I’ve just been to look, and now that I am approaching my 30th birthday (as are my peers from school, of course) I see a pattern forming.
Most of the people I went to school with got married, or are getting married between the ages of 28 and 31. Many of the girls I knew are having their first babies in the year of their 30th birthdays. Some of them are having their second or third by now, but many are childless still.
I don’t fit the pattern at all!
I got married aged 22, seperated just before my 26th birthday and divorced just after my 28th…. I feel like I’ve experienced much in my short years.
Haven’t had any kids yet, but probably will in a few years time.
I am grateful for the fact that I have the choice how to live my life. People just two generations ago couldn’t do that so easily. How many people in their 80s and 90s now would have escaped from their husbands and wives if society had let them?
A lot more than we realise, I bet.
Still Spinning 
oh my! I ALSO got married at 22, seperated at 25 (still not divorced yet, but YOU try divorcing someone who won’t talk about the issue and is all the way over in Indonesia!) and am no nearer to having the cozy husband and kiddie set up.
But as you say, it is marvellous to have the freedom to be independent. I am sure many of my female ancestors were trapped in marriages and that they stayed together longer than do couple these days does not necssarily mean that marriages were any better, just fewer options.
speaking of trapped marriages, I nearly did end up trapped. It’s on my other blog at http://www.anotherblogger.wordpress.com. I dread to think what would have happened had I caved in and given up. over in Indonesia, the commonest response I got to a solution to n unhappy marriage was to first of all go back to my husband, b) make his life heavenly at home and respond to his every wish, including having his coffee ready before he’d even asked for it c) always be up before him and stay up for him (impossible, since he used to stay out until 4 am or so) d) sleep with him more (this was a laughable suggestion considering we were celibate and not by MY choosing – actually I know *I* was celibate, I rather doubt he was)
Wow Cookie, we have lots in common. My BastardEx wasn’t from another country, but another planet – he was mentally unstable. I nearly got trapped there too, if I hadn’t discovered he was having extra-marital activities with one of my closest friends……. And that was it. I discovered the affair just after I’d been discharged from hospital, when I was really ill and at rock bottom, but as they say, when you hit the bottom, the only way is up…..
And I’ve been moving up and up ever since.
Just don’t leave having teh baby too late (he adds bitterly)
another planet, *chortle*. I can imagine.
I was still single and enjoying myself when a very good friend of mine had emigrated and been married and divorced twice. I feel that I’ve made up for it since though. Some things just shouldn’t be rushed.