TikTok’s Matt Howard and wife Abby Howard are recalling the early days of their relationship.
On the Wednesday, April 23, episode of their “The Unplanned Podcast,” Matt and Abby, who wed at ages 20 and 21, played a game of “agree or disagree” and weighed in on whether they think they got married too young.
“I disagree. I think it’s a case by case basis,” Abby explained. “Like, I think if you were to say everyone should get married at 20, I’d be like, ‘Oh, yeah, I strongly, strongly disagree with that.’ But clearly, we were meant to be together. I don’t think there is anything to be gained by like, waiting to make that official, like, we were already, like, prioritizing each other as, like, a couple at that point, and, like, we’d been together for three years.”
She continued, “We had pre marriage counseling. We had a really sturdy group of friends around us, and, like, community. We had mentors. We read a lot of books. We were financially stable.”
Courtesy of Abby Howard/Instagram Influencers Abby and Matt Howard went from high school sweethearts to a family of four. The couple met in 2013 when they were in a local production of Mary Poppins in St. Louis. While Matt was based in the city, Abby grew up in a small town nearly two hours away. […]
Matt interjected to note that it’s “dope” he and Abby went through with premarital counseling.
“We had pre engagement counseling. Which is the norm now, I think, and should totally be the norm. But when we were talking to your grandma, she’s like, ‘Counseling?’” he said. “Older people, they hear the word therapy or counseling, and they about poop their pants, like, it’s just a very scary thing. But I love that us Gen Zers — I think we’re technically Gen Z — are embracing the fact that we don’t all have it together.”
From Abby’s perspective, the stigma around counseling is “changing,” which she noted is a “good” thing.
TikTokers Matt and Abby Howard have reflected on the backlash they received after declaring they were boycotting Father’s Day last year. During the 100th episode of the couple’s “Unplanned Podcast,” released on Wednesday, January 8, the couple discussed a viral clip from an infamous May 2024 episode of the podcast in which Matt, 26, claimed […]
“We’re still making progress. But, yeah, I feel like we were in a community where that was, like, encouraged and praised. No one was making you feel like, ‘Oh, maybe they’re struggling with something.’ Like, ‘cause the fact is that you have a lot to learn, and you gotta learn it really fast when you get married, and so it’s good to, like, prepare yourself and to be, you know, forward thinking,” she said. “So that’s why I disagree with that, because I’m like, we literally worked on ourselves a lot, worked on ourselves as a unit. I think that there was a lot of wisdom in making that decision and I think that our age was just the age that we were.”
The couple tied the knot in July 2019 and have since welcomed sons Griffin and August in July 2022 and August 2023, respectively.
