34 years of marriage for me, 2 (grown) kids.
When we married, we were both 23. Though I didn’t think so at the time, that’s really young. We did, however, have enough sense to recognize that neither of us would remain frozen in time; we and our circumstances would shift and grow and adapt in ways impossible to foresee. No illusions there.
So our marriage wasn’t a way of saying, “I agree to love this person here forever” , because “that person there” was really just a moment in time. We committed instead to honor the unknown forward trajectory of each of us, to do our best to accept and find the beauty in whatever we were to become.
The kid-raising years can be tough on couples. Study after study has found that most couples are markedly happier once the kids are gone.