Being Single Today

In the next few issues of Goodnews we will be looking at different aspects of being a single Christian in today’s society. Please write and tell us if there are issues you would like us to tackle or share with us your own experiences.

Monika Metel, who’s in her late 20s, reflects on life as a single young Catholic in Britain today.

More and more people today are either postponing the decision to get married or not marrying at all. The average age for marriage has changed from early twenties only a few decades ago, to late twenties or mid-thirties today. There are many reasons for this. One is that there are more career opportunities than there used to be, particularly for women. Another is that people tend to want to have a bit of fun and freedom before they settle down and have children. Others – up to a third of young adults - have been brought up in single parent households and the spectre of divorce makes them distrustful of the long term commitment of marriage.

Yet single-ness often concerns young adults too, as the human heart longs for a soul mate and they worry they will never find someone to love or be loved by. Christians are not immune to these influences, and it can be, in fact, more difficult for them, as they try and reconcile the pull of the promiscuous prevailing culture with their Christian faith.

Even if people eventually get married, everyone is single at some point in their life. Some people, who have been in a relationship, can also suddenly become single again, through divorce or bereavement. Rather than fear it, I have found that singleness can be a special time and opportunity for spiritual growth. Although it might feel like an empty place, for believers it is an opportunity to get closer to Christ and discover who you are in Him. This can be a time of great healing and pruning too, which is crucial for those whose singleness has been caused by emotional problems. Some single people will perhaps need to accept too that they will not marry. Some are given a great grace for this. For others, for whom it is more difficult, psychologists advise to look at it as a kind of bereavement, and allow the grieving process with all its stages to occur. If we are open, through Christian community God will provide us with people to love us along the way. After a while, if we are faithful, we will find that our aloneness has somehow changed in quality. It has been described by many Christian writers as the move from loneliness to solitude. Whereas loneliness is a state of emotional isolation from others, which makes you feel unhappy and alone even in a crowd, in solitude, you are perfectly at peace on your own. Solitude is a great blessing and something we can all learn to grow into, whether we are single or in a relationship, because it is here that God feeds and fulfils us. It is here we are able to see ourselves as we really are with all our weaknesses, and sins and also our gifts. Once we have learned to accept ourselves and know whom we are in God, we are ready for real relationships that can survive pressures of today’s world. Being part of a loving community is important for all Christians, but particularly those who are single, as we all need good relationships if we are to flourish. Being single myself, I trust that Christ will continue to sustain me with his love, whether I get married or not!

Single by mistake?
by Maria, late 30s

Being single at my age is something that I had never expected or planned for. I had plenty of boyfriends in the past, although I hadn’t taken them too seriously, even though a couple of them had proposed. When I finally decided that it was time to settle down and get married, I was with a boyfriend whom I thought respected, but didn’t share my faith. When on one occasion I mentioned that I was going to pray and he responded by laughing at me, it became clear to me that we would never attain the deep level of compatability in our relationship that I had hoped for. I knew it was time to re-think things.

This time I resolved that I only wanted to be with someone with whom I could share my faith. This meant that for the first time I felt truly out of control in the situation. I would now have to entrust my life to God on a deeper level than I had before. I thought I had always trusted God, but suddenly, when faced with the fact that your life isn’t going the way you want it to and that God isn’t doing what you expect Him to, you find yourself in an alarming and painful situation: What if God doesn’t want me to get married? What if He has plans for my life that I don’t like? What if He can’t hear my prayers? Or…what if He isn’t there at all?

Eventually I began to realise that God, in His wisdom, had cornered me. He wanted me to learn to trust Him and for this I needed to seek Him. He wanted me to know who was boss. If He had immediately answered my prayers for a husband, it would have been the equivalent of me having dictated to Him. Instead He has been teaching me lessons in trusting and waiting on Him. It is never easy to relinquish control and it has not been easy to learn these lessons. In fact there are days when it feels as though I just don’t seem to have enough faith at all. I find that I have to seek Him constantly to keep from losing focus and sinking back into loneliness and fear.

But the more I seek Him, the better I get to know Him. I am learning that His love for us is perfect. I have found that His way of going about things is entirely different from ours; so for this reason we need to learn to trust Him whatever the situation. Focusing on His love reminds me that nothing else matters more than my relationship with Him. Difficult though it is, I don’t regret my original decision. I have found that my seeking has in fact strengthened my faith and has begun to transform other parts of my life in ways I never expected. It is so different to what I had in mind to start with, but the result is that I am beginning to find a freedom that I hadn’t expected or had known was possible. And the good thing is that I know I have only just started and that there is so much more to discover!

IS THERE SOMETHING WRONG WITH ME?
by Agnieszka, 28

The fact that I have been single for most of my life never bothered me. I believed that at the right time the right person would cross my path. It was when I reached the age when most of my schoolmates were already married or in serious relationships, that I started to worry. I was confused and could not understand why it did not seem to be happening to me. To compound the situation my family started to express their concerns, wondering out loud why a girl like me “not lacking anything” couldn’t find a boyfriend? Soon I was giving in to bouts of depression, wondering whether there was, something wrong with me.

To try and find some sort of explanation for all this, I began to read the Scriptures, Christian books and poetry…Somehow these always brought me peace. I would ponder for long time on soothing poems and feed myself on verses from the Gospel. Eventually I found that all my rebellion had disappeared and in its place was a profound trust. I knew that God would show me the way and lead me, whether I would be single or married.

But it was thanks to those years I spent on my own, that I am not afraid of my thoughts and I like my own company. I know that my happiness lies in God alone and is not conditioned by having or not having another half. This solitude has also taught me to respect other people more. If you wait for someone for a very long time, you appreciate that person in a different way. When he finally turns up, you treat him as a Gift!

PS: Agnieszka is getting married in a couple of months.

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Alone... but NOT LONELY!
by Henrietta, 26

I used to feel bad about being single until I found the Lord. As a child I was acknowledged for my braininess and being a bookworm. I relied on this as the only good thing about me. I was sort of geeky and I did not think much of myself. Growing into adolescence and being away from family brought a lot of insecurities and loneliness and I paid a lot of attention to others’ opinions of me. Through retreats and conferences, however, I started to learn about God’s love.

At times, it would be difficult for me to grasp. Sometimes I would hold onto this truth of God’s love for me for a little while, sometimes I couldn’t. I have found great peace and tranquility in daily Mass, Adoration and Scripture reading. God has also brought me good Christian friends along my spiritual journey. It made me realise that in all that time of loneliness, as I got to know God better, He was teaching me about myself; how to persevere and be a good Catholic in today’s world and be proud of it. I began to understand who Jesus was to me. I realised that there was nothing wrong with me, that His healing love conquers all and that my past was for a purpose. God would use it all to bless me and others. I was no longer lonely even though I was alone. Being single has allowed me to accept the real person that I am with all my strengths and weaknesses and to be open to whoever God brings my way. When I relate to men, I don’t try to ‘fake’ it; I let them see the real me and God has been faithful in protecting me from my insecurities about men. I know that my worth comes from the Lord and not from anybody else. This has given me a certain type of confidence that I believe will attract whoever God has ordained for me.
As I do hope to get married, I’m using this time of my life to prepare myself by learning about the Church’s teachings on marriage, family planning, and other moral isssues. I read Christian or spiritual books as well as motivational ones that help you to seek good relationships with God and men.

God has also been offering me the opportunities to acquire knowledge and wisdom from already married couples (with good and not-so-good marriages), observe families with their children and therefore set realistic criteria for the kind of person I’m looking for. However, I try to seek His face in all I do as His plans for me may be different from mine. He knows what I need!

Single with CHRIST
by Sophie, aged 28

It’s funny the jokes that go around about approaching 30 and STILL being single. I remember talking about it back in my school days with my friends! We were adamant never to let that happen! Well, I’m 28 years old now and am a secondary school teacher of RE and am STILL single! And I am very happy to be single. If God wants me to be single, then that’s fine. And if he wants me to get married or enter religious life, that’s fine too! I continue to consider all three!! I try to live my life in the best way possible, praying and listening to what God might want for my life. At the moment it seems that the single life is where I can best serve him.

I am open to the possibility of marriage but I have never felt less of a person because I have not yet found “Mr Right”, when many of my contemporaries seem to have. I believe that God has given me a worth and an identity beyond whether or not I have a man in my life. For me serving God is very much about being in relationship with others, but this can be done even when you are single. I actually spent many years living in a Catholic lay community and I found it to be one of the most formative experiences of my life – learning how to live authentically with others, whom I would not necessarily have chosen to be with, but with whom I shared my faith in common. And even today, although I do not live as part of a specific community, I do believe that our first calling should be to live “in community” with those around us – our family, friends and work colleagues.

If I can make a difference to the children I teach or be a positive influence in my workplace, then I believe that I am doing God’s work as a single person.The body of Christ has many different parts and the role of the single person is a precious one and cannot be underestimated. Particularly in a world where finding the right man or, indeed, finding any man (or woman), seems to be the primary goal, a Catholic single person, living an authentic Catholic single life, can be a real witness and a challenge to our generation and with God’s grace and guidance, I am determined to continue to do so.

LET HIM CHANGE THE VISION OF MY LIFE
by Barbara, 50

As a young woman, I used to dream about having a home with a loving husband and children. But my life did not go the way I wanted and the biggest dream of my youth never came true. Throughout my adulthood I felt sad, and guilty and scared of the future until this suffering drew me to God. It was through pain that I entered the fullness of a relationship with Jesus, with others and with myself. With trust I let Him change the vision of my life. And I gave my dreams and my longings to God as the most precious gift I could offer. Now I fill my life with prayer and adoration. I allow God to love me, and He blesses me with peace and joy as I try to see Him in every person I meet. Although I still long for marriage I now do it with hope not despair.