My whole life, I’ve heard people say “marriage is hard.” To be honest, this slightly confused me for quite some time. What’s hard about being married? Sure, you’re bound to have some disagreements and such and go through some hard things in life. However, those things aren’t unique to marriage. You can have disagreements with your family or your roommate. Plus everybody goes through hard things whether they’re married or not.
As a single person, marriage looked so much easier to me. You always had someone around. Someone had picked you. You had someone committed to you. Sex was now a reality instead of a dream. Singleness is the really hard path, or so I thought.
The truth is they’re both hard. Though they may be hard in different ways, they both have their unique difficulties. Though it’s easy to look at someone else who’s in a position you want to be in and think they have it all, that’s simply not true. In fact, that’s pretty much never true, regardless of your situation or theirs.
For the next two weeks (this one and next one), we’re going to look at four problems unique to singlelness and four problems unique to marriage. This isn’t a competition to see who has it best or worst, it’s a reality check. We all have problems. Those problems might be different, but we all have them. Knowing about them can help us to be more gracious to one another and less driven by jealousy or bitterness.
We’ll start with the hard things in singleness. Believe me, I know this isn’t a conclusive list (feel free to add additional items in the comments section), but here are four hard things about being single:
Dating Stinks
In having a conversation with a friend from work this last week, I was once again reminded how much dating sucks. It’s awkward. You’re in this weird relationship where you’re not just friends, but you’re not quite committed to each other yet either. There’s so many questions and so much fear. It’s fun in some ways, but exhausting and emotionally taxing in so many others. There’s always the fear of a break up. If a break up comes, we all know that’s less than pleasant.
What sucks even more than dating is a lack of dating. What do you do if you want to be in a relationship, but you currently have no good prospects? How far out of your way do you go to meet new people? Do you try the online thing? Do you need to just pray more? There are just so many questions and fears and possibility for hopelessness.
The worst part of both situations is that if things aren’t going well, you start to blame yourself. Am I not [insert insecurity of the day] enough? Even if you know full well in your head that it’s not your fault, your sad little broken heart starts to fight against you. The struggle is real.
Loneliness
It’s so easy to feel lonely when you’re single. There are so many ways to end up the awkward third, fifth, or seventh wheel. You seem to see couples everywhere you go, constantly reminding you of what you don’t have. Coming home to an empty apartment and cooking for one is not what you imagined you be doing.
Even if you’re dating someone, you can feel left behind because you aren’t married. There’s no default person at your house that you have sworn to do life with. Even if you have great roommates that you love, it’s not quite the same as a spouse.
Now, I want to be clear on something. Marriage is not a cure for loneliness. You can still feel lonely within your marriage (in some ways, married loneliness can feel/be worse), but unless your marriage is not doing well, being married does help with the loneliness thing. You have a person who is supposed to share life with you. That’s an expectation in marriage, whereas in singleness it happens, but maybe not as often or maybe not with only one person.
No Life Anchor
When you’re single you can choose to do any job at any place for any time period. It’s totally up to you. The world is your oyster, which is TERRIFYING. We all want some kind of stability, something that we’re tied to. You can feel like a ship lost at sea when you’re single. There’s no other person (besides Jesus of course) to anchor your life to. You have the freedom and flexibility to go, do, and be whatever you want.
On the one hand, that’s great. However, it can feel overwhelming. It’s a little scary to have so many options. How will you ever choose the best one? Marriage gives you at least one long term (as in lifelong, God willing) tether for your life. You will be where this person is. Sure, you might move around or make big life changes, but that person will be there. You still have one stable thing in your life.
Once again, there’s only so much stock you can actually put in the stability a spouse provides. After all, your spouse could die suddenly or leave you or any number of things that would ruin that sense of stability. Still, it feels better and isn’t something that you think about as much when you’re married.
Unmet Longing
This might possibly be the hardest part about being single. If you’re single and you want to be married, there are so many unmet desires that are tied up in that relationship status. The desire for physical touch, sex, having someone to share your life with, having a family, and so much more.
While married people (and all people really) have unmet desires too, the desires that come with wanting to be married seem so closely tied with who you are. It’s excruciatingly painful to have that desire unmet. If those desires feel like they will never be met, it’s easy to give up hope as well.
This is by far what I thought was the most painful part of being single. I’m not going to lie, though getting married didn’t solve all unmet desires, it did solve the ones that were biggest in my life.
Okay, so I know that’s far from being the only hard things about being single. Those are just the four I struggled with the most. Feel free to share more below. I’d love to hear what you think is hard or was hard (if you’re married).
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[…] Favorite Post: 4 Hard Things About Being Single […]
100% relatable, especially having no anchor! Cause the world is so big, but the feeling of not belonging anywhere in it is terrifying. :)
[…] and guys out there, the struggle is real (check out other posts I’ve written on singleness here and here). I have several single friends who want to be married and are just finding it extremely […]
There is a saying for Imam Hussain which is that: Happiness can be find by 1)being satisfied wherever you stand 2)trusting god that you’ll get the right thing in the right time.
(Satisfaction and Certainty)
❤️
[…] written about singleness a lot on this blog (here’s an example). There’s a good reason for that. Singleness is hard, but I was terrible at being single. Dear […]
You forgot to mention Children, grandchildren. Being a woman and never having experiencing childbirth is awkward when that discussion comes up among girlfriends. But worse, not having children of your own….. No words to describe the indescribable, you are not a mother, the nieces or nephews are not your own. You have no family or children that are yours and yours alone.
Good stuff. I appreciate the honesty.
I know marriage isn’t necessarily “easier” than singleness or vice versa. So, many well-meaning married folks try to caution all the singles about it, like they’re the experienced veteran realists, and the newlyweds are the naive, idealistic youngsters. Sometimes it seems like “marriage” and “hard” are interchangeable when Christian married folks talk to Christian single folks about it. And some of the pastors or Christians who talk about it this way seem to be joyless Calvinists, haha.
However, when married folks caution singles about marriage, they can sometimes make a bunch of assumptions. They can assume that the singles have no firsthand knowledge of the difficulties. It also assumes that singleness is easy or easier. But these assumptions have their own problems.
Interestingly enough, a lot of research (almost all secular) indicates that married people are happier, have more and better sex, make more money, live longer and impact society more. It’s a societal foundation, apparently. Well, then!
Yes, marriage has its challenges. But there’s enjoyable and good things about marriage, too. Enjoyable and good things that, if you’re single, you simply miss out on. That’s certainly hard, and should be acknowledged.
I think some of this comes from readings of 1 Corinthians 7, where it sometimes seems like Paul is saying that singleness is easier than marriage. Though it seems more like he’s saying that singleness is simpler, or can be simpler, than marriage. But even Paul concedes that singleness isn’t for everyone.
Is marriage worth it? Most of my married friends would say yes. Maybe that’s a better thing to say to singles who are longing for marriage.
And yeah, like you said, unmet longing might be the hardest thing about being single. For many, probably most people, the desire for romance/marriage/intimacy/sex is just a normal part of being human. And, when you’re single, there’s no adequate substitute for it. Paul seems to recognize that truth in 1 Corinthians 7.
I mean, when God created humanity, he also created marriage and sex. He even said that it “wasn’t good” for man to be alone. Isn’t that interesting? Even when the world was perfect and everything was good, it still WASN’T good for man to be alone. Then, of course, sin entered the world and screwed everything up. In Matthew 19, when Jesus talks about celibacy he says that not everyone is able to accept it. He also says that some people are celibate because they chose it, some are celibate because they were made that way by God, and some people are celibate because they were made that way “by other men.” In other words, being single is not necessarily a choice, and it’s not necessarily “God’s plan” for your life. It’s just how life turned out in a bad world, where bad things happen and life doesn’t always go our way.
One of the hardest things about being single and that there’s not really a substitute for romantic love. Yes, your friends love you, but it’s not THAT kind of love. Yes, your family loves you, but it’s not THAT kind of love. And yes, Jesus loves you…but it’s not THAT kind of love. I mean, in physical terms, sex is the most intimate way that you’ll ever connect with another human being. There’s definitely something special, unique, exclusive, and intimate about it. It’s understandable why so many people want to experience it. And, if you’re a single Christian, well, there’s just no “legal” way to experience it. It’s as simple and frustrating as that. Even if, intellectually, we can understand the moral and practical reasons for it.
A lot of the time, when you’re a Christian single, married folks will caution you with somewhat condescending phrases like “Marriage won’t solve your problems, you know.” Well, yes, I think we all know that. But, when you’re a married Christian, and you have strong sexual desires, you have a “legal” outlet to satisfy those. You have a starting point. When you’re a single Christian, well….you have nothing. Paul seems to recognize that in 1 Corinthians 7.
Yeah, that’s definitely one of the most painful parts of being single, for sure.
A lot of the time, people will bring up 1 Corinthians 7 and say something like “Paul said singleness was better!” or “the Bible says singleness is better!” Or something like “the Bible calls singleness a GIFT, why aren’t you happy about it?”
When Paul called singleness a gift, he used the same word he used for other spiritual gifts. In 1 Corinthians 7:7 he even says that these gifts are “from God.” So I have my doubts when some people say that the “gift of singleness” is simply the state of being single.
And sure, Paul seemed to prefer singleness personally. Paul also said that it was OK to get married. Paul also said that it was just his own opinion that singleness is better. Paul also said that you’re not sinning by marrying. In 7:9 he even says that it would actually be better for certain people to marry if they have strong sexual desires. Those things are true as well. If Paul wrote the Book of Hebrews, then he also affirmed that marriage is a good thing, and condemned people who forbade marriage.
Is marriage hard? Yeah, sure, there’s some hard things about it? Is it worth it? Most of my married friends would say yes. Is singleness hard? Oh, yeah, for sure it is.
What sorts of other things are hard? Oh, boy, lots. Being in friend groups and social scenes where everyone is paired up except you. The uncertainty of it. The fear of the unknown future, since none of us are promised marriage. Rejection, and having your love interests choose other people over you. I could go on, haha. It’s definitely hard, I wouldn’t ever be dismissive about these sorts of things if people brought these concerns to me.
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