Your 20s are for enjoyment, traveling, making errors and dating all the wrong individuals, right?
Well, apparently not.
According to psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb you need to consider settling down.
LA-based Lori recently appeared on Steven Bartlett’s The Diary of a CEO podcast, where they discussed the ideal age to marry if you want to avoid divorce (which, let’s face it, is kind of the idea).
Referring to research by The Institute for Family Studies, Steven said: ‘Someone who marries at 25 is over 50% less likely to get divorced than someone who weds at age 20.’
Explaining the findings, Lori said: ‘It’s clear about marrying too young, that you don’t have the skills and you’re not established in your own life, you don’t necessarily have the maturity.’
But it’s bad news for people in their 30s too. It turns out that, after turning 32, the odds of divorce increase by five percent each year.
‘As you get older you are more set in your ways, you are more rigid, you have different expectations, when you are younger you are more flexible,’ said Lori.
‘We get less open minded as we get older around relationships.
‘We also have a history as we get older, we have more negative experiences of maybe been broken up with. Relationships that didn’t work out then inform the way that we behave in other relationships.’
The 2015 study appears to indicate then that we only have a relatively small window, from 25 to 32, to secure that special someone.
Lori said your mid to late 20s are an ‘optimal time’ to pair up because ‘you have a better sense of who you are, you know more of what you want and you can grow together as a couple.
‘You are going to have more shared experiences and you are going to know more about each other. Your parents are probably still alive on each side, you can get to know siblings, more integrated into each other’s lives.’
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