Though I am in favor of marrying young as an ideal societal norm, I am uneasy with the advice to today's young people, simply put, to get married as soon as possible.

I know a number of people from "good Catholic families" who went to a "good Catholic college" and got married right out of school, when they didn't know who they were, or who their spouse was, and now are stuck in unvirtuous and unhappy marriages.

Our Lady of Fatima said that many marriages are not pleasing to Jesus. They are valid marriages, and the only thing to do is for one spouse to lead the way in converting.

But getting married when you are not firmly established in self-knowledge, virtue and a real relationship with God is real gamble. It's highly likely that you end up marrying someone who validates you in your pathology.

You don't have to be perfect to get married, and of course, you can grow together, but there is a baseline in which you have to know who you are and who your spouse is and go in with the right motives or you might well end up growing towards hell.

Here is another major factor. I, TVM, am 30 years old. Maybe everyone knows this by now, but porn addiction is ubiquitous in my generation, including among the guys I went to a good Catholic school with. I myself am only a couple years out from a decade and a half of addiction.

Many of my friends got married while still addicted to porn. Not bad people, not unrepentant, wanted to stop etc, but the point is that constant mortal sin esp. of this kind trashes your ability to discern re: entering into marriage.

Since my early teens I have desperately wanted to get married and have children, but I now have the objectivity and self knowledge to see that the fact that I am not married yet is a huge blessing from God. My goal right now is not to get married. My goal is to grow in virtue.

I don't know what the sound bite should be, but I know that young people should be guided to want God more than they want a woman or man, and that they should be told if they want a beautiful marriage, they should seek holiness so they will be ready in God's time.

And for Jesus' sake, get free of porn.