About people who are single and just stay that way?

[athensrose]

I am married. I suppose like all marriages it isn't without problems. Sometimes the problems feel insurmountable.

Being realistic here, I am a woman in her 30s who being brutally honest could best be considered a bit dumpy and ordinary looking. I have children. I don't have much of a life outside of them. I have nothing to offer a relationship.

I was idly wondering yesterday about what might happen if we did split. I don't doubt he would be in a new relationship within six months, more likely six weeks. Meanwhile, I would only attract someone seriously desperate.

And anyway - to get to the point of this ramble! - I don't know anybody who is single and has stayed that way. I don't know anybody who has just stayed on their own for several decades (I'm not talking about a couple of years interspersed with dates) and all my friends are married.

Is being single long term actually a 'thing'? Am I just not looking in the right places?

Eh high, where?

My husband is probably going to leave me and i am unattractive and unemployed so will probably spend the rest of my days alone? So smug, yes

Anyway. Looks like someone wants an argument. Not from me you aren't getting one.

Yes of course it's a thing. A very common thing too.

I've been single for years. The last serious boyfriend I had treated me so well I now have standards which other men have yet to meet. I'm quite content with my lot and certainly don't feel any disadvantage to no longer being married or with someone.

If being single is so amazing why are most people in couples

Because they're told there is something wrong with them if they're not attached to a man. Most people believe what they're told.

If being single is so amazing why are most people in couples

I think many people meet someone they love, work at it and feel that their team might not be perfect but they get along ok. Companionship is an important thing for some.

I think some (rare) people are lucky as hell and find someone they adore and love one another for a lifetime.

I think some people are financially dependent and wouldn't leave simply because it would impact on their standard of living.

I think some people settle, thinking they'll never find anyone else.

I also think some people's self esteem means they have to be in a relationship to feel they've any self-worth so will stay in a relationship that might not be great simply because they can't bear the thought of being alone.

One of my best friends has been single for many years. She's happy, she's confident, she spends time with people she loves, cherishes her role as Godparent and crazy Aunt to many children and lives a life of joy. It's entirely possible to be single and genuinely happy. If DH and I split up I think I'd be happily single; the thought of someone else coming into our lives leaves me cold.

I have nothing to offer a relationship

I think you sound a bit ground down and wonder if that is something to do with your current relationship.

While I'm selling the single life, as far as my own happy experience of it goes, if you want a relationship you shouldn't assume you can't. I have known lots of people remarry or find a new partner. These people aren't stunning lookers with stellar careers and godlike personalities. It's more about clicking with someone, chemistry or getting to know someone over time, for example at work.

I'm long term single and quite a few of my friends are too, some of whom I have known for over twenty years. I find what tends to happen is if you are single, you socialise more with single people, just as couples tend to hang out with other couples. So I can see if you are in a couple you may not know many single people, but they are out there.

Interestingly perhaps, I have aunts and uncles who were single, so I probably grew up with less of an expectation that I would be coupled up, or at least good role models for what a happy single life looked like. I've also never wanted children, which makes the decision easier. A number of my friends, who don't seem that happy with their partners, wanted kids and financially and in terms of child care couldn't manage that on their own. They seem to be taking a 'stick it out for now and let's see what happens when the kids are older' approach which - which I guess if it works for them, is fine. You only have one life though, and I can't imagine spending half of it sharing a house with someone who infuriated me.

I like being single. I'm financially independent. I get to chose where I live and follow the opportunities I want. I get asked out from time to time, but I've never met anyone who I've thought I would prefer long term more than my own company. It makes me laugh a little because people nod along when I say I'm happier single, but when I turn down dates are shocked, as though they didn't think I actually meant it.

The one thing I do wish I had a partner for is DIY. I am rubbish at things like deciding what colour to paint things, or which contractor to pick - but I can't really see that's a good reason to give up all the positives!

*If being single is so amazing why are most people in couples

Because they're told there is something wrong with them if they're not attached to a man. Most people believe what they're told.*

And this! Because society still bases a woman's worth on her relationship status. My MIL often asks "How's your friend (single)? Has she met anyone yet? Oh dear, what a shame for her, do you think she's really happy?" as though she's living a half life because there's no man at home waiting for her.

I know a lot of single creatives, also academics, tends to interfere with your work being in a relationship.

I am a painter, if I got divorced or dh died I would never have another relationship again. I have enough going on. I like eating alone, I even go for a drink alone, I do enjoy other people's company a lot, just not all the time. I have 3dc

If being single is so amazing why are most people in couples

Because it's easier to get into a marriage than out of one. When you marry, it's all exciting and fun. You do it with everyone round you.

When you divorce, you do it alone and without fanfare.

OP couple of observations

1. single and happy possibly not that rare because it's not something society marks. Couples mark anniversaries etc. Mostly I just do a happy dance every day due to being single

2. as per previous posts, social pressure to be part of a couple means it's not that common to declare single and happy.

3. on account of the stereotype, very few people will say "have you thought about being single and childfree?" to anyone in real life. I say it but I have never heard of anyone else doing so.

4. some people just assume that people like my friend - the one in his 50s - will settle down eventually.

5. some people are threatened by happy singletons so just decide we are all odd or don't believe us when we say we are happy.

I will stick my neck out and say that now, in my 40s, I don't tend to see married or childed as friend material. Of course some of my friends have kids and that's fine. But when I meet someone and she says "come and have tea with me and the kids" - I say no. I've done my share of putting up with the toddlers at the table and I'm not doing any more of it.

Via Twitter, I've met some great local people who are married with kids but only socialise themselves, which is lovely. I can invite them to mine for drinks and know they won't bring partner or kids.

but I wonder, is it possible you miss out on meeting singles because some of us - especially the childfree ones of a certain age - don't want to go through the whole cycle of "toddlers at the table" again?

I have politely turned down invites from women like this - often divorced, maybe they would like to come out with me and my friends and go to bars etc but just going through the whole "friends with kids" thing makes me groan.

If being single is so amazing why are most people in couples

Doesn't mean those couples aren't in bad relationships.

I know of three couples. The wife had an affair in one, the husband had an affair in the other, and in the third, both the wife and the husband had an affair. In all three situations, they stayed together for the sake of the kids. Another couple, she also stayed with him after he cheated, they've recently broken up, again, because he's done it again.

Thank fuck I don't have to deal with any of that sort of batshittery anymore.

Actually I think there are great things about being in a relationship but also as I get older I appreciate quiet and space which you don't get with a family. Then you appreciate what a lovely tidy quiet existence you could have on your own !

I find what tends to happen is if you are single, you socialise more with single people, just as couples tend to hang out with other couples

Really? I don't find this. Three of my closest friends are married, my best friend in a long term relationship. I socialise with all four. Their marital status doesn't come in to it.

It is a half life in some ways and I accept that's because society is set up around the assumption that people are in couples but I don't see this changing any time soon.

athens I think the idea that you should be in a couple, and that it's normal, is very deeply ingrained in you.

When I wrote about my single life upthread, I actually felt a thrill of happiness just reminding myself that I'm single and I got out of my relationship. Reading the other similar posts, "half-life" isn't what springs to mind.

Mother I appreciate your honesty very much indeed. That is the reality for me, I know, and it isn't a pleasant one to try to come to terms with.

It is a half life in some ways and I accept that's because society is set up around the assumption that people are in couples but I don't see this changing any time soon.

Why is it a half life in some ways? I don't feel the need for another man to complete who I am. My children will grow up knowing what a strong and independent Mum I am, and hopefully one day, they may even deem me as someone to look up to. If Kit Harrington suddenly becomes available and offers his undying love for me then great, but I won't be living half a life until then.

But if you are happily single, it doesn't matter if you have a face like a bag of spanners does it?

I think that's a bit of a harsh description and I don't like to think of people as ugly, but I do know that since becoming single I have been much less worried about wearing what I like and looking how I like. I still enjoy clothes, make-up etc. but I feel free of worrying about what men like. I'm not most men's dream date - very tall, very short hair, not bag of spanners face but definitely don't-fuck-with-me face. I don't care. I don't need to care. In fact I like to think it separates the sheep from the goats, in that I won't attract anyone unless they genuinely like me.

It is more common than you think, but like attracts like.

Long term single people will generally have a wide circle of friends and a lot of them will be long term single or at least more independent from their partners.

For me it would be an end to

Socialising. No going out for a meal unless I could round some friends up. Twice a year possibly.
Holidays.
Weekends away.
Just sheer relentlessness of being alone.

Yes, long term single, pretty much forever here. Can't see it changing. Too old for children now, and I did really really want that, probably more than a relationship really. So now it seems like it'd be harder than ever to find someone, as I don't really ever feel that sort of spark of interest. And yet I like the idea of a relationship and wish I could feel that sort of thing, but somehow just don't. I haven't given up hope, but after this long of not even the hint of a relationship, I would think it's unlikely.

I do also think that looks matter to some extent, at least to get some initial interest. Not the whole story, but there is an element of it still. I'm definitely not winning in that area.

I think people like me are quite invisible in social circles. Everyone assumes you have other friends, but most people socialise with partners in the evening. My life is occasional meeting people for coffee in the daytime, as they're too busy to give up weekends or evenings to just meet me, when they could meet couples instead, somehow. I meet people at hobbies, but they use it as their time to escape from the family and partner, and while it's a pleasant evening out, they don't have time/don't need to socialise beyond that. So it's a very lonely life being single, for some of us. Sounds great about living life to the max, but for me at least, it's also extremely expensive being single and trying to pay the rent and bills, so not loads left to travel or other fun things, and so many things I might like to do are just not that much fun by yourself - they're only half about the activity or event and just as much about being with people. Plus being quite shy makes everything that much more of an effort to do alone.

JonSnowsWife yes that's what I've found, but it might be life stages. A lot of my friends in couples have primary school age children at the moment - so too old to wheel around the park while we have a chat, but not old enough to be left on their own - and while I have done my fair share of meeting at soft play and helping out a kid's parties, being a good Godmother, their time for doing the kind of stuff I like to do - theatre, meals out, running, is limited. Maybe in fifteen years when the kids are independent they will have more time. Or maybe they will want to do those things with their kids.

Meanwhile the single friends have more time, are about at weekends, can go on holiday during term time, so tend to be more available.