Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Why I am Not Married.



It is a question asked by a lot of people. I am 27 (of age) and typically in the bracket of marrying. A lot of the people I know and grew up with are happily married or engaged. They have kids, a happily ever fairy tale partner and a white picket fence to secure everything.

It never occurred to me that at this age I would still be living at home eating pancakes and cookies. So coming back to the topic, why am I not married?

Various reasons and excuses will come into mind so I will try to define everything one by one for the benefit of my sister (Joi) who’s trying to ask me this question earlier.

1. Marriage is not a priority– I know this may sound as a lame excuse but sorting out my life, my career and what I wanted to do comes into mind. I believe I can have the same freedom in marriage but I have no confidence that I will commit myself with the same focus as I have today. Being single is liberating. It gives me enormous time to make mistakes and become more radical.

2. My financial stability – I am not confident for a series of responsibility like paying bills, rent and buying diapers. As I have just said, my career is yet to come. I am in a moment of transition wherein I have no means to support another person. As a woman, with a Filipino cultural background, I have been told that the man is the one who buys the bread and butter. I have believed it at some point but it doesn’t mean I will sit down and not do anything to save and become useful. I am most happy to share the burden and compromise. At this point of time, I may not be very cooperative in compromising.

3. God says I am not ready. – This is simple, direct and true. I am single because God designed my timeline in such a way that I should grow in Him first before anything else. I guess people might call this maturity. The character to love and become unselfish for another person. Singleness doesn’t opt me out on becoming a great person but is preparing me to be considerate and kind.

4. Marriage is commitment. – I do not take marriage lightly. In our microwave generation, everything seems to be instant with the snap of our fingers. Our marriages nowadays are picture perfect Polaroid shots. It looks good, it feels right but the responsibility behind it is often overlooked.
Marriage has become an expectation or an escape. Either way, I am not doing it to please other people. The older generations expects a woman of my stature and age to be married and have kids but I beg to differ. Age will never be a determining factor in commitment.
In the same way, in my twisted opinion, having a baby is an excuse for marriage. I am not condemning people who did get married because of the kid but what I’m trying to say is that it shouldn’t be the reason. Divorce rate, legally or not are rampant in our society. Marriage is not the answer to life’s problems.
I am not saying that I am trying to dodge marriage because of my fear of commitment but it’s the other way around. I have a high esteem to commitment and loyalty therefore unless I see myself being drawn to such I will choose to abstain to anything that might feel good but not right.

There might be another thousand reasons why I (or other people my age) am not married. Whatever our reasons are I would like to point out that marriage doesn’t make you a complete person. Intimate connection to another person is essential to grow up and become mature but it doesn’t solely rely on one person inside the sanctity of marriage.

I would also like to point out that I am contented and happy the way things are right now. I would definitely not know how it feels to sleep at night with my beloved but being single doesn’t make me less happy than the rest of the world. I am responsible for my own level of happiness. If you are miserable being single, most likely you will be miserable married. Our response to life determines our state of mind.

Lastly, I am not married because I choose not be married. There is a time and place of everything under the sun. Getting married is easy such as signing a piece of paper and moving in with someone. But I choose not to because I believe I can do better than jump into the water and not know the consequences of my actions. I can blindly date and meet with people but I choose not to. As much as I believe that marriage is a decision, love in the same way, is a decision. At the moment my decision is to love God (alright maybe a bit of Micky here) and myself.


If marriage is a season for celebration, isn’t singleness the preparatory jamboree? ^_^