, but I’m young at heart,” explains 32-year old Oorbee Roy, textile designer and owner of Om home, who dated through her twenties and waited until her early thirties to get married. “For me, it was crucial that I grow up before I could open my heart and share my life with someone else. Funny story: My parents, worried that I may not find a husband, visited an astrologer in India who told them, ‘Until she’s figured things out for herself and accomplished certain successes in life, she won’t be ready to get married.’! And it was true!”