Can a single woman be satisfied without marriage?

 

By Anonymous

 

My belief has always been that walking down the aisle and exchanging wedding vows is not very important. I mean if we love each other and really want to be together, this should be enough for us to be able to cohabitate is what I had been thinking. I rationalized that marriage hasn’t kept couples from splitting up. And with the news mentioning the divorce rate along with the amount of people who talked about how quickly their relationship ended  after they became married, it was easy.

However, I couldn’t help but notice that within all my relationships, I continued to feel as if something was missing. And, this was even if the relationship seemed to be in pretty good shape. Perhaps, they were lying about how they felt about me or maybe I was sensing that they were incapable of having the relationship after it reached a certain point. But, then again, maybe it was the fact that we had not seriously discussed marriage or were not actually married is why this was the case. Because I had never been married before, I did not know the answer to this question.

Many men claim that they don’t want to remarry because of the problems they experienced with their wives. Lots of guys have told me that after they became married their wives treated them as if they owned them or that their wives never showed them any real love and affection. This only reinforced my belief that marriage is not important. I mean if they treated me well and pulled their fair share of the responsibilities then everything would be okay. Except for one thing---after a while I noticed that they would slack off or suddenly seem to lose interest shortly after we became “involved.” Could this be because I didn’t press them for another level of commitment?  Or because I told them that marriage was not important to me, they thought they could get away with doing or not doing certain things to keep the relationship intact.

I have been single for several years now. And, I keep myself busy by tending to my children and pursuing my goals and hobbies. Every once in a while I long for someone to come sweep me off my feet. This is until I remembered how hard it was for me to get back on my feet after the last prince charming did such a thing. But, I also remember the boredom that had begun to set in before I got dumped by some of my ex-boyfriends. A series of one night stands certainly didn’t do much to mend my broken heart.

I’ve learned to be happy with who I am and have gotten to enjoy my own company. I enjoy being able to cook, clean, and shower when I feel like it. But, every once in a while, I wish I had someone to help with the bills, empty the garbage, and help me discipline the children.