[Two Pronged] Is it better if I stay single?

Rappler’s Life and Style section runs an advice column by couple Jeremy Baer and clinical psychologist Dr Margarita Holmes.

Jeremy has a master’s degree in law from Oxford University. A banker of 37 years who worked in 3 continents, he has been training with Dr Holmes for the last 10 years as co-lecturer and, occasionally, as co-therapist, especially with clients whose financial concerns intrude into their daily lives

Together, they have written two books: Love Triangles: Understanding the Macho-Mistress Mentality and Imported Love: Filipino-Foreign Liaisons. 

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Dear Two Pronged,

We all grow up with the fantasy of finding the life partner, and I was caught, hook, line, and sinker. My biggest high school regret was not being able to come out. I did what was expected, asked girls out, thinking I’d have to settle for that. But after college I learned to accept myself, and despite some friction from my mother, I was able to come out and love whom I wanted in the open. And I fell in love, over and over again.

Thirty years later, I’ve had 6 boyfriends. They’ve all lasted more than two years. My current one is the longest at 5 years. He’s a wonderful fellow, easily the best of the men I’ve dated.

But I’m bored. All my friends like him. I really like him too. I love him. But I can’t help thinking that the grass is always greener. It doesn’t help that we are under COVID and I see him every single day, whereas before we would have our own plans with our work or friends, and not necessarily eat together everyday.

He’d sleep with his parents at least once a month, and we’d each have our own work trips. But it’s not only the quarantine. It’s me. I look at my single friends – male and female, straight and gay – who seem to have willfully chosen to be single. I wonder if I’m meant to be like them. Also, I know that life really is what we make of it. I can probably be happy either way. I just feel like if I give up on this one, what I’m really giving up on is that dream of the partner to grow old with. But I kinda really like my personal space. I could ask him to move back to his home and see if we could sustain a relationship that way too. But maybe I just want to be single again, and grow old with a circle of friends rather than with that one partner. I’d have romances but not relationships anymore.

Does anyone really actively choose that life?

Adam

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Dear Adam,  

Whether to remain single or to marry is a decision that not everyone gets to make. Most cultures place a heavy premium on marriage as the default option e.g. awarding tax breaks, inheritance rights, and even hospital visitation privileges. This contrasts vividly with the duty of a daughter, often the youngest, to remain single in order to care for her parents in their old age, an unwritten expectation in many countries.

For those who are free agents, the choice is, of course, intensely personal. It may also vary from age to age – the joys of being single in one’s 20’s are not necessarily enduringly appealing, particularly as one’s friends get married and have families of their own. In previous times, people spoke of spinsters and confirmed bachelors but nowadays roles are more fluid with same sex couples, surrogacy, adoption etc.

All this means that for good or ill, it is increasingly possible to arrange one’s life like dining at a buffet. This also includes household options: single with or without children, married with or without children, living together, living together but in separate houses (remember Mia Farrow and Woody Allen, though that didn’t end well), communes etc.

So you have to make your choice, informed by your past (living in the family home, then a young single adult and now in a relationship and living together albeit by force of circumstance. While we cannot know for sure what lies ahead, we can try to plan based on inevitability (children grow up and leave) and likelihood (eventual retirement and old age).

Best of luck,

JAF Baer

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Dear Adam,

You ask if anyone really actively chooses this (single) life, and happily, you have enough friends to ask directly.

But that is a moot point, really, isn’t it, Adam?

What truly matters is the single life is becoming more and more appealing to you right now, but you worry that this may mean being banished from a life of happy couple-dom which you might want in the future.

You are afraid your current boyfriend (let’s call him Harold) will, in effect, be the one who got away. He will be the “right person, wrong time,” but that is much better than making it happen at the wrong time, not unlike forcing a square peg into a round hole. To force yourself/selves into a time frame that was not meant to be would be wrong on so many levels. 

Besides, just because you don’t end up together now doesn’t mean you may not end up together in the future, or, indeed, that you might end up with someone even better than him. Right now, “marry in haste, repent at leisure” might be helpful for you to remember.

What about in the future?  Is being married better than a single life full of friends? Possibly so and possibly not because, as you so wisely wrote, life is what you make it. Having read extensively about the longest study in human development – 80 years and counting – (also called the Harvard Study) I have come to the conclusion that social relationships are very good for one’s health. If one has good friends that one can count on, that is as good as a marriage to keep one hale and hearty.  If one has a good marriage, that is practically a guarantee that one will live longer than someone who is single, divorced, or widowed. But if one’s marriage is unhappy and/or full of strife, all bets are off.

I hope this helps, Adam, if only a teeny tiny bit.  

All the best,

MG Holmes 

– Rappler.com

Need advice from our Two Pronged duo? Email twopronged@rappler.com with subject heading TWO PRONGED. Unfortunately, the volume of correspondence precludes a personal response.