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in your first ten years of work. More than half of us are married, or dating or living with our future partner, by age thirty.
during the twentysomething years with 80 percent of life’s most defining moments taking place by age thirty-five.
You are somewhere in your defining decade.
supposed to be having the time of her life, but mostly she felt stressed and anxious. “My twenties are paralyzing,” she said. “No one told me it would be this hard.”
“Thirty is the new
“The unlived life is not worth examining.”
It seemed unfair to talk about her weekends when it was her weekdays that made her so unhappy.
It wasn’t too late for Kate, but she did need to get going. By the time Kate’s therapy ended, she had her own apartment, a driver’s license, a boyfriend with some potential, and a job as a fund-raiser for a nonprofit. Even
media may make the twenties look overwhelmingly, well, social, but with all the comings and goings related to instability at work, research suggests that our twenties are one of the loneliest times of life.
forty is definitely not the new thirty.
We think that by avoiding decisions now, we keep all of our options open for later. But not making choices is a choice all the same.
“What was I doing? What was I thinking?”
a developmental sweet spot that comes only once.
“the Starbucks phase”
After our twenties, families and mortgages start to get in the way of higher degrees and bold moves, and salaries rise more slowly.
and more but, on average, salaries peak—and plateau—in our forties.
The only way to figure out what to do is to do—something.
New jobs, new information, new apartments, new opportunities, new ideas, and even new people to date almost always come from outside the inner circle. That’s because weak ties know things and people that we don’t know.
I did about the same when I was getting going on The Defining Decade. I didn’t ask my colleague how to write a book proposal; I asked if I could take a look at hers. I didn’t ask the editor in New York how to get a book published; I asked if she could take a look at what I had.
I suspected Ian was in my office because, consciously or unconsciously, he knew these conversations were full of unintentional untruths.
‘For what? What exactly stands out about me?’”
When it comes to making choices, less is more.
“I do feel overwhelmed by the idea that I could do anything with my life,” he said. “Then let’s get concrete,” I suggested. “Let’s talk about choosing jam.”
Each person is choosing from his or her own six-flavor table, at best.”
The more terrifying kind of uncertainty is wanting something but not knowing how to get it.
Grand was A’s when I was in school.
Now, of course, the data is in. Many—but not all—studies have shown that the more time twentysomethings spend on social media, and the more platforms they use, the more problems they may have.
I told her that an adult life is built not out of eating, praying, and loving but out of person, place, and thing: who we are with, where we live, and what we do for a living.
doesn’t go together! And she’s in her thirties! I know this sounds mean, but I think… she’s not happy at all… and I think… I hope I don’t wind up like that.”
And I would say, “I’m not talking about settling. I’m talking about starting. Twentysomethings who don’t get started wind up with blank résumés and out-of-touch lives only to settle far more down the road. What’s so original about that?”
Today’s twentysomethings will spend more time single than any other young adults in history. This is a profound shift that has left pundits and parents worrying that marriage is dead, dating is in demise, and hooking up is the new relational medium.
Yet, as passé or postponed as marriage may seem, what is even less in vogue is talking about it.
Rather, about 60 percent are seeking a long-term companion, and about 33 percent have stopped dating someone who did not want to “define the relationship.”
But many of the saddest, most protracted stories were about bad marriages. Some had ended in divorce and others were continuing on.
This is not exactly what researchers are finding.
The most recent studies show that marrying later than the teen years does indeed protect against divorce, but this only holds true until about age twenty-five.
Older spouses may be more mature, but later marriage has its own challenges. Here are a few. Having a series of low-commitment, possibly destructive relationships in our twenties and thirties can create bad habits and erode faith in love.
Marriage goes from being something we’ll worry about at thirty to being something we want at thirty.
When, then, is the time to really think about partnership? Spoiler alert: your twenties.
grabbing whomever you’re living with or sleeping with when everyone starts walking down the aisle on Facebook or Instagram is not progress.
want to get married by twenty-eight and have my first child by thirty-one, but I feel silly when I say that to people. There’s this stigma that you can’t really plan for that kind of stuff. It feels like I’m fourteen again and playing pretend house. My boyfriend tells me he wants to own a home by the age of thirty-five.
So many of my twentysomething clients either don’t take their relationships seriously or don’t think they are allowed to. Then somewhere around thirty, getting married or finding a partner suddenly seems pressing. Listen in on my thirtysomething clients, some of whom are only a year or two older than the twentysomethings we just heard from:
The best boyfriend I ever had was when I was in my midtwenties. I just didn’t think I was supposed to be with someone then. Now I feel like I missed the ones who were willing to settle down and I’m scrambling to marry whoever I can.
Besides, like with work, good relationships don’t just appear when we’re ready. It may take a few thoughtful tries before we know what love and commitment really are.
Many high-functioning clients are what therapists sometimes call YAVIS: They are young, attractive, verbal, intelligent, and successful.
“I have to have a really good job to survive,” she said. “But a really good relationship is more than I can hope for. It’s more than I can do anything about anyway.” “No, it’s not,” I said matter-of-factly.
“That was true growing up. But now you are about to pick your family, and I’m concerned you’re not making a good choice.”
But the expression also reminds me that, for many centuries, marriage was about bridging families.
individualistic,
But your tears after meeting these parents, I think they are telling us something.”
