You know, I know marriage is a good thing and all that. I know it's nice to have someone to come home to, someone to share life with. And I'm always in awe of the elderly couples I meet who've been married 60 years to each other. But regardless of what statistics say about the growing rate of divorce I swear there are people I know who stay married simply because they are so afraid to be alone. Because of that they stay with someone who is making them misrable. Or they can't stand to look at this person but heaven forbid they be alone! This goes for men as well as women in my opinion. I guess I don't get it.
Maybe because I am an only child being alone has never scared me. I think I have an unhealthy obsession about it really, but that's another post. There were lots of reasons I didn't really want to get a divorce when I did. Financially I knew it was a killer, the kids needed both of us fulltime, feeling like the 14 years I'd invested were wasted. None of those are really good reasons to stay married either when love is gone or you are being mistreated, but I was never afraid to be alone.
It's nice to have someone for companionship who cares about you, someone you can sneak away for a weekend with, someone you can share your bad news and good news with. But you don't HAVE to live with them, do you? Being alone isn't the end of the world. It brings peace, time to think and time to work on becoming the person you want to be. Married is nice if you're with the right person, but being alone is ok too if you're not afraid to get to know yourself, and maybe there within lies the fear. Who knows!
2 comments:
I like living alone, too. I've often joked that it would be really nice to have a relationship with a man who lived next door, one who'd be available to go to dinner or a concert--or to fix a broken shelf or "snuggle" for a while--and who'd go to his own house at the end of the evening and leave me alone. Selfish, I know, but I still like the idea of it.
Oh hi Velvet,
I'm so glad you dropped in, honored really as I admire your writing so much. The people in my life think I'm strange because I'm not constantly looking for a "husband" like I can't live without one. Ticks me off!
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