December is the season of celebration. It is the season for shopping, exchanging gifts, cooking, visiting friends and family and happiness. But it is a season for depression and yet another broken promise for some people.
December is the season for marriage. Everywhere you look, you see wedding invite, beautiful decorations for outdoor weddings, picture of friends flaunting their wedding rings, traditional and white wedding dress ideas everywhere, blogs screaming at you to get on with it and suggesting ways to get on with it. You go to Facebook and one of your friends is asking you to save the date. You might not even remember her telling you she is engaged.
Does it seems like everyone you know is getting married except you? Does it seem like you have been dating for 4-8 years without any idea where it is going? Have you been engaged forever and you want the guy to fix the date and every year he develops cold feet and says next year? Have you been waiting for 5 – 13 years for him to pop the question and he has not and this leaves you with anxiety every time, especially in December? Are you really in a relationship? You are not.
Just because everyone is getting married, you fail to consider if this is what you want now, if this is the right time, if he is the right guy? You become consumed with the urgency and panic to do what others are doing and you may end up making a mistake.
There are certain things you need to realize:
- Not getting married yet while others have done does not make you a bad or inadequate person
- People that got married are not better than you and you are not better than those that are married
- Marriage does not make you lose your freedom and staying single does not guarantee freedom
- Marriage does not guarantee companionship and being single does not mean you are doomed to loneliness
- Marriage does not mean you are worthy and being single does not make you unworthy
- Marriage can help you achieve your purpose and vision but it can also derail it. Single people have been known to achieve great feat
- Your spouse can help and encourage your dreams and can also snuff it out and you with it
- Marriage is desirable and beautiful but it will not give you meaning and validation. You have to find validation and meaning by yourself.
- Marriage will not give you confidence and self-esteem. These are things and gifts that you have to give yourself.
- Education does not guarantee a good husband or a successful marriage. Nothing is given
Learn to love yourself. Desperation in anything opens you up to scam including weight loss scam. Rejoice with your friends that are getting married but do not envy them.
Someone told me that the reason she attended the University is to get a good husband. What of you and what is good for you? Where do you come in?
In Nigeria especially the east, people living in different parts of the country and overseas travel back to their country homes to relax and visit family, friends and relations. It is a time of celebration, traditional wedding ceremony and white weddings. For most unmarried people, who have reached the age of marriage and desire to be married, it is a time of intense pressure. Most times parents are the ones to mount the pressure by asking you “when are you getting married?” as if it is up to you to drag someone to the altar by force.
They also go as far as telling you about all your childhood friends that are already married and even insinuate that the daughter of so and so that is not married yet is unworthy. This may make you start feeling unworthy (you are unmarried too).
I believe that the reason the pressure and anxiety is more on the women is because they are not the ones to propose.
The man has to propose, so they wait and pray and hope that he will do the needful. And the anxiety is not just for women men feel anxious too. Oh yes. He may not have popped the question because of his finances. Most men want to be financially stable before they get married because marriage to them means responsibility, kids and provision. So they are anxious too.
Some engagements go on for so long that the woman is on the verge of a break down. What more the relationship has gone on for a long time that you feel it will be next to impossible for you to get another partner.
So in quiet desperation, anxiety and unhappiness you desperately hold on. For how long? You pretend as if it is okay so that you will not come off as the desperate kind. Then keep quiet for another year feeling stupid.
Your married friends do not invite you as much because they see you as a threat and you feel bitter. You do not hang out much with other friends that are unmarried because they might take your man. All this emotions are coming from inside of you. No one is making you feel that way. You just stay in this awful unspoken and assumed pre engaged state where you are expectant. Do you really have the right to be expectant?
Are you so desperate that you fail to see that he may not even be the right man or woman for you? Are you afraid of what people will say and you swallow it rather than walk away? Would it not be better to walk away now than later?
There are still good women and men out there. You alone know what you want. Remember that your well being comes first. You feelings count too, say what you want, stop pretending. Its either he is okay with it or not.
It is okay to want to get married and it is okay to feel that he is the right person but what of him? Does he think that you are the right person? It is not just up to you alone.
Look around you and you will see marriages that is built on desperation and being lived out in frustration. You see something you cannot cope with or live with and you think it does not matter, I can manage it. Really, can you? Many have ended up not coping with it. What else does he want to find out about you that he has not discovered all these years? Maybe, he knows what he wants and it is not you or what you have to offer.Sometimes, nature has a way of trying to help us so we will not make a mistake but in the heat of desperation and panic you forget everything.
Just have a heart to heart talk with him, tell him what you want.
Above all, remember that he is not the one that will make you complete. Learn to love your own company. Learn to be happy on your own first.
Love yourself. Take responsibility for your life and happiness. You matter so much to give that responsibility to someone else. Develop your passion, acquire skills. Focus on yourself instead of the relationship. Have your own values and opinion
Work on your body. Do not put off working out till November so that you will get ready for the men that are coming back in December. Do you know what you are telling your body? That it does not matter and is useless to you for the other 10 months of the year. Learn to be independent and happy with your own company and you know what, that which you desire might come from where and when you least expect it.
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