THE MYTH OF HAVING TO BE HAPPY ON YOUR OWN

Anyone who knows me well (or watched any of my sketches from roughly 2015 to 2018) knows that I have wanted to be married my entire conscious life. I even have a vague memory of being on a walk with friends when I was in the sixth grade and thinking this would be even better if I had a boyfriend. I was twelve.

For a long time, I felt shame around my obsession with partnership. To be fair, I was taking it to an extreme. I’d spend my family vacations scouring the airport and hotel for any eligible bachelors* (*cute teens). And nothing rattled my mental health more than romantic rejection, so much so that I ended up writing an entire book about it. I still feel a sense of sadness that so much of my life was spent focusing on the one thing I didn’t have instead of appreciating the rest of what my world had to offer. I wish I could tell 18-year-old Allison that it is possible to have a good time without also boasting “in a relationship” on your Facebook profile.

A large part of what added to my shame around feeling incomplete alone is that everyone told me that was the wrong way to feel. I was inundated with messages that you have to be happy by yourself before you can be happy with someone else. It began to feel like a moral failing that I was unable to enjoy being single. Why wasn’t I enough for myself?

Now that I’m older and (finally) married, I realize that while I was too hyper focused on partnership, I was also being sold a bill of goods about human nature. While I still firmly believe that the relationship you have with yourself is the most important relationship in your life, people are also innately social creatures. We are not meant to create a lifestyle that doesn’t depend on anyone or anything other than our own company.

Obviously, a romantic partner isn’t the only option when it comes to building a support system or sense of connection. There are many people who don’t want or need a relationship to feel satisfied with their life. And that is a wonderful thing. But I’m here to say that it’s also okay if you are someone that does. Because having a good life-partner undeniably comes with a lot of perks.

As I approached getting married last year, I began to wonder if it would really be all that I built it up to be in my head. Would I finally complete this lifelong dream only to realize that I am just someone who longs for whatever it is that I don’t have in the moment? Nope!

Just as I suspected I love being married. I find it much easier to navigate day-to-day life with another person and I get to laugh all the time with someone who also laughs at my jokes. Just yesterday, my husband washed beach tar off my sandals as I folded laundry. He got clean clothes and I got to avoid getting my hands dirty. We help each other in some way every single day by dividing labor and providing emotional support. That doesn’t mean our lives are perfect, but it does mean we don’t have to carry any burdens alone.

I’ll admit that one of the things that makes partnership so advantageous is that society prioritizes marriage above all other relationships through social and financial rewards. (This is a topic I explore much more in-depth in my upcoming book I DO (I THINK): Conversations About Modern Marriage if you’re curious to learn more.) A lot of what I’m talking about in terms of daily support could also come from living with family or a close friend. But due to the western obsession with independence, marriage has come to feel like the only acceptable way to accept help while still presenting as a full-fledged adult. No one really gives you a plus one for your roommate or grandma.

While I take issue with this prioritization and think it’s something we should all start to collectively challenge, it is hard to ignore the significance we’ve been taught to attach to marriage. It is this strange catch-22 where we grow up being told that marriage is incredibly important, but if we admit that it is something we want or need then something is wrong with us. Suddenly we aren’t “ready” to be married because we “mistakenly” think it will make us happier than being on our own. But…what if it does? What if, for some of us at least, being partnered is the best lifestyle choice for the type of life we want to lead? If that’s the case, we will never be as happy on our own as we are in a relationship because we thrive in relationships. And I think that should be something we should be allowed to admit without shame or judgement.

Just because I want to be married doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be able to create a good life without my husband. I lived alone for many years, I have a great group of friends and I’m extremely close with my family. I would also much rather be single than in a bad--or even boring--relationship. My entire world is not my marriage. But it does provide a foundation that has allowed me to become an even better version of myself. Something I was not able to do without another person helping and supporting me.

My goal here isn’t to tell everyone that they need to partner up immediately. It is always better to be on your own than with the wrong person. And plenty of people don’t thrive in what we think of as traditional partnership for a variety of valid reasons. But I take issue with the idea that people who want a relationship need to be more focused on being happy alone instead of finding said relationship. How is that productive? If I know swimming makes me happy it doesn’t really make sense to spend all my time learning how to appreciate kickboxing?

Finding a compatible partner takes a lot of time and effort. I often relate it to a job where you are strategically rifling through applicant after applicant to find the best candidate. It can be exhausting and overwhelming and taking time to figure out how to enjoy your life before you find that person is a valuable undertaking. But it doesn’t mean you need to discourage yourself from the search or feel defective for wanting to keep looking. Having a long-term buddy can be incredibly rewarding. It is normal and adaptive to want that for yourself. It only becomes maladaptive when the search overtakes your entire life, like it often did for me. But that feels categorically different than having to be just as happy on your own.

Humans did not create partnership out of nothing. Plenty of animals have life-long monogamous relationships. And the power of love has been written about as long people have been writing. In such a cut-throat and unjust world, it makes sense that it is often easier to exist when there is someone else next to you--cheering you on and cleaning your shoes. And I, for one, don’t think that is a bad thing.

xoxo,

Allison

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