Here’s What Two Women Over 50 Who Never Married Wish They Could Have Told Their Younger Selves by M. Taylor

Here’s What Two Women Over 50 Who Never Married Wish They Could Have Told Their Younger Selves by M. Taylor

(Link): Here’s What Two Women Over 50 Who Never Married Wish They Could Have Told Their Younger Selves

Excerpts:

Plus, all the ways their decision to stay single and childless has affected their lives, for better and worse.

by M. Taylor
September 2017

….Now over 50, both women [Mindy Solkin, Lisa Bahar] have enough hindsight to reflect on how the decision to stay single and childless has affected their lives—mostly for better, but sometimes also for worse. Here, the most important lessons they’ve learned—and what they wish their younger selves knew.

Some people will make snap judgments about you. 

Just because you’re comfortable with your singleness doesn’t mean that everyone else will be. “In general, people need to figure you out and put some kind of label on you,” Bahar says. “That, in my experience, has been the biggest challenge; feeling like people are thinking, ‘What’s wrong with you?’”

You might never come up with a good answer for why you’re “still single.”

Being an unmarried, childless woman doesn’t exactly make you a unicorn. But as you get older, it’s uncommon enough that most people will feel the need to ask questions.

Wagner’s Response to TGC’s Morris’s Review of “Non Toxic Masculinity” – and Morris is Incorrect About Singleness, Among Other Issues

Wagner’s Response to TGC’s Morris’s Review of “Non Toxic Masculinity” – and Morris is Incorrect About Singleness, Among Other Issues

TGC is the same group that brought us all that cringe, weird book about sex called “Beautiful Union,” whose author claimed that sex can point us all to God, which is a disaster for those of us over 30 who are still virgins and living celibately.

I had a few comments I wanted to make below this:

(Link):  A Response to Shane Morris’s TGC Review of Non-Toxic Masculinity

Excerpts:

[The review that Wagner is responding to is located here, on TGC’s site: Sexual Ethics Is More than Not Being Evil]

by Zachary Wagner

…I want to note some of my ongoing disappointment with The Gospel Coalition on their engagement with issues of sexuality, gender, and masculinity.

…For many of my friends who have left Christianity, the straw that broke the camel’s back was not merely that Christianity was sexually restrictive. It was the hypocrisy of those who condemned the culture’s sexual permissiveness while indulging in sexual sin themselves or excusing it on the part of Christian leaders and heroes.

…In particular, the juxtaposition between purity culture on the one hand and sexual scandal on the other has opened a floodgate of apostasy for Millennials in particular, including members of my family and many very dear friends. How should evangelical pastors respond to this? Morris has little to say on this point, but he seems to imply that defending purity culture and doubling down on its good intentions is the correct approach. …

This is pastorally irresponsible. Parents, pastors, and authors were the ones who should have known better, not teenagers with raging hormones and half-developed brains. The sons and daughters of purity culture have repeatedly been told that they were the problem. Any suffering or frustration or confusion they experienced was their fault, a result of their sinful and broken inclinations.

Single, People Pleasing Guy Murdered by Neighbor (Incident Triggered by His People Pleasing) – Another Precaution for Codependents (and for Complementarian Women)

Single, People Pleasing Guy Murdered by Neighbor (Incident Triggered by His People Pleasing) – Another Precaution for Codependents (and for Complementarian Women)

I’m not blaming this guy for his own murder, but I am saying in this post if you’re a people pleaser, an empath, or a codependent and/or you are a woman who was brought up to believe in Christian gender complementarianism, you need to learn how to start having boundaries right away (regardless of what your church or church preacher thinks), and get very comfortable with saying “no” to people, or you could end up like this guy.

The chain of events that led to his death was his good nature, kindness, willingness to help other people and an inability to say “no” to people.

I suspect he was a codependent.

First, here is some background before I resume with my observations:

(Link): Ronald March Murder: Where is Lance Standberg Now?

Excerpts:

October 2022

A vicious attack in an alley in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, left Ronald March dead in August 2012.

The authorities quickly found the person responsible, though, since both men had a history of animosity.

Investigation Discovery’s ‘Fear Thy Neighbor: Hell-Bent’ focuses on the events leading up to Ronald’s death and how the tragic attack occurred.

So, let’s find out more about what happened then, shall we?

How Did Ronald March Die?

Ronald William March was described as an avid reader and an intelligent man. Loved ones remembered the Vancouver resident as gentle and kind, always going out of his way to help others if needed.

20th Century Irish Roman Catholics Actually Shamed Single Women For Being Single – Gross

20th Century Irish Roman Catholics Actually Shamed Single Women For Being Single – Gross

This reminds me of how present-day Protestant and Baptist conservative Christians, and secular American conservatives, still shame women for being single and/or for being childless.

It’s disgusting that people do this. It’s not your place to question a woman’s marital or childed status. A woman isn’t less a woman because she is single or childless  (whether by choice or by circumstance).

(Link): Chalk Sunday: Women marked with an X for being single 

Feb. 26, 2023

By Nuala McCann
BBC News NI

Today – the first Sunday in Lent – was once known as Chalk Sunday in Ireland.

“It was a custom dating back to the 1900s,” said Fiona Byrne, curator of History at the Ulster Folk Museum.

“Young boys would have drawn Xs on the backs of single women’s coats and dresses as they walked to and from Mass. They might have dusted them with chalk or touched them on the shoulder.

“It meant you didn’t manage to get married and was a bit mean really.

Lent is an old English word meaning ‘lengthen’. Lent is observed in spring, when the days begin to get longer. It allows Christians to remember Jesus’s fasting in the desert. It is a time of giving things up and a test of self-discipline.

No sex

The old Irish tradition of Chalk Sunday ties in with the feast of Shrove or Pancake Tuesday -the last day before Lent began – when people celebrated and had weddings, in preparation for the period stretching over six weeks of fasting, penitence and denial.

Meat, eggs, dairy, alcohol and even sex were off limits for strict Catholics in Ireland over Lent. Music and merrymaking was not enjoyed. There was a tradition of musical instruments being put away for the six weeks of Lent.

“Shrove Tuesday was traditionally the last day to get married before Lent,” said Ms Byrne. “There would have been a big rush for priests running up to Shrove Tuesday.”

People who were single were considered to have disregarded their social duty to marry and enjoyed a lesser social status.

It followed that Chalk Sunday was a focus on the single.

“Women’s role at that time was about getting married, having children and keeping a house,” said Ms Byrne.

“Women did so much more than that … but as for marriage, for some women it just may not have worked out. The word ‘spinster’ is a horrible term.”

The Gospel Coalition Says – in Sex Won’t Save You Essay – that (Married) Sex is a “Salvation Icon” that Supposedly “Points People to God” – TGC Making Christianity Irrelevant to Single, Celibate Adults

The Gospel Coalition Says – in Sex Won’t Save You Essay – that (Married) Sex is a “Salvation Icon” that Supposedly “Points People to God” -TGC Making Christianity Irrelevant to Single, Celibate Adults

I first began composing this on or around March 1 (or 2?), I have it set to be auto-published on March 4, and as of today, March 3, there’s been a lot more commentary on Twitter about this awful TGC marital sex article, to the point, TGC removed the original tweet linking to it, and I learned that one guy I quote-tweeted about it, a Brent McCracken, deleted his tweet that I quote tweeted (but I have a screen capture of it), and I was informed McCracken is head editor of TGC.

NOTE: I will edit this post after publication to add any more links or new content pertinent, so you may want to periodically re-visit this page and scroll down and skim over to find new links / videos, etc

I may be writing a follow up to this post later – a part two, if you will.

---

Un-freaking-believable. I’ve been blogging here for over ten years, and during that time, have I not been pointing out that not only do most Christians now, even the conservatives, attack sexual purity, sexual abstinence, virginity-until-marriage, but they have also turned sex (and marriage, parenthood, the nuclear family) into idols that they worship, to the point they act distressed when they hear that fornication among singles has declined? (I have a few examples under “Related Posts” towards the bottom of this page.)

There’s more of this nonsense, courtesy of The Gospel Coalition.

It starts off well enough by recognizing that many in secular society have turned sex and relationships into idols, and seek to find love and purpose in romance and sex, but then it goes on to make the very distasteful point that sex can, or does, point people to God.

Also… if such a book begins by acknowledging that singleness is fine in a page or two (or paragraph or two) but then never-the-less 99% of the book remains focused on a Jesus-marriage-sex analogy, it’s undercutting any “it’s okay to be single” or “you don’t have to be married and having sex to have a relationship with God” message.

This is no different from the idiot pastors who make every other sermon in church about “how to have smokin’ hot sex with your spouse” but who thinks it’s okay to overly focus on marriage constantly, if they merely toss in the token, “Hey, you may be single, but this marital sermon can be applicable to you too.”

I’m sorry, but evangelical Protestants or Baptists making the majority of the non-stop deluge of comments, sermons, or books about marriage and married sex, while only offering passing lip service, to adult singleness and celibacy, is still elevating marriage (and sex) to an unhealthy, bizarre, un-Biblical degree that still marginalizes singleness.

Screen Cap of Gospel Coalition Tweet

While it is true for a long time that many in American culture have turned sex and romantic relationships into idols, or seek to find identity or purpose in such, it’s also true that for the past several years, many news headlines and studies have been published showing that a larger number of adults are declining to have sex, date, and/or marry.

If you’re trying to titillate a secular public into giving Jesus a try by using sex-God analogies or metaphors, in a society where having sex, dating, or marrying are no longer the norm and not very popular, it’s not going to work.

I mean, while Butler is writing his book comparing knowing the Trinity to marital sexual intercourse and pro-creation, other conservative outlets have been in pearl-clutching, severe worry mode, that marriage is on the decline, and they’re shaming women for not choosing motherhood, and some conservatives are even upset that single adults are not having as much sex prior to marriage as they used to.

(Link): Sex Won’t Save You (But It Points to the One Who Will)

Excerpts (citing free use):

by Josh Butler
March 1, 2023

…Our culture looks to sex for salvation too. We want romance to free us from solitary confinement, to deliver us into a welcome embrace. But idolizing sex results in slavery.

Sex wasn’t designed to be your salvation but to point you to the One who is.

Union with Christ
Sex is an icon of Christ and the church.  …

[The author then goes on to refer to a Bible verses which seem to refer to marriage, such as a man leaving his family and cleaving to his wife, etc]

… A husband and wife’s life of faithful love is designed to point to greater things, but so is their sexual union! This is a gospel bombshell: sex is an icon of salvation.

Who Does Best at Being Single? by B. DePaulo

Who Does Best at Being Single? by B. DePaulo

(Link): Who Does Best at Being Single?

Excerpts:

by Bella DePaulo

Living single can be such a vastly different experience for different people. At one end are the people who are distraught to be single and often invest heavily in becoming coupled.

At the other end are the “single at heart”—people for whom single life is their best life—their most authentic, meaningful, fulfilling, and psychologically rich life. The single at heart are not settling for being single—they are embracing it. In single life, they flourish.

[A study conducted by Girme and her colleagues was done on this topic]

Who Thrives When Single?

Girme and her colleagues mentioned many factors associated with happy and successful singlehood, including [I will not be copying the entire list below on this blog; you can view the entire list here]:

• • Embracing values such as freedom, creativity, and trying new things.
  • … Having good social support.
  • Having quality friendships.
  • Having a secure attachment style.
  • …Getting older. (Some research suggests that after about the age of 40, single people become happier and happier with their single lives. Starting at even younger ages, single people who are not pining for a romantic partner are especially likely to become happier and happier.)

Who Has a Harder Time With Single Life?

According to the researchers:

• • People who buy into ideologies that insist that being married or coupled is the normal, natural, and superior way to be.
  • People who believe in traditional norms about gender and parenting.
  • People who are afraid of being single.
  • People who really want to be romantically partnered.
  • People who are divorced.
  • People who don’t have much social support.
  • People who have an anxious attachment style.
  • … People who feel pressured to couple or marry by family members.
  • People who experience even more than the usual dose of singlism—the stereotyping, stigmatizing, and marginalization of single people, and the discrimination against them.

Writers at WND and Real Clear Wire Sound Like They’re Freaking Out Over Increasing Numbers of Single Women Who Aren’t Marrying or Having Children

Writers at WND and Real Clear Wire Sound Like They’re Freaking Out Over Increasing Numbers of Single Women Who Aren’t Marrying or Having Children

I saw this headline go through my Twitter feed earlier (this is how the writers at WND chose to word their headline – WND says this article at their site originally appeared at another site called “Real Clear Wire”):

“Single women could push U.S. into ‘demographic decline’ like in Japan”

It’s hard for me to say if the writers at WND are stating that “matter of factly,” but at first glance (and realizing they’re conservatives, with many of my fellow conservatives being very grossly obsessed about promoting marriage and the nuclear family), it sounds as though it’s blaming and criticizing women for being single and for choosing not to reproduce.

As a conservative woman myself, who’s never married or had children, I abhor both liberals (or progressives) AND conservatives shaming or criticizing people (women especially) over whether to marry or have children or not.

Both sides need to back off. Allow women to decide for themselves if they’d like to marry and/or have children.

Men seldom get as much pressure, shaming, criticism, and guilt tripping to marry and have children as women do – and it’s sexist.

Women do not exist merely to marry and have kids and assist a man (husband) make HIS goals and dreams come to pass.

Most of the article itself at WND isn’t too bad – it seems to be straight up reporting. I only spotted two or three possible subtle, sexist digs at single women.

In the past week, I’ve seen two or three other headlines from other sources, such as The Daily Mail, go through my feed about how there are more and more single women in the USA now (including large numbers of never married women), and how a lot of these women tend to vote Democrat.

I am always alarmed when such news stories and surveys are released, because unfortunately, every time such studies or stories are published, the sexist asshole conservative and Republican men (and conservative / Republican women who are traitors to their own biological sex as a group) become aware of such news reports, and they immediately begin tweeting and blogging their revolting, sexist, anti-single-women propaganda, and their “women shouldn’t have the right to vote” garbage.

Many of these conservatives, when they begin catching wind of whatever recent news reportage of women staying single and childless, begin their face-palming, vomit-worthy lamentations about how America in 2023 isn’t the same as good old 1952 America, where every woman got married by age 23 and had five children.

Many such conservative-penned tweets and articles, and Tucker Carlson on his nightly FOX news show, will demonize single women for being single, will attempt to make marriage look like nirvana (never mind that a lot of husbands cheat on their wives or murder them), and in yet others, these authors or cable news commentators attempt to lecture, scold, or shame single women into marrying immediately and popping out ten kids, whether these women want to or not, and whether or not these women even know many single men they can date.

I could go on for ten more pages about why such utterly predictable material is disgusting and sexist, but one thing I wanted to point out is that these excessively pro-marriage idiot conservatives never factor in is that getting married is not easy.

I myself had wanted to be married, and in spite of having friends fix me up on dates, in spite of going to singles classes at churches, in spite of joining dating sites, I couldn’t find a compatible mate.

Even if a single woman wants to get married, it’s no easy task to find a decent, compatible guy.

So, if you’re a conservative, unless you’re willing to actually help marriage-desiring single women to get married, to fix them up on dates with decent single guys you know, or to get your local church to host more singles mixers and so forth so these singles can meet and marry, shut up with browbeating single women to get married.

A single woman cannot wave a magic wand and make a husband magically appear before her – it involves going out on dates with various men, and that is no guarantee of finding a suitable marital partner.

Some of those men women go on dates with or see on dating sites may be perverts, controlling, immature, selfish, or personality disordered -in other words, none of those types of men are marriage material.

Shaming and hounding single women to get married does nothing to actually HELP a single woman run into and marry an eligible single man. So shut up, conservatives, shut up about scolding women for not marrying.

I find that conservatives generally ignore single women. But this comes in cycles.

Conservatives will annoyingly ignore single, childless women and their concerns unless and until

• another new study appears discussing how more and more women are staying single and childless which may impact future demographics, or,
• until a major election cycle where a Republican loses to a Democrat, because, it’s found, single, childless women as a bloc voted for the Democrat, helping the Republican to lose.

Then, all the sudden, only in these very limited contexts, will these anti-singles idiot conservatives and Republicans start frothing at the mouth and pearl clutching and writing their singles-shaming editorials and tweets that are chock full of sexism about “why aren’t women marrying and making babies any more.” The rest of the time, we single and childless women do not exist on their radars.

Hey, fellow conservatives:
Why don’t you pro-marriage, pro-motherhood, pro-nuclear family assholes start investing into single and childless women at all times, not just when your favorite Republican loses an election? Start reaching single, childless women where they are and start offering them incentives to vote Republican.

(Link):  Single women could push U.S. into ‘demographic decline’ like in Japan

Excerpts:

‘One of the great untold stories of American politics’

By WND News Services
Published January 21, 2023

[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire.]

By Joel Kotkin & Samuel J. Abrams

Soccer Moms are giving way to Single Woke Females – the new “SWFs” – as one of the most potent voting blocs in American politics.

Unmarried women without children have been moving toward the Democratic Party for several years, but the 2022 midterms may have been their electoral coming-out party as they proved the chief break on the predicted Republican wave. While married men and women as well as unmarried men broke for the GOP, CNN exit polls found that 68% of unmarried women voted for Democrats.

The Supreme Court’s August decision overturning Roe v. Wade was certainly a special factor in the midterms, but longer-term trends show that single, childless women are joining African Americans as the Democrats’ most reliable supporters.

Their power is growing thanks to the demographic winds.

The (Link): number of never married women has grown from about 20% in 1950 to over 30% in 2022, while the percentage of married women has declined from almost 70% in 1950 to under 50% today.

Overall, the percentage of (Link): married households with children has declined from 37% in 1976 to 21% today.

A (Link): new Institute for Family Studies analysis  of 2020 Census data found that one in six women do not have children by the time they reach the end of their childbearing years, up from one in ten in 1990.

Single adult women now total some (Link): 42 million, comparable to the key African American voting bloc (46 million), while vastly larger than key groups like labor union members (14 million) or college students (20 million).

Florida Man Throws Christmas Tree at Wife After Being Asked to Help With Dinner

Florida Man Throws Christmas Tree at Wife After Being Asked to Help With Dinner

🎄🎄🎄

Ho ho ho! 🎅 Does being married guarantee happiness, contentment, and inner peace? No it does not!

So if you’re single this holiday and bummed out about it, don’t be! You can enjoy your own company… which is preferable to having an idiot spouse throw a Christmas tree at you.

(Link): Florida man is arrested after hitting his wife with a CHRISTMAS TREE after she asked him to help her with dinner

Dec 15, 2022

A Florida man was arrested after bashing his wife with a Christmas tree after he became enraged when she asked him to help prepare dinner.

Richard Daniel Atchison, 52, was arrested on Monday around 7pm on felony charges including false imprisonment, violation of an injunction and domestic battery, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by DailyMail.com.

…The disturbing incident occurred when Atchison ‘lost his temper’ after the couple got into an argument inside their Fruitland Park home.

(Link): Florida Man Throws Christmas Tree at Wife After Being Asked to Help With Dinner

December 14, 2022
By Pilar Arias , Fox News

A Florida man allegedly threw a Christmas tree at his wife during an argument that was sparked when she asked him to help make dinner, authorities said.

Richard Atchison, 52, “lost his temper” in the couple’s Fruitland Park home Monday evening after his wife asked for help and put a spoon in the sink, accidentally splashing him with water, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by FOX 35 Orlando.

The Most Important Factor in Aging Happily as a Single Person: Guest Post by Cathy Goodwin

The Most Important Factor in Aging Happily as a Single Person: Guest Post by Cathy Goodwin 

I think this is from Bella DePaulo’s Medium account.

By the way, the anecdote about all the married couples immediately departing from welcoming the new woman neighbor once they found out she had no husband?
Read the book “Singled Out” by Field and Colon to see example after example of Christians doing the SAME THING to new single adults who show up in their lives, even to church services or church events (such as luncheons) –
– the minute the married Christian women find out you are single and/or childless, they immediately act freaked out, or weirded out, and will turn their back on you to run across the room to greet a woman who they know is married and/or a mother.

Treating adult singles as though they are dangerous, weird, or flawed, and then immediately avoiding them to run off in search of another married mother to chat with, is very hurtful behavior to the adult singles in question, but it seems to be common behavior by married Christians in many churches and Christian culture.

Married Christian men treat single women as though they are all harlots, so they avoid single women, which is also insulting, demeaning, and hurtful behavior. (At least this is true of the Christian married men who aren’t looking to commit adultery.)

God says in the Bible he does not play favorites, and I believe God instructs Christians to avoid playing favorites
– which would mean, (and since so many Christians have turned The Nuclear Family into idols they worship), Christians do play favorites, they almost always prioritize married parents above single, childless adults, and so,
they will instantly ignore or otherwise marginalize any adult who crosses their path (even at church) if that adult is single and childless (ie, these adults don’t have a Nuclear Family of their own, they’re not married parents).

The church should not be doing this; the church is supposed to be above this behavior – but it’s not.

(Link): The Most Important Factor in Aging Happily as a Single Person: Guest Post by Cathy Goodwin

Excerpts:

Aging happily while single isn’t about doctors, diets or relationships. It’s about choosing the best place to live.

Nov 11, 2022

From Bella: Guest blogger Cathy Goodwin really knows how to get to the heart of things that matter to single people.

A guest post she wrote for my Living Single blog on (Link): how the medical establishment makes it hard for single people to get the care they need, is one that readers go back to again and again. Now she is out with a new, provocative book on aging, (Link): When I Grow Old I Plan to be a Bitch.

Prepare to hear some ideas you’ve never encountered before, and to laugh out loud along the way. I invited Cathy Goodwin to write a guest post about aging when single and I am delighted that she agreed.

The Most Important Factor in Aging Happily as a Single Person

By Cathy Goodwin

Go to any online forum about being single, growing older, or even “being single while growing older.” You’ll find dozens of posts like this:

“I can’t seem to find anything meaningful to occupy my time.”
“I’m having trouble making new friends.”
“I couldn’t get help when I was sick.”
“I feel like an outsider in my community.”
“I’m just not enjoying life the way I’d hoped.”
What happened to most of these folks?

They’d say they’re lonely. They might say, “It’s part of growing old.” They’d be wrong.

The truth is, they moved to a place that’s all wrong for them.

Single by Choice: Why I Am Content to Be Without a Plus-One by M. Weldon

Single by Choice: Why I Am Content to Be Without a Plus-One by M. Weldon

(Link): Single by Choice: Why I Am Content to Be Without a Plus-One

Excerpts:

And, no, I don’t have an affliction in need of a cure.

By Michele Weldon
October 17, 2022

…Married for nine years (we were together for 12) from the mid-’80s to the mid-’90s and divorced for the past 26 years, I have been in one serious, nearly seven-year relationship since my divorce. It was a mostly calm alliance that he ended with his declaration that he never was number one in my life, and needed to be.

…Proposing a rebuttal to Three Dog Night’s 1969 cover of “One Is the Loneliest Number,” I suggest that for many women 50 and older, being single is not just a holding pattern until the next best person comes along.

In her latest book, Not Too Old for That: How Women Are Changing the Story of Aging (2022), award-winning journalist and author Vicki Larson writes, “What if being self-partnered is nothing to fear, but something actually to celebrate?”

Why Can’t Other Christians Understand I Am Happy Being Single? by Emily Brown

Why Can’t Other Christians Understand I Am Happy Being Single? by Emily Brown

The essay I am excerpting below is pretty good and contains a lot of truth.

It’s certainly true that a person who wanted marriage but remains single can eventually learn to accept their own single status, mostly make peace with it, but well-meaning friends and family (Christians are the worst, they worship marriage),
can make one of their well-meaning comments, and it can send you spiraling – until you learn to let it bounce off you, develop boundaries, and let that well-meaning person know that their comment does offend or hurt, even if that wasn’t their intent.

I also recall years ago seeing Christian singer Carman, who died in 2021, who was single until he got married in his 50s, say on a TBN program (while he was single) that he would be going along okay in life doing just FINE with his single status,
until he’d run into a Christian friend or family member who’d make those passing, sometimes well meaning, comments or questions like, “Why are you still single? Aren’t you depressed or lonely being single?”

Carman said on those occasions, his thoughts were, “You know, I WAS doing okay with being single UNTIL you had to rub my single status in my face and act like I SHOULD feel inadequate about it.”

The following is from Relevant, which only permits a person up to around five free articles per month:

(Link): Why Can’t Other Christians Understand I Am Happy Being Single?

Excerpts:

by Emily Brown

As a lifelong single person, I’ve had a lot of time to come to terms with my singleness. And not even just come to terms and begrudgingly accept it, but truly learn to enjoy and love being single.

So when people ask how I feel about being single I don’t have to fake a smile. I excitedly share the happiness and joy I feel about being single.

That being said, there are still moments where I do feel sadness or shame or embarrassment about my singleness.

Do you know why? It’s because of the response people give me when I tell them how I feel about being single. Because when I tell people that I’m single they often respond with some iteration of:

“I’m sure you’ll find someone soon!”

Uh, thanks?

Nowhere in my explanation of my relationship status did I mention I was upset or worried.

Yet why do people — and let me be clear on which people I am specifically talking about: already married Christians — always assume I am sad about being single?

It has been a long, long journey to finding happiness. I worked really, really hard to unlearn the lie that being with someone would make my life complete and replace it with the truth that God is all I need.

I had to realize that there isn’t anything wrong with me and being single is not a curse.

…But it can take just a few words from well-meaning, ultimately misguided people to crack holes in my happiness.

Woman Who Unpopularly Decided To Never Have Children Reflects On It Now That She’s 85 Years Old

Woman Who Unpopularly Decided To Never Have Children Reflects On It Now That She’s 85 Years Old

I was never really for or against having children myself – had I married younger, I was entertaining the idea of having at least one kid, if I could’ve done so by the age of 35.

One of the things this 85 year old woman says is something that I deduced years ago: it’s a huge mistake for any woman to base most or all of her purpose and identity in parenthood or marriage (same is true for men).

If you build most to all of your identity and purpose upon being a spouse or parent, what do you do if you or your spouse are infertile, if you have an only child and he dies young, or if your spouse is abusive so that you have to divorce him (or her), or your spouse gets into a car wreck, gets cancer, or has a heart attack and dies? Or, what happens if your spouse develops dementia, which, in a manner of speaking, kind of leaves you alone?

What happens when your children grow up and move out, leaving you alone with just your spouse?

Actually, what I’m saying here is true of anyone – if you’re a Codependent, never married, childless person, you have the tendency to lose yourself in the problems and lives of your friends, co-workers, and family members. That will end up being a waste of your time or being a mistake as well.

(Link): Woman Who Unpopularly Decided To Never Have Children Reflects On It Now That She’s 85 Years Old

Even though an astonishing number of people don’t feel, and have never felt, the urge to become a parent, the pressure to have kids is still tremendous.

Any person who has made this profound decision about leading a child-free life can tell you it’s usually met in two different ways. One, people mutter a series of condescending phrases such as “oh” or “you’ll change your mind”.

Two, they actually take you seriously and instantly warn you that you’ll be lonely and regret it when you’re old.

Speaking of the latter scenario, one open letter on the ‘Childfree’ subreddit put this notion to bed once and for all.

An 85-year-old widow addressed the young people of this community, shared her experience, and proudly stated that she has zero regrets about her choice. Being married for 50 years, she offered her perspective and some validating words of wisdom.

“If I could go back in time, would I do it again? (being childfree), 100% yes. I would live the same life one thousand times,” the woman wrote. Her story sparked a discussion in the comments below, with responses ranging from kudos to appreciation. Scroll down to read the story in full and the reactions that followed.

For some reason, people who decide to lead a childfree life often hear they’ll regret it once they’re old and alone

So when this 85-year-old widow shared an open letter about her childfree experience, people felt incredibly validated

Letter from an 85 year old widow: My childfree experience and a few humble opinions

Dear Young People

I wonder if I am the oldest person to post on this forum? It was a young lady who told me about this forum and I have read many of your posts and comments for a few weeks. Many have made me smile. Some have made me wince.

It appears to me, many of you on here to validate your life changing decision.

Finding people similar to you is important and I understand the needs. So can I just say, from my experience, your decision is a good one? And if you want to know why I think that, please give me 5 minutes of your time.

I was married for just over 50 years. We bucked the norm and did not want kids. In those days we said “we are trying” for a few years than “we cannot have kids,” case closed. It was our personal secret. It was nobody’s business.

If we were honest and said “we cannot have kids, because we just don’t want them” the fallout with family and friends would have been tough for us.

Our 50 years in a nutshell was perfect. Good jobs, no money worries, followed our own interests and hobbies.

Had many friends and many lovely nieces and nephews. If I could go back in time, would I do it again? (being childfree), 100% yes. I would live the same life one thousand times.