I got married at 18 and just divorced my wife at 21. We knew each other for about a year in foster care before getting married.
As someone with no family or resources, I just needed to know I had some support. I was a major hoe before getting married, but that was just so lonely having a different chick over every other night. As someone who's also worked for everything in my life since 15, I just couldn't do everything every day with no support.
This is the basic thought process behind me getting married at 18.
Unfortunately, I didn't realize that 3 years down the road, I would still be doing everything with no support. I've gotten my wife 3 jobs, and she's left them all within a week. I spent my entire life savings on her within 1 year of marriage due to the lifestyle she wants to live to be (kind of) happy.
I pretty much do all of the housework after work because I've grown tired of fighting with her to do stuff just for her to half ass it. Then, after being busy with our responsibilities all day, I get told basically she's hurt because I didn't meet her expectations (small stuff like not initiating I love you in the same hour she initiated it 20+ times which I responded to all of.)
There's been pros, but I just learned they don't outweigh the cons.
New hard standards learned from first marriage:
Has a job (or has held a job) emotionally intelligent, self-aware, reasonable, has grit, aligned values, success driven, compassionate
Side question: What do you guys feel about these new hard standards? Do they seem reasonable?