31/01/2026
By the time I turned thirty-two, the question stopped being casual.
At weddings, it came wrapped in jokes.
At family gatherings, it sounded like concern.
At night, alone, it echoed in my own thoughts.
“Is it not time?”
I had done many of the “right things.” A steady career. Emotional growth. A clearer sense of who I was and what I wanted. Yet something in me resisted the idea that marriage was simply about reaching a certain age or season on the calendar.
My friend married at twenty-four and seemed settled. Another married at thirty-five and still struggled. The timelines didn’t add up.
So I began to ask a different question—not when but how.
I noticed something subtle. The people who suffered most in marriage weren’t always the ones who married “late.”
They were often the ones who entered it unprepared for the weight of partnership. They loved deeply but hadn’t learned to communicate honestly. They desired companionship but hadn’t built emotional regulation. They wanted peace but avoided difficult conversations.
I realized readiness had little to do with age and everything to do with capacity.
I remembered a conversation with someone I once dated. Everything looked right on paper, but every disagreement felt like a threat. Silence replaced dialogue. Ego replaced curiosity. It ended—not because the timing was wrong, but because the readiness wasn’t there.
That’s when it became clear.
There is no universal “right time” to marry. Life doesn’t follow a single schedule. But there is a level of readiness that matters deeply—the readiness to grow, to repair, to listen, to be accountable.
So, I stopped rushing after that. I focused less on the clock and more on my inner work. Because marriage, I understood now, is not a race against time—it’s a commitment to readiness.
And when the time eventually comes, it won’t be because the calendar said so.
It will be because I am prepared to meet marriage not just with love—but with wisdom.
So is there a “right time” to marry? Maybe not in the way society defines it. Time alone does not prepare a person for partnership. Readiness does. Readiness to communicate honestly, to take responsibility, to grow through conflict instead of running from it.
Marriage entered too early without readiness can feel heavy, while marriage entered later with emotional maturity can feel steady and life-giving. In the end, the most important question is not “Am I late or early?” but “Am I ready to do the work love requires?”
©️ Modupe Ehirim