Essay

Marriage Before You Are Established

Updated August 25, 2026

You may have heard that the responsible plan is to get established first: finish the degree, pay off the loans, land a steady job, and then think seriously about marriage. Your questions may be more personal. How could I support a family on what I earn right now? Would marriage slow down the career I’ve worked so hard for? What if we struggle with money and it pulls us apart?

Those are sincere and important questions. God ordained marriage as a foundation for building a life, and He has never asked His children to be financially established before beginning it. Prophets have counseled young adults plainly not to postpone marriage for wealth or career success, and they have promised that the Lord sustains those who move forward in faith. Readiness for marriage has far more to do with faith, character, and commitment than with a finished degree or a certain salary. Let’s look at what Jesus taught, what prophets have promised, and what one young couple learned.

What Came First in God’s Plan

The place to begin is the Creation. Adam already had work to do in the garden God gave him. Yet with work in place, God said something was still missing: “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). So God brought Eve to Adam and taught that a man would leave father and mother and “cleave unto his wife” (Genesis 2:24).

When the Pharisees questioned Jesus about marriage, He took them back to that same account, reminding them that God “made them male and female” and that a husband and wife “shall be one flesh” (Matthew 19:4–6). Jesus rooted marriage in God’s design at Creation rather than in the customs or economy of any era. The Family: A Proclamation to the World carries that witness into our day: “marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and … the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.” Because marriage is central to what you are here to become, its timing belongs in your prayers and deserves at least as much of your faith as your career plans receive.

What Prophets Have Taught About Waiting

In April 1988, President Ezra Taft Benson spoke to the single adult men of the Church and addressed exactly this worry: “You are concerned about being able to support a wife and family and provide them with the necessities in these uncertain economic times. Those fears must be replaced with faith.” He also warned about something deeper: “Also, do not be caught up in materialism, one of the real plagues of our generation—that is, acquiring things, fast-paced living, and securing career success in the single state. Honorable marriage is more important than wealth, position, and status” (To the Single Adult Brethren of the Church).

President Benson took the fear of providing seriously. His answer was to work hard at your education and your job, trust the Lord, and remember Nephi’s testimony that the Lord gives no commandment “save he shall prepare a way” to accomplish it (1 Nephi 3:7). This counsel has not gone out of date: Elder Robert D. Hales pleaded with young adults in 2015 not to date all through their twenties just to have a good time, delaying marriage in favor of other interests.

A Couple Who Didn’t Wait for Perfect Conditions

Jeremiah George, a returned missionary in Liberia, shared his experience in the Liahona. He came home to a country where jobs were scarce, and at 22 he married his wife, Pauline, on a modest salary. “Many people told us that we were too young and hadn’t experienced enough of life yet,” he wrote. They lacked what others said they needed first, but they had learned that “marriage is about more than just having a car, a house, or a successful business. It is about building a foundation of love, trust, and shared values.” A few months after their wedding they were sealed in the Ghana Accra Temple. His counsel: “don’t wait for the perfect conditions or all the material possessions before considering marriage.”

In this conversation, a Christian couple who married young talk through the objections they heard, including “you need to live a little first” and “how are you going to afford it”:

Why “Get Established First” Sounds So Reasonable

This advice can sound persuasive because it contains real truth. Providing for a family matters; the proclamation teaches that fathers “are responsible to provide the necessities of life.” Tuition, rent, and student debt are real, and wanting to bring something of worth to a marriage is a good desire.

What the advice quietly leaves out is how households are actually built. The proclamation also teaches that fathers and mothers are “obligated to help one another as equal partners.” For most couples, stability is something a husband and wife build together over time, through working out a budget, sacrificing for each other, and praying together about decisions neither could make alone. And the advice is never satisfied: there is always another promotion or savings goal, so “ready” keeps moving out of reach.

Elder D. Todd Christofferson warned about that drift. He taught that Lucifer “seeks to convince men and women that marriage and family priorities can be ignored or abandoned, or at least made subservient to careers, other achievements, and the quest for self-fulfillment and individual autonomy” (Why Marriage, Why Family). The adversary does not need you to reject marriage. He only needs marriage to keep feeling like something that can wait until next year, and then the year after that, while other goals always feel more urgent.

What Research Adds

Research helps us see something similar in everyday life. Family scholars Alan Hawkins, Brad Wilcox, and Jason Carroll compared couples who married earlier with couples who waited until education and career were in place. They found “few reasons to favor capstone marriages over cornerstone marriages,” and on average the earlier-marrying couples reported slightly higher marital quality. These are correlations and averages rather than guarantees, but the assumption that waiting produces better marriages does not show up in their measures of marital quality. A related study found that young adults who increasingly believed they needed money saved before marriage did not actually save more; their assets were predicted to shrink over time. The belief itself did not deliver even the saving it promised.

If Marriage Hasn’t Come Yet

God knows the difference between a blessing you keep putting off and a blessing that has not yet come, no matter how much you want it. President Dallin H. Oaks has taught that the timing of marriage is almost impossible to plan, and that many faithful people remain single well beyond their desired time for marriage. If you are seeking marriage and it has not come, your faithfulness is not in question. Elder Christofferson promised that the Atonement of Jesus Christ “will compensate all deprivation and loss for those who turn to Him.” What this teaching asks is a settled heart, so that when the opportunity comes, career and finances are not the reasons you turn it away.

A Few Questions Worth Thinking About

• Where did I learn my definition of “ready for marriage,” and how does it compare with what God has revealed?
• Have I started assuming that money must come before marriage? Whose voice taught me that?
• Is my timeline for marriage built on faith or on fear of what could go wrong?
• What might change in my dating life this year if I really believed that the Lord prepares a way to keep every commandment He gives?

A Few Things You Can Do This Week

Begin with Heavenly Father. Tell Him honestly where marriage sits in your plans and name your actual fears. Ask Him to help you want what He wants for you.

• If you are seriously dating someone, have the honest conversation about marriage this week instead of letting the relationship drift. If you are not dating anyone, do one thing that could lead to a real date.
• Reread the family proclamation and notice how it speaks about providing, nurturing, and helping one another as equal partners.
• Go for a walk and listen to Elder Jeffrey R. Holland’s “Cast Not Away Therefore Your Confidence.” He speaks to those who felt the Lord’s guidance in a courtship and then drew back in fear, and explains why opposition so often follows a right decision.

Jesus taught, “seek ye first the kingdom of God … and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33). Building a life together before everything is settled will ask real faith of you both. You can do this, and the Lord who prepared a way for Nephi will prepare a way for you. As Elder Holland testified from his own young-family years of struggle, “Trust God and believe in good things to come.”