She was 23, he 24. They married after dating for two years. That next fall, they moved to Chicago as he started law school.

This simple boy-meets-girl story just doesn’t seem to exist anymore, not for millennials or the still-unnamed generation that followed.

But it did for these two, who met in 2009 and have been married for three-and-a-half years — through law school and three kids.

“You don’t have any set plans. You kind of just jump in and make plans together.”

Matthew and Maria (not their real names) are among the last of a dying breed and, in a modern sense, define counterculture in 2015.

“Someone told me in marriage prep that the beauty of getting married young is you don’t really know what you are doing,” Maria said, chuckling about getting married at 23 and becoming a mother a year later. “You don’t have any set plans. You kind of just jump in and make plans together.”

She was still smiling — though she and her three children all had bad colds and she had been up all night with them. For someone so young, she seems to understand the most profound key to marriage: selflessness. It’s hard, but you make it work, for your family first, you second.

Matthew, who graduated at the top of his law school class, has learned fast as well.

“I had kids and a wife at home, I knew my responsibilities to them, and it drove me to work as hard as I did,” he said.

“Marriage and having kids young gives you a certain perspective. People would treat a law school exam like the end of the world, but I had kids at home, and I knew what was important,” he said. “I don’t think I ever thought ‘Oh, I want to get married young.’ But I wasn’t opposed to it, and I’m very grateful I did. In law school, it focused me, because studying and working hard wasn’t about me, it was about them.”

Matthew learned a new perspective.

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“I had kids and a wife at home, I knew my responsibilities to them, and it drove me to work as hard as I did,” he said. “I probably would have just worked as much as I needed to, like most of my classmates did, if I only had myself.”

“When you don’t have to think of anyone else, you are just less responsible.”

In 2015, people are getting married later in life, with the average age in the U.S. 27 for women and 29 for men. Even more unsettling, however, is another recent shift. The average age adults having their first child is 25.2 years old, meaning most people are having their first child before marriage.

Why are so many young people delaying marriage? Some say it’s because of student loans, or the fact that millennials want to have complete security before taking the plunge. Others worry about finding the right person and are concerned about the staggering U.S. divorce rate.

Today’s culture, with Tinder tots swiping left and right, is moving away from early marriage and the maturity that often brings. There are countless stories of grandparents married for 50, 60, even 75 years, but today that seems the anomaly. Instead, millennials are cocooning, and staying immature for much longer.

“People today are living their adolescence until age 35 because our culture is saying that we only have to live for ourselves,” Matthew said. “When you don’t have to think of anyone else, you are just less responsible.”