If you want to get married be sure to find someone who can support you. You will start out making very little money and will probably become unemployed several tomes during your career. I was lucky and was never laid off, but I am the exception. The way I explained my job compared to someone who works a 40 hour week is that they work about 160 hours a month. As a pilot I was on duty for about that much. I was paid for about half that as the amount of actual flying time I got, and I was away from home about twice that. The number of days off is nice, but you have to take care of all those little things that most people during the 16 hours they are not away from home everyday. Then when you reach a certain age you become unemployable whether you want to retire or not. As far as time to advance or get hired by a major airline it is all pure dumb luck. With all that I can not imagine having had a different career.