Life is hard as a single woman. Can I get an AMEN?
You have to do everything yourself, change the light bulbs, get your car repaired, make every meal and every decision. You have no one to take vacations with, or create traditions with at the Holidays. And there is the physical side of handling sexual desire and even just wanting someone to cuddle with. When I was single I was constantly thinking, why is this so hard?
And in the back of my mind I was blaming singleness for my hard. I had all of the evidence that if I were married, life would just be easier. I would have someone to help me do all of the things I had to do. I could take a night off from having to cook. I could let him make a decision or two. He could take out the trash and take care of the cars. All of that equaled easier to me.
So every time I would sit and journal I would constantly see the words ‘why is this so hard’ popping up, and then the belief: well if you were married it wouldn’t be like this. Which that thought only created this idea that I needed marriage even more.
I mean I was super independent. In my mind I didn’t need a man but if it would make life easier then YES… I needed a man.
You may be in the same spot. You might have a TON of evidence that your life is hard. I get it, but I want to let you in on a little secret.
Regardless of your circumstances there is always hard there too.
Singleness is hard. Marriage is hard.
Choose your hard.
Obesity is hard. Being fit is hard.
Choose your hard.
Being in debt is hard. Being financially disciplined is hard.
Choose your hard.
Communication is hard. Not communicating is hard.
Choose your hard.
Life will never be easy. It will always be hard.
But we can choose our hard. Pick wisely.
I guess when I was single I knew intellectually that marriage wouldn’t solve all of my problems, but my brain loved to dangle that thought in there when it could. And it just added to the pain.
So, I was shocked when after I was married I kept seeing the words ‘this is hard’ coming up in my journaling. It was hard to communicate my wants and needs. It was hard to decide who would do what around the house. It was hard to make decisions together. It was hard when I would make a meal and he didn’t like it. It was hard to read his mind. It was hard to cuddle and connect. It was hard to not get my feelings hurt by his comments.
Some of the things did get easier and some actually didn’t.
What I know now that I wish I would have known then is this: our life here on Earth is the 50/50 experience, 50% positive and 50% negative emotions.
Every single person has this. They have easy and hard, good and bad, positive and negative. Single, married, widowed, divorced, or dating, each of those has a different 50/50 experience. But everyone has it. No one is exempt from it and leaving one phase and passing into another doesn’t make it any easier or harder. It doesn’t matter if you are single or married you have a 50/50. When you are single you have single woman problems and when you are married you have married woman problems. They aren’t gone they are just different.
So now what?
Well, understanding this is huge. As a single woman, you can sit and look at your life right now and intentionally decide what your 50/50 is. Understanding and opening yourself up to the negative creates less fighting against it. Negative emotion is absolutely harmless. Having hard in your life is totally normal. When you allow it to be there is when you can finally have authority over it. If you resist it or wish it away you actually suffer more.
Our brains are wired to look for the hard. You unconsciously are drawn to all the negative of this season. Your brain is looking for evidence that it is hard and you might even find yourself fighting that it is harder than someone else’s life. But all of that doesn’t make your situation easier. Allowing the hard to be there does. Choosing to focus on the positive does.
Yes, there are things about being single that are hard. And there are things about being single that are easier. Understanding that and allowing the hard and purposefully looking for the easy is our job.
I often catch myself experiencing negative emotion and quickly thinking, “This is the 50/50 of course this is here.” For some reason that lessens the blow for me.
I now expect the hard. And then I redirect and look for the easy.
So I want to encourage you to start looking at your season through this lens.
See the hard, expect it. Know nothing has gone wrong. You don’t need marriage to fix the hard, you need to manage your mind to find the easy there to.
Knowing this before you get married allows you to enjoy your singleness even more. It gives the positive aspects of singleness a fighting chance. And the negative is apart of the human experience. Don’t try and be happy 100% of the time. Be human. Notice the negative emotions and look at them to understand the issues you can work through before you get married. Seeing what things are hard is an insight into where you struggle. These are places we have a hard time managing our minds and picking empowering thoughts for. This is where we can get stuck.
If you struggle with taking a vacation by yourself it is great for you to see what you think taking a vacation with a husband will be like. What are you thinking you will feel when you are with someone? That insight helps you see what you have a hard time believing while you are single. That insight helps you see what areas you can work on now to grow your mind before you are married.
When we use the negative emotions in our lives and we grow from them we are living a more conscious life.
That kind of life is a life lived on purpose and not a life that is just happening to us.
Once I realized that I was going to have negative emotion in my life no matter what, I started to decide what negative emotion I wanted to have on purpose to create the life I really wanted.
See you are going to feel them, so what negative emotions are you going to have to feel to start dating someone and get married?
You might have to be willing to feel uncomfortable, rejected, failure, nervous.
You are feeling negative emotion anyways but it may not be propelling you to where you really want to go.
The negative emotion you are experiencing might just be keeping you stuck?
So, grasping that the 50/50 is here and you can choose your 50 negative to get you to where you really want can start to make life exciting.
What hard will you choose on purpose? What will you create with it?
Hard is going to be there, and it is okay!
Walking with you,
Angie
