I met my husband later in life: I was twenty-nine. OK, that may not sound like a ‘late’ marriage, but in my church circles everyone was married by the ripe old age of twenty-one. At twenty-nine, I was considered practically retired. Or a leper.
During those years of singledom, I encountered some interesting myths and assumptions about single people. I have learned that society judges singles in a myriad of ways:
– Marriage isn’t important to them
– They forgot to get married
– They’re career-oriented
– They’re too picky
– They’re not putting themselves out there
– They need to lose weight/wear make-up/change their appearance/work on their personality
– They’re unhappy (because everyone needs to be married to be happy)
– They’re happy (and Marrieds are jealous of them)
– They’re doing something wrong
– They need to work on being the right partner first
– They need to stop looking, then the right partner will come along
– They should enjoy their singledom
– They’ll be single forever
– They’re out to steal my partner!
I remember being asked if I was being ‘too picky’ and told to work on myself more. A friend told me to enjoy this period of my life…as though it was only a temporary season. It’s frustrating to be told you have to work on yourself to ‘earn’ a partner, while everyone else is getting married with apparent effortlessness. How is that fair? It’s also strange to be told your singledom is temporary when the scary reality is you might never marry. At twenty-nine, I was increasingly worried this would be the case for me.
It’s frustrating to be told you have to ‘earn’ a partner, while everyone else gets married with apparent effortlessness.
The Church seems to have its own special assumptions about single people:
– They’re in sin
– They’re not praying hard enough
– They need more faith
– They have the ‘gift of singleness’ (ugh)
– God has a partner for them
– If you serve God faithfully, he will bless you with a partner
– God will make it happen when they least expect it
– We have to separate them from Marrieds because they don’t want to hear, or can’t handle hearing, about sex
– They don’t want to hang out with Marrieds.
Mad, isn’t it? Not only do single Christians have to contend with the negative judgements of society about not being good enough for marriage, they also have to deal with not being a good enough Christian. I remember being told it would happen for me if I prayed hard enough (therefore I was still single because my prayer was inadequate) and that God definitely had someone for me.
False hope is all very encouraging (not) until you get to your late twenties and it still hasn’t happened. It gives rise to questions, not to mention a few myths and doubts about oneself:
– There’s something wrong with me
– I’m less valued, less worthy and less loveable than Marrieds
– I have displeased God somehow.
I truly believed that God would bless me with a husband if I was faithful. I had been told as much for years by my church. I didn’t know what to do with the crushing realisation that God’s blessings were not guaranteed, and that I couldn’t ‘earn’ or ‘bargain’ my way into marriage.
In the end, I settled into an uncomfortable arrangement with God. I would keep praying because I still wanted to be married. But I would do so on the acceptance that God may not say ‘yes’ for a long time, perhaps not ever. I decided to follow Jesus regardless of the outcome. (Turns out God did have a spouse for me. But that didn’t happen until years later.)
It’s hard to trust God with your future when so much is unknown. It’s a vulnerable place to be, handing over your most treasured hopes and dreams to One who may never bring them into being. Yet that is real faith too: believing in a God whom we cannot see and entrusting all our days to him, rather than putting our hopes in myths or false promises.
I hope you find a way to do that with God too.
How hard do you find it to entrust your future, including your relationship status, to God? Are you willing to hand your relationships over to God’s keeping, no matter the outcome? What else do you need to entrust to God’s care today? Share your story. Let’s have a countercultural conversation.
This is so relatable. Strange how universal these platitudes all are.
I’m currently single at 30. I also attend a church where most people are married, and where most younger folks have married in their twenties. I’m familiar with all of these assumptions. And, for sure, it often seems like the others have met their partners effortlessly. This can feel so frustrating when you’re single. Personally, I’ve been a bit more proactive. I’ve joined dating sites/apps, approached people I was interested in, and gotten involved in social scenes where I can meet people. None of these have worked out so far. In the meantime, others have met their partners and spouses by coincidence (when they “stopped looking,” as the cliché goes) Envy and comparison is definitely a real struggle in a world like that. When they give advice about singleness/dating/marriage it often includes the usual platitudes about “trusting God” and “God’s timing” and “waiting on the Lord.” None of which ever help much, of course.
Also, why do people assure that your singleness is just a temporary season? Why do they think they know these things, when I don’t know it? So strange! It might seem like an obvious point that none of us are guaranteed romantic success, or marriage. But, personally, for a while, I didn’t really think about that. I just thought it was a given, since I desired marriage, and thus lacked the “gift of singleness.” Strange how much power these ideas can have, even when the Bible doesn’t make us any promises about romance or marriage.
Personally, I don’t know how much God really involves Himself in these things. The Bible doesn’t make us any promises about romance or marriage. Maybe it’s just good luck and bad luck that some marry and others stay single. It’s a bad world we live in.
Hi James, I resonate with your comment on so many levels. I have seen many young Christians find spouses with apparent effortlessness, while I struggled for years with self-doubt and bad dating experiences. The online approach eventually worked for me, but I know this is not the case for many single Christians. Before I met my husband though, I was an extremely frustrated single – no ‘gift of singleness’ for me! I was told it would happen when I stopped looking (as though God were planning to ambushing me) and that I should enjoy it (singledom) while it lasted (inferring that singledom is only ever temporary). Ugh. I agree that marriage is not a given – and many people who do marry end up losing it too – so we cannot make promises on God’s behalf about anyone of us being married, when the truth is none of us know what the future holds. All we really have is today and our simple trust that God holds our entire lives in the palms of his hands. Thanks for sharing your story.