OK-I’ll try not to vent…
…It’s hard being single in a couples/families world. I feel like an oddball because I never married, never had kids. I’m unable to be in religious life due to my age [mid-fifties], my lack of health, and my mountain of debts.
I spend most of my time alone-I live alone, eat alone, sleep alone, go to church alone. What few friends I have, they’re almost all married, and I don’t want to be the proverbial ‘fifth wheel’…
I try to stay ‘under the radar’ and live my quiet, humdrum, drab and hidden life. It’s always been that way for me, ever since I can remember…I’m better off being alone.
Believe me-I’ve been through talks on marriage and sat through enough ‘World Marriage Day’ Masses sitting in a pew alone to know!
…
A quiet and hidden life is not the same as a “humdrum” or “drab” life…unless you mean that your debts are holding you down. The truth is, life-long singles are some of the most interesting people I know.
You’re describing the life of many a widow. My mother-in-law has been a widow for over 20 years, and she and her friends do not sit around and talk about their dead (or ex) husbands. I do not know of a one of them who wishes she were married. Some have children around to socialize with, but many do not. They support each other, they volunteer their time generously, and they have a great time together. The world is full of non-profits that would fall apart, save for the unmarried people like them.
My mother-in-law was told this story, about why she decided not to accept any offers for “dates” after her husband died. She said a friend of hers had gotten such an invitation, some time after her own husband had died. The friend said, “I looked around my house and thought, ‘After years of doing whatever my sons needed, whatever my husband needed, having to take into account what everybody else wanted, I finally had a life and a home that was just the way I wanted it. Marry again, now? Why would I want to do that? My life is full. Who needs it?’”
Indeed. You all know this passage:
Now in regard to the matters about which you wrote: “It is a good thing for a man not to touch a woman,” but because of cases of immorality every man should have his own wife, and every woman her own husband… Indeed, I wish everyone to be as I am, but each has a particular gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. Now to the unmarried and to widows, I say: it is a good thing for them to remain as they are, as I do, but if they cannot exercise self-control they should marry, for it is better to marry than to be on fire…
I should like you to be free of anxieties. An unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But a married man is anxious about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and he is divided. An unmarried woman or a virgin is anxious about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy in both body and spirit. A married woman, on the other hand, is anxious about the things of the world, how she may please her husband…
I am telling you this for your own benefit, not to impose a restraint upon you, but for the sake of propriety and adherence to the Lord without distraction…1 Cor. 7:1-4,7-9, 32-35
And St. Paul continues on in the same vein, but I think we know the passage.
I tell you, I love my husband and I love my children, but if my husband dies before I do, I’ll not be looking for a replacement for him. You have a freedom that many women at those conferences today will freely choose tomorrow, when it is their turn to do so. I certainly won’t be wasting my time with those who have to have to be half of a couple before they’re happy. If my sons both become priests or singles, and I get no grandchildren: well, the world is not short of children who need someone with the time to spend with them.
All these people in your parishes, getting advice on how to be married and raise with children, get that because they have cares that you are free of. To be bitter about that is, if you want to look at it that way, like being bitter because people with a limp get all that time with a physical therapist, while you, the one without that problem, get nothing. Are we who are married in a worse state of life? No, it is our gift. It is less free, though.
To continue the analogy: Yes, if you are free, you might be happier and serve the Lord better in a parish full of athletes, rather than a parish full of people whose state in life absorbs them in the things of this world, who have to constantly get advice on living with that handicap. Of course you get bored hearing about how to manage getting through life with their trials. Don’t judge them on that account. That isn’t your concern. But don’t covet what they have or feel bitter about how their trials consume them, either. Be thankful for what you have: St. Paul’s freedom to follow the Lord. Your gift is not less of a gift because some of them don’t appreciate it.
Even if you marry later in life, your freedom to structure your whole life around the Lord without distraction is the gift you have today. It is not sour grapes to be thankful for it, and to live accordingly. Besides, if you take the trouble to live around single people whose life revolves around God, then if the day comes for you to marry, it will likely be to someone who will help with that, rather than distract from it.
If you are not on fire to marry, though, I wouldn’t go looking for an antidote for it. The freedom of being unmarried is a gift, not a disease. If your parish doesn’t have that attitude, no matter how many married couples are in it, look for another one. There are parishes with straight priorities, even ones with lots of married people.
Not only the customers but the management and the co-workers. It IS difficult not to want to smack them at times
I don’t think my parish has any activites or groups especially for singles, but no one treats me rudely, because I don’t interact with anyone. And since I don’t interact with anyone, I have no idea if anyone else is single, or how they feel about what our parish has to offer.
