Singlehood

Single people will often come to coaching or therapy distressed about their single status. Our mainstream culture promotes that singlehood is a state of lacking, not moving forward to the next phase of adulthood. But, singlehood, in itself, is an authentic life status. Even though most people will marry at some point in their lives, the number of single people is increasing. In the 2010 census, 44% of the adult population was single (U.S. Census Data.)

In the 2010 census, 44% of the adult population was single.

# Never Married Adult Singles in 1970:

• 19% men

• 14% women

# Never Married Adult Singles in 2006:

• 33% men

• 26% women

Factors that increased singlehood:

• delayed marriages

• increased options for single parenthood

• a 40 to 50 percent divorce rate

• longer life expectancy

Challenges of Singlehood

Single people are aware that there are unique challenges to singlehood. This can make it challenging to embrace their current life status. It can be dismissive of others to ask someone struggling to accept their single status to embrace it. There are real hurdles that many single people face. These are often more pronounced for women.

Common Challenges:

• Practical challenges

• Managing social and familial stigma

• Addressing the human need to seek and maintain emotional ties with others

• Sex

• Maintenance of friendships

• Developing other forms of "family"

• Financial

How Singlehood May Be Affected By Past Generations

The past three generations of your family greatly influence your view of marriage. For example, if your great-grandparents had an abusive or conflictual marriage, that "marriage meaning" can ripple through time to you.

The past three generations of your family greatly influence your view of marriage.

Divorce in your family can also influence your ability to wed or have a healthy marriage. Often, this shows up as either romanticizing or damning the institution of marriage. Also, having single people in the family who live satisfying lives may shift the importance of marriage within the family.

Your family's ethnicity and cultural background also play a major role in how singlehood is viewed. In some cultures, getting married is rare, while it is highly expected in others. In some cultures, you live at home until you are married and still heavily incorporated into family life. In other cultures, you launch early and are expected to create your own nuclear family shortly thereafter.

How To Embrace Singlehood

If you are single and having difficulty embracing your singlehood (even if you are anticipating getting married one day), here are a few things you can do:

• Develop and maintain close relationships with family and friends

• Hug people in your life

• Keep a larger network of people in your circle

• Create a strong support system

• Join and be active within a community or religious organization

• Build a fulfilling career

• Adopt a furry companion

• Further your education

• Make a home for yourself (your home should feel like home)

• Create a financial plan (do not post-pone waiting for a mate)

• Invest in nieces and nephews or volunteer at Big Brother/Big Sister

Of all of these things you can do, developing close and supportive friendships and family relationships is number one! Oftentimes, single people wait to find a mate to become their sole support system. This puts a lot of pressure on your partner and makes you seem overly needy.

Of all of these things you can do, developing close and supportive friendships and family relationships is number one!

Keeping dating anxiety low yields the best results for finding a healthy partnership if you so choose. It becomes draining and painful when you are feeling intense aout latching onto a mate.

What things do you do to embrace your singleness right now? Share below.

Are you single and looking for love? If so, you may wonder if now is the time to invest in a dating coach.

After all, hiring someone to help you find love could be the difference between ending up solo and finding your forever partner.

But before you sign up for coaching, it's important to ask yourself if you're truly willing to do what it takes to find love.

Take the Relationship Readiness Assessment to discover what barriers may be holding you back. Cheers! Erika Baum Relationship Coach