When you reach your early to mid-twenties something extraordinary begins to happen on your Facebook feed: marriage.

Now, don’t get me wrong I want to get married in the future at some point, but there is part of me that thinks marriage has become a trend among younger couples fresh into adulthood. These teenagers are leaping straight from their parents’ basement into a lifelong bond with another person, and while sometimes things can work out, it’s more likely that this rash decision will become a costly divorce a few years down the line.

My boyfriend is eight years older than I am, and whenever I mention this in passing he laughs and says that there will be the years in your early twenties when everybody is happily engaged and married, and then when you hit twenty-five it’ll turn into a Facebook divorce party. I definitely would not be surprised to see a great number of divorcees in two or three years.

There are a lot of people who will be angry by my scoffing nature of this, and I am not saying you and your partner should give up on love. What I am saying is that we have time, and marriage can wait. It’s always a bad idea to jump into something without stability. Marriage is a huge commitment, and if you are truly going to be with somebody the rest of your life you’ll be able to wait a few years until you are in a better financial situation and have a better understanding of the adult world.

I met somebody the other day who was freshly married and didn’t understand a single thing about filing income taxes or how to apply for a credit card. If you don’t understand basic fundamentals of being an adult yet, then it’s not time for you to make an adult decision as huge as marriage. Finding a soulmate isn’t a race, and I’m amazed by how many people are jumping into it so casually without planning out their future. I think these same people will be incredibly blindsided when the adult world puts unneeded stress and strains on their marriage, which could have been avoided by learning how to file their taxes and budget their finances independently outside of a partnership.

I just told my family that I was planning on moving in with my boyfriend in a few months, and we all talked about what a huge step in the relationship that was. We both thought a lot about the implications of the move before setting it in stone, and we’re both now very excited to enter that next step together. However, we know it’ll be different living with each other than just dating and we’re about the learn so many new things (perhaps things we don’t love I say looking at the dirty dishes on my dresser) and for that reason I say it’s probably irresponsible to get married without understanding those intimate details.

I’ve always laughed at how sad it is about how many articles there are out there about how to be “friends with your husband” and it appalls me that people are getting married to somebody that isn’t already their best friend. It just goes to show that people aren’t giving it enough time, because can you imagine not being best friends with the person you’ve vowed to love and cherish your entire life?

I think that before you decide to marry somebody you should date them for at least two years, and you should live with them for a lot of that to see how compatible you still are in a shared environment. Become best friends with your partner. Find a stable job. Go to college or learn a trade. Explore what you want as an independent person outside of a two person eternal deal. As the saying goes, it’s better to be safe than end up in a shady divorce with no prenuptial agreement and no place to live.