If you are married / with long term partner could you have been happy single?

[Jennyennidots]

I’m single and pretty happy. I would quite like a partner but honestly I don’t know if I can be bothered. Maybe this is a sign I should stay single.

If you had never met your DP/DH, do you think you could have been a happy singleton? Or do you think you would have continued to look until you found somebody else to be in a relationship with?

(disregarding children… assume you could have had the children on your own!)

YABU - I would have kept looking till I met somebody else

YANBU- I would have been happy on my own.

Thanks!

YANBU

I'm happily married. Been together 10 years now. Was a single parent of 2 for 8 years before that and had a mix of single/coupled up spells before that.

I was so happy single that I nearly ended the perfectly good fledgling relationship with now DH in the basis of why change a lifestyle that clearly worked for me? Very glad I didn't end things but becoming single again certainly holds no fear (other than the awful prospect of having to watch DH become ill or die for example). If anything, I'd say knowing I'd be happy single contributes to the health of the relationship. I'm in it because I want to be, not because I feel trapped or scared of being alone.

Everyone is different though...

I wasn’t happy being single when I was overweight. Once I lost weight I was much happier in every way so being slim and single probably yes

I never have wanted to be single at any point in my life (even when married life was harder than I would have liked it to be) but I think it's an impossible question to answer - I tend to think anyone in a relationship might be kidding themselves more than they'd like to admit that they could be happy if single. I probably worried more about being single when I was a lot younger - 20's and being in a long relationship, for me anyway, has given me a lot of relationship skills and confidence so I feel I know what it takes to make a relationship work and I don;t panic or over-react when life isn't perfect - so - I guess I think I could manage to be single far better now than I might have managed in the past - of course - I think I could be kidding myself - I wouldn't want to be single - I wanted kids and it's been the best part of my life - bar the heartache I feel when they have troubles.

I don't believe in the perfect soul mate - I think I could have been in relationships with all kinds of very different people. What I do believe in is the power of a relationship - I(we) just keep investing in that - it takes priority over my(our) individual needs some of the time - because - in the log run - I think we both benefit in so many ways.