This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s summer editorial intern Jordyn Centerwall. Find her on Instagram at @jordyncenterwall. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
I picked up The Defining Decade by Meg Jay for the first time the week after I finished undergrad hoping it would answer the question of how important the next few years were to my future. Are your 20s the most important decade? For work? For relationships? I wanted to know. Spoiler alert: I didn’t make it far. I got to about the second page of the introduction before I quickly closed the book, anxiety stirring my stomach at the words every graduate who doesn’t know what to do with their life dreads: your 20s matter.
The book sat on a shelf collecting dust in my childhood room that I’d moved back into after leaving my college town. I forgot about it for a year.
Living at home, I didn’t have the same freedom I’d had in college. I went on a few dates, but nothing serious. I thought, “I’ve got plenty of time for that.” The one-year post-grad mark rolled around, and I began thinking more seriously about my future. I picked up The Defining Decade again. I made it past the first few pages this time. Here’s what it taught me about relationships.
The Defining Decade by Meg Jay
Dr. Meg Jay is a clinical psychologist who has a special interest in the 20s. She has two other books: Supernormal and The Twentysomething Treatment. Her purpose in writing The Defining Decade: convince twentysomethings that 30 is not the new 20.
The book is separated into three sections: work, love, and the brain and the body. All of them are worth reading, but I’ll be honest, it was the love section I flipped to first.
The section is divided into six chapters. Six chapters of anecdotes from real patients and research to back them up. Here are some of the big ones.
The best time to work on your marriage is before you have one
Meg Jay challenges the mindset that the relationships in your 20s don’t matter. She comes back to this idea time and time again. The standards you set and the intention you move with in 20s relationships go on to shape the years after that. That’s not to say that you can’t have fun in your 20s, but Dr. Jay points out that successful marriages don’t just happen. They take work and communication, and having those conversations earlier instead of once the marriage has already started can save you a lot of time, or even from divorce later on.
Who you choose as a partner is the most important choice you will make
There’s this really terrifying set of graphs that floats around social media every so often that shows how the amount of time you spend with people in your life fluctuates as years go on. One of the key patterns is that as the amount of time spent with your friends and family decreases in your 20s, the time spent with your partner increases.
We’ve all heard the phrase “You can’t pick your family, but you can choose your friends.” Dr. Jay takes this phrase a step further. In the chapter titled, “Choosing your family” she asserts that when you choose a partner, you can choose your family too. This includes your partner, but also the extended family that comes with them.
If you’re treating your 20s like practice, consider what you’re rehearsing
I once had a therapist tell me that one of the people I was dating seemed like a “placeholder.” It hurt at the time, but in hindsight, she was totally right. Meg Jay observed the same with some of her clients. In the “Dating Down” chapter she describes how the stories we tell ourselves about who we are–and as a result who we deserve–take place most formatively in our high school and twentysomething years. These perceptions of ourselves are often assessed through the lens of “perceived desirability.” That is, what we think others think of us.
Dating down refers to when you let these old perceptions of yourself influence who you think you deserve negatively. Creating a pattern out of settling for less than you want often leads to problems down the road according to Jay. She finds others actively avoid taking control of their relationships. Having “the talk” can be scary, but so can waking up and realizing you’ve wasted years in a connection with someone who doesn’t want the same things as you.
Living together before marriage doesn’t necessarily prevent divorce
Most people–including myself–believe that living with a partner before marrying them is a crucial way to determine whether the relationship will be successful. Science suggests otherwise. Research has not shown living together before marriage correlates with a lower divorce rate. The exception that has been found is when couples began living together after getting engaged–ie after fully committing to each other.
The “Cohabitation” chapter tackles this gap in belief vs findings with the key takeaway being: it’s not the fact that you live with someone, but how. Jay argues that intention and communication are important if cohabitation is to be a true test for the future of a relationship. Many of the twentysomethings she sees look at living together as a “try before you buy” type situation, but hold different expectations for what living with a partner once married will look like.
You have to like your partner, and they have to like you
This seems like a duh tip. I felt slightly silly writing it, but the “In Like” chapter will change how I approach relationships going forward. Jay explains that often the progression in a relationship nowadays tends to be lust, then love, and finally like, as it takes time to truly get to know the various layers of the people we choose to date.
What Jay gets at in this chapter is something akin to compatibility, which Matthew Hussey, author of Love Life and creator of the “Four Levels” framework, describes as the fourth and final stage. It may seem slightly out of order, but Jay argues it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It is important to be honest with yourself though about whether you want similar things to your partner if you are starting to consider something more long-term. Figuring this out takes…you guessed it, communication.
Jay wraps up the section with a chapter dedicated to questions you can use to start determining if you and your partner want the same things, or are willing to compromise on the aspects of building a life together that you disagree on. My favorite from the list is: What makes you feel loved?
Now that I’ve read this book and these chapters, I expect to keep it for the rest of my 20s, and maybe even the rest of my adult life. Are your 20s the most important decade for relationships? I’ll let you know if I figure it out.
What tip did you need to hear most? Let us know in the comments!
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