I don't know what made me get married honestly. Maybe I was more in love with the idea of marriage than marriage itself and that I was tired of the dating scene. I got married relatively quickly after I met her.
The divorce was caused by her having a drinking problem. Most of the time we were dating she was living out of town and I was to naive to know what a drinking problem looked like. If you have ever dealt with someone with a drinking problem, it's the constant terror of not knowing what you were going to get when you got home.
But more generically, she was so consumed with friends, her family, and her own addictions to put us first. I was definitely not perfect, but it didn't matter what I did if there is only one person who is mentally all there.
I resonate a lot with what you went through because I find myself thinking a lot of the same thoughts. I think it's fair to assume most people grow up wanting a family of their own but there's this constant pull between waiting to find the right person while simultaneously feeling like life is passing you by and wanting to move on to the next phase.
You're spot on when you say that a drinking problem with someone you love is very difficult to spot. It's so easily masked with cheerfulness and parties. Thank's for sharing some info, it'll help me in the future!
Not the OP, but was in an essentially identical situation. I married my high school sweetheart. I met her when I was a HS junior. We had a long-distance relationship for four years, lived together for another three, then married, so we didn't rush into it. I was head over heels in love with her. We had a lot in common, and a lot of good times.
It broke down because we just grew apart. I decided I was tired of being a geek so I stopped doing geeky things and started acting more like a normal person. She didn't. The breakup was amicable. We had both met other people whom we both married after the breakup and are both still married to (at least AFAIK -- I'm not in contact with her any more). Despite the fact that we probably had the easiest divorce in history, it was still one of the most stressful experiences of my life. I don't recommend it.
My second wife and I just celebrated our 23rd anniversary. She is completely different from me, not at all the sort of person I would ever have imagined myself being with. And yet, somehow it has worked out this time.
