For Those Who Want to Understand the Struggles of Single People

This is for those who want to understand the many struggles single people are going through.

Thank you for taking the time to know us more. And if you’re also single, please feel free to share your part of the story through the comments below.

I wrote this because many people claim to understand but don’t. Many people with good intentions also try to help but in so doing, bring us more pain.

I would like you to know that not everyone can be married. Nor can everyone be a priest or a religious sister. Some people like that exist, and they remain single for life.

Our struggles our real. This is not wallowing or complaining about the cross we must bear. But this is a plea for your compassion.

Every person has a difficulty in life, and that includes single people.

Many single people are already lonely.

I am not saying that this applies to all. But the reality is that single people have no partners nor children nor religious community to support them. They support themselves financially and emotionally. Thank God for the Church because we can still be supported spiritually despite our state of life.

But when you have to bear much of your burdens alone, it hurts whenever people try to belittle you or pressure you into something just to tell you how you can immediately fix your situation.

More than the solution that you may offer, do offer us your company and your listening ear.

Offer us your friendship and your recognition of the achievements we have so far been able to make in life.

Each person’s condition in life is unique. You don’t know the full story how we got to the state where we are, why we remain single or why we can choose to be single for the rest of our lives. You don’t know the sacrifices we have made and the difficult choices that led us to where we are.

You don’t know, so we ask you not to judge.

If you are a Catholic (Christian), it may also be very easy for you to say that being single is not a vocation. Technically, you can explain to us the arguments that would take us to that cold and lonely corner saying we have not been chosen to have a sacred vocation here on earth.

It may be very easy, and how I wish it were not! Because it’s not easy to hear people saying that we don’t have a vocation or that we may have just missed it or that we have not been worthy enough to be called to marriage or to religious orders.

To what have we been called then? How do you see our plight?

If you could at least pause for a moment, try to put off your stereotypes and try to see us within the full light of our unique stories.

We have been baptized, too. We have also been “called” to a life of holiness and of love.

And if even that is hard for you, just think about little children. They neither marry nor enter into religious orders. But they are beloved by the Father who watches over them from heaven.

We are also His children. And we are made in His very image.

Single or not, we have that dignity of being made and called by God.

“Don’t be afraid, for you will not be ashamed.
Don’t be confounded, for you will not be disappointed.
For you will forget the shame of your youth.
You will remember the reproach of your widowhood no more.
For your Maker is your husband; the LORD of Armies is his name.”
– Isaiah 54:4-5, WEB-BE

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“Let’s get in touch!” - Joyce