Benefits to Being Single My Unpopular Opinion
I am a marriage supporter who wants to make marriage great again. Do I think there isn’t anything good about being single? I will link an article from psychologytoday.com called 17 Benefits of the Single Life-The special strengths of single people and the meaningfulness of single life.
I’ll be real honest with you. I already knew that MGTOW was leading people into a lifetime of sorrow and loneliness, but after spending two hours leaving comments one night to a video called Why It’s Better to be Single-4 Reasons, I reckon he is a stoic. I wondered if things are worse than I thought they were because it has almost 300,000 views and 15,000 likes. His channel has over 920,000 subscribers. Subscribe to Love Beyond The Sea for the “other” side to this; that marriage is best for most people.
I noticed on someone else’s channel on stoicism there is even a video on semen retention, no thanks. Another one was called How to Be Alone. I was alone for 53 years before getting married, maybe I should have written a book. I certainly wasn’t content to be alone and not have sex, yet apparently, there is a growing movement of people who like to not have sex. Let’s run through this article, I’ll try to be quick.
Single people are too often stereotyped and stigmatized. They are pitied while married people are celebrated. Yet the single life can be tremendously meaningful and fulfilling. It is time for a more accurate, research-based portrayal of single people and single life—one that recognizes the real strengths and resilience of people who are single, and what makes their lives so meaningful.
Me-I used to think single people were pitied while married people are celebrated, like she says, but not anymore. While church pastors were telling me from the pulpit that marriage was the most fulfilling and best for almost everyone, privately I seemed to hear a different message; that singleness was best and marriage is tough and you won’t have as much sex as you think. After I got married, I found MGTOW videos that say marriage is for fools, so singleness must be for the wise. Now I find stoicism videos about the joys of being alone. Frankly, I don’t see much stigmatization of singles these days.
I shared just such a portrayal in a plenary address I was invited to give at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, “What No One Ever Told You About People Who Are Single,” in Denver, Colorado, on August 5.
Here are some highlights:
Single people rule. There are more unmarried Americans 16 and older than there are married Americans. That’s unfortunate. Most people desire to be married, but due to an inability to do what it takes to stay married like unselfishness, patience and forgiveness, many marriages have ended.
Single life is the better part of our adult lives: Americans spend more years of their adult lives unmarried than married. That is tragic. A couple at church are going to celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary very soon. That’s more like it. Experiencing a good marriage is better than not experiencing it at all. When I die, my wife knows I prefer she get remarried so she isn’t alone. She is a lot younger than I am and I have talked to her about how much time she might be single after I die, if she doesn’t remarry.
People who are “single at heart” embrace single life. Living single is how they live their best, most authentic, most meaningful lives. They are not single because they have "issues" or because they have not found "The One." “Single at heart”…I’m not sure what that means. There are some people who can literally embrace the single life and those people have been given the spiritual gift of singleness by God to live unencumbered for the kingdom of God, and other people are eunuch or are fully able to make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven. Do you know many people like that? Didn’t think so. Singles can’t just declare themselves single at heart because it is a rare gift from God to be able to live without sex and without the companionship that marriage provides. Those with the gift, honestly embrace being single, but not because they get to do what they want to do, but because they get to do what God calls them to do.
Claims that getting married makes people happier, healthier, and more integrated into society are grossly exaggerated or just plain wrong. I will include a link for you from a book written by two women called The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better off Financially, in case you don’t want to take my word for it.
What’s So Great About Marriage?
Better Financial Picture, Longer Life, Better Mental Health, Greater safety, Better, more satisfying Sex. I was single until 53 when I married a woman from the Philippines in less than eight weeks. We have been married six years. I feel a sense of fulfillment and purpose I didn’t have before. I have not found sex to be “overrated” as some said, that’s like saying being a billionaire is overrated. I felt an enormous amount of pressure getting released. I have this channel called Love Beyond The Sea and podcasts on Casting Beyond The Sea to help men give marriage a chance. A man has to take responsibility for the marriage he started by proposing to a woman and make sure to keep it healthy. It isn’t easy and no one said it was.
People who get married do not end up any happier than they were when they were single. Again, that doesn’t include me. People who don’t know the roles of the husband and wife and who are not committed to that relationship no matter what are naturally going to want out of it at some point. You have to develop thick skin and it helps to understand that neither of you are perfect and because neither of you are perfect, you are going to offend each other sometimes.
People who get married do not end up any healthier or less depressed than when they were single, nor do they enjoy any higher self-esteem. I must be an anomaly. Marriage requires a 100 percent investment. It needs to be tended to. It needs to be protected. What about those of us who are married and would dispute the notion that married people do not end up any healthier or less depressed than when we were single and we do have higher self-esteem.
People who marry become more insular. They were more connected to parents and friends when they were single. Try being single when your friends get married or have a girlfriend. Goodbye to you.
When studies seem to show that getting married is beneficial, the explanation may be singlism and matrimania (as well as biased analyses) rather than any social support or social monitoring that goes on within a marriage. Marriage is better for most people.
In some studies, lifelong single people do better than everyone else, even when the analyses are biased against them. For example, these studies include analysis of the overall health of more than 11,000 Canadians; of the cancer risk of more than 33,000 Italians; of several measures of health of more than 10,000 Australian women in their 70s; and an American study of the health, well-being, and resilience of wounded warriors.
Social scientists overwhelmingly study marriage and married people. Lifelong single people are mostly ignored, except as a comparison group in studies of marriage. I had 53 years to do my own analysis of being single. As someone not gifted to be single, I only want to be married. I understand that some can live without sexual temptation, and if so, marriage is not a necessity. The Bible calls marriage “The Grace of Life” in 1 Peter 3:7, that’s good enough for me. Eunuchs and those called to a life of selfless service to humanity, can be single. How many people like that have you met? Before I forget, I will link the playlist for Cringeworthy Things Said to Single Christian Men.
When people are drawn to single life and when they thrive there, it is for positive and deeply significant reasons, such as:
Singles savor their solitude and its profound rewards. What profound rewards are there for those who need to be married if they remain single?
Singles embrace bigger, broader meanings of relationships and love. They care about “the ones,” not just The One. The Bible says to get married and raise a family. That is normal. Those children in addition to the spouse, are the building blocks of society. They are to be invested in day and night so they can make wise decisions in their lives. That is more important that having other friends. Being married necessitates focus on the family. Married people understand the meaning of relationships and love.
Singles develop a diversified portfolio of skills. The kinds of tasks that newly divorced and newly widowed people need to learn are ones that lifelong single people have already mastered. I’m not sure what skills these would be and why a formerly married person would need them, especially if they want to get married again.
Singles contribute in meaningful ways. They do a lot of volunteering, and they do more than their share of caring for aging parents and people who need help for three months or more, even when those people are not family members.
Singles value opportunities to pursue their interests and passions and do the work they care about the most. They care more about meaningful work than married people do. Lifelong single people develop a greater sense of autonomy over time than people who stay married. All work in marriage is meaningful; meeting each other’s needs, raising a family in the chaotic moral climate of the day is unbeatable. Married people need to focus on what is needed for their family and might not have the time to be bothered by other pursuits. Married people need to care more about each other than they care about themselves and their interests.
Lifelong single people experience more personal growth and development than people who stay married. What? How can that be? Personal growth is best developed in the service of others which married people do for each other and their children. That’s what the world needs. Selfishness has no place in marriage. I often get the impression many people are single so they can pursue their goals, rather than what is best for their spouse and family. I personally feel like I have grown and developed more since being married although I had lived so much of my life already as a single person.
If someone is self-centered then they will struggle being married. For so long people desired to get married, but now people supposedly prefer to be single, that’s quite the change. What happened? I think many singles assume they will end up divorced so they don’t bother to get married. I don’t buy the doom and gloom rhetoric. I got married to a woman better than I expected. I am totally into her and her good. I am also fulfilled in my role as a husband.
Whatever benefits there might be being single I think are outweighed by constant sexual frustration and loneliness and how in the world are you supposed to be fulfilled that way? Those who choose to be alone, I think will live to regret it. Those who still realize marriage is better need to do something different to get married. Somehow, they have to not give up.
Women need to be pursued by a man; men need to pursue women. People are still getting married and want to be married. Many of us think marriage is a great thing despite the obvious interpersonal disagreements from time to time, especially those who have found love beyond the sea.