Older DS got married too young. And I told him then that a lot would change for both of them in the next few years because of them growing and maturing. It did and the marriage fell apart. He is now married to a wonderful woman and they have a 3 year old. He is 35 now and they married when he was 32. Younger ds waited until he was 24 and I thought, at the time, they would last. They both seemed ready and they were best friends. Sadly they were only together about 5 years. He is now in a serious relationship with a great girl but doesn't say anything about marriage. But I don't know how much of their experiences has to do with their ages at the time and how much with them and the people they picked.
Now we have dd. She will soon be 19. Her bf is 23. And they are very happy. But they are getting very serious. The thing is they have been together for a short time. They met in January. Started dating in March. I know they have talked about marriage but I am not sure how seriously. They started this relationship being determined to "take things slow" and really get to know each other while still in the "talking" stage. But things sped up somewhere a long the way.
There is a lot going on in her life besides him. She just finished her freshman year of college. She has one more year at the community college. Right now she is taking online classes to get certified as a personal trainer and hopes to be working at a gym in the next year. She is traveling around with her brother for indy wrestling and loving it. She is training and they have some big hopes for her. She is looking at getting some great opportunities in that as there are several folks keeping up with her training and when she will be ready.
When they first really started showing signs of being that serious, we talked to her and she said "no I am not getting married any time soon. I have too much going on". But he has been gone for work for about 3 weeks and will be gone another 2. Her comments about it have changed (when noticing another friend on FB getting married. Not us really talking about her and him). I am hoping once he gets back that she will go back to it being a "long time". I am planning to have a conversation with her about it, but I don't want to approach it like I am demanding she do anything. Like pp said, its not really our choice. I just want her to think before she leaps, ya know?
Don't get me wrong, he is a great guy. If I was going to pick a guy for her, it would be someone like him or at least what I know of him. He is polite and always the gentleman. He lives to make her smile and just adores her. He treats her with the utmost respect and expects everyone else to. He has a great job and is financially responsible (except for wanting to spend money on her!) They truly enjoy spending time together and seem to have a lot of fun. But he is by no means perfect. I have to be careful how I word things to her as she tells him EVERYTHING and I have already offended him once. I do plan to tell him that she loves him so we accept him, that is just the way it works for us (if we have any complaining to do about him, we will do it in private, not with dd lol).