Is it possible to be single and happy forever?

[MargeryFlower]

I am nearlly 25, divorced and just out of a nearlly 3 year relationship after being cheated on once again..It sucks. But at the same time i kind of just feel that i don't care anymore.

I'm working on a career, i enjoy my job. I am not happy where i live but i know once i am done with school i can move. I have no attachments to anything. I just have myself and i feel okay with that.

My friends are all pretty much married and on their 2nd or 3rd child and here i am single again. I have my money for myself and i have my freedom. I can pack my bags and move whenever i feel like it or just travel without having a care in the world. But can people like that be happy?

 

I am tired of relationships. I always feel like i end up depending on other people to be happy. I give all of me in relationships, I am honest and loyal and i always end up getting hurt. I don't see myself ever getting married again or having kids. I see myself being a career woman with a laid back lifestyle. Do i need someone in my life? are there really people like this out there?

[endlessabyss]

Yea, you can be happy.

 

 

Relationships seem to be more of a burden to me. Granted, sometimes you want that initial, beginning or the relationship, where everything is new and exciting, but what happens after that?

 

 

Everything gets boring, you argue, you deal with pain/cheating; you know the deal.

 

 

Most people rely on others for their happiness. I am mastering how to be happy on my own. Life is way too short to be worrying about petty things, like a partner.

[Arieswoman]

MargeryFlower,

 

Is it possible to be single and happy forever?

 

Yes I believe it is possible.

 

I have several friends, male and female, who are career minded and are quite happy to be single at the moment.

 

But who knows what or who is just around the corner...?

[newmoon]

it sounds, to me, that you are finding reasons why you can justify being single and happy. and your recent experience has just soured you for a while. something tells me you are not a person who could be single and happy, given your age alone... highly unlikely you'll manage to live out the rest of your life that way. it is possible to be single/happy, but i think it comes from an intrinsic place and not a "oh the world has given me a string of bad relationships" mentality.

[OwMyEyeball]

Single? Yes. Alone? No.

[hotpotato]

yes! *raises hand*

 

Some people have one-itis, but I have lone-itis. I'm very into doing what I want, when i want.

 

i haven't been on a date in at least 7 mos. my last relationship ended a year and a half ago.

 

I also feel like i've given a lot with little in return.

 

Now that you don't care, be prepared to becoming a hot item with men.

[MargeryFlower]

Hmm i would be lying if it didn't cross my mind that this might just be a phase because of my past but i find it interesting.

I have never been like this after a break up. I am usually a wreck. Well i was after my divorce and relationships before that. Maybe i just learnt a lot from my divorce?!? I know life has to go on some how.

 

I wish i could just have a fwb..preferably Justin Timberlake

[preraph]

I'm over 60 now and I've been single and childfree my whole life. When I was younger I just sort of assumed I'd marry, though I never wanted children, and I believed all the pushy people who tell you "You don't now, but you will," and they were totally wrong. So I assumed I'd marry and maybe adopt an older child because I knew for sure I didn't want a baby or toddler. But they were wrong. I didn't want or have the resources or time to care for any child. I never wanted one. I never started wanting one.

 

After a certain age, I realized I was in no way cut out for marriage. I saw my friends getting married and listened to them complain about the constant compromising they were doing and the way their husbands manipulated them to get what they wanted, while their husbands pretty much kept doing what they wanted to do. I realized I was not a compromising person and that it would take a really special man who was everything I am and more to motivate me to want to be with him bad enough to compromise. And I NEVER would have compromised on achieving my goals when I was younger for anyone. But once that was achieved, at least it wouldn't have held me back from my life path.

 

If you have goals you want to achieve and feel you have a real direction in your life that you are happy with, stay on that path and don't let anyone take you off of it. There is always the chance that just the right fit will come along, and be open to it if it does, but that never happened for me.

 

I've always been happy alone. Even when I was young and very social, I usually took my own car and went places alone or met people there because I really like to be able to act autonomously in case any opportunity comes up. I grew up out in the country alone for much of the time and that is what taught me to be independent and self-reliant.

 

Being alone is not for everyone, though. I have a good friend who is in a bad marriage because she can't stand to be alone. I think everyone ought to at least really try it for at least a couple of years, living completely alone and paying their own way, because there is a self-discovery process there that accelerates when you don't have other people pulling on you and you become who you're supposed to be, and it also gives you confidence that you can take care of yourself so, for instance, you won't stay in a relationship out of fear that you can't make it on your own. It's something everyone should do, I believe, before they do partner up.

[newmoon]

I'm over 60 now and I've been single and childfree my whole life. When I was younger I just sort of assumed I'd marry, though I never wanted children, and I believed all the pushy people who tell you "You don't now, but you will," and they were totally wrong. So I assumed I'd marry and maybe adopt an older child because I knew for sure I didn't want a baby or toddler. But they were wrong. I didn't want or have the resources or time to care for any child. I never wanted one. I never started wanting one.

 

After a certain age, I realized I was in no way cut out for marriage. I saw my friends getting married and listened to them complain about the constant compromising they were doing and the way their husbands manipulated them to get what they wanted, while their husbands pretty much kept doing what they wanted to do. I realized I was not a compromising person and that it would take a really special man who was everything I am and more to motivate me to want to be with him bad enough to compromise. And I NEVER would have compromised on achieving my goals when I was younger for anyone. But once that was achieved, at least it wouldn't have held me back from my life path.

 

If you have goals you want to achieve and feel you have a real direction in your life that you are happy with, stay on that path and don't let anyone take you off of it. There is always the chance that just the right fit will come along, and be open to it if it does, but that never happened for me.

 

I've always been happy alone. Even when I was young and very social, I usually took my own car and went places alone or met people there because I really like to be able to act autonomously in case any opportunity comes up. I grew up out in the country alone for much of the time and that is what taught me to be independent and self-reliant.

 

Being alone is not for everyone, though. I have a good friend who is in a bad marriage because she can't stand to be alone. I think everyone ought to at least really try it for at least a couple of years, living completely alone and paying their own way, because there is a self-discovery process there that accelerates when you don't have other people pulling on you and you become who you're supposed to be, and it also gives you confidence that you can take care of yourself so, for instance, you won't stay in a relationship out of fear that you can't make it on your own. It's something everyone should do, I believe, before they do partner up.

 

can i ask at what age you decided that marriage was off the table?

[preraph]

can i ask at what age you decided that marriage was off the table?

 

Well, it was when I read my journals when I was 49 that I stood back and saw my life and thought, I never could have followed my dream if I'd gotten married or had anything demanding my attention because my goal required attention day and night, pretty much. It was a lifestyle as much as a career.

 

Reading my life story, I just laughed at the idea that at any point it would have culminated in marriage. I was never on the marriage path. After reading my own story, I saw myself as someone who was born at the exact right time to be who I wanted to be. I was born into the first generation of women who had access to birth control, so I had a choice. I was born in the country and used to being independent. I was born into the greatest music renaissance of all time. All three of these were critical. Spiritually, I kind of think I had a hand in planning this life for myself. When I was younger, like 18, I used to think I was born into the wrong century because I harkened back to everything in late 1800s England. But after reading my own journals, I realized clearly that that might have been another life, but that this was the exact place I was supposed to be and that I was able to choose what no past generation of women were able to choose, and that I was a type of pioneer in some ways.

 

So I always followed my own path and did what I wanted or needed to do. Because of that, I never look back at a relationship or juncture and say, I wonder what would have happened if I'd stayed with him or done what my parents wanted me to do or my friend wanted me to do. At any given time in my life, I can honestly say there is no one I'd rather be than who I am. I don't covet anyone else's life. I didn't compromise and did what I wanted to do.

 

But now, not everyone is like that. I'm an animal person, so I want animals to nurture. Others need humans to nurture. I like having friends and at my age, wish I had more because they're all scattered everywhere too busy with their own lives to give me all the ladies lunches I crave. I'm getting old and it would be nice to have someone strong to lean on at times, even nicer to have someone competent to care for my pets when I pass. But the truth is, marriage never guarantees that. My own parents divorced at about my age, each becoming burdensome for the other. A lot of the men I loved, I was the dependable one, so it's not like they'd be great for this stage of life. So I have no regrets.