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I once said to a married male acquaintance, “At least you have a built-in support system.” And he replied, “True! But your support system doesn’t ever go away.”
I still remember this conversation .
I see posts on Facebook. “I love being single but sometimes I see couples who seem to be so supported.” Or sometimes I wish I had someone to go to movies with.”
You see a beautiful couple who just got married. You think, “What bliss!” But you also have to accept that they’ll be together when one of them loses their job, when one of them gets sick, when an in-law causes trouble, when they’re asked to attend a mind-numbing event to help a partner. Married people have also written that there are times when they just want to be alone for awhile.
Those are the trade-offs.
Single people have trade-offs too. We must find friends or resources, on our own, when the house or car needs maintenance. We may get banished to the kids’ table at weddings and family reunions. We have to go through the emotional labor of setting boundaries with people who assume we’re always available to baby-sit or work overtime. And no matter how much we enjoy our solitude, sometimes it would be nice to have someone on standby to attend a movie or a company party.
When I hear people complaining about the downsides, I want to scream, “You made these choices. Live with them!”
Trade-offs can make our lives simpler and easier. I got this idea from Greg McKeown’s Essentialism. He argues that instead of asking how we can make everything work, we should ask which problem we want to solve.
That idea resonated with me.
The problems of being single are things like, “Find someone to go to the movies with” and “Find a way to succeed financially with just one income.”
I suspect the problems of being married include “finding time to be alone” and “dealing with someone who’s changed in the last ten years.”
So when someone tells me, “I feel sad sometimes when I don’t have that special someone,” I want to tell them, “You’ve made a trade-off. Your problem is dealing with life without that special someone.”
A trade-off is not necessarily a mistake. You may love the path you’ve chosen but still recognize that it’s not always perfect. It means you chose the roses but you acknowledge the thorns.
I don’t know what to tell someone who hasn’t chosen their tradeoffs. Maybe it’s time to do some soul-searching, with or without a professional. Sometimes if you just wait in suspense, the world around you gives you an answer. You’re drawn to a particular person or you feel relief when you go home to your cat and you don’t want to give that up…even for a special someone.
Or just ask the question: “Which set of problems do I want to solve?” Because if you choose one set of solutions, you’re also choosing one set of problems. And the new problems may or may not make up for the solutions.
