If some all-knowing seer told you with certainty that you would be single for the rest of your life, how would you style that future?
How Will You Spend Your Single Future?
Imagine how freeing this knowledge would be. It would put you in total control of your destiny; you wouldn’t wait or plan your future around anyone else. Never again would you pause in some flight of excitement to think, “well, but how will this affect my chances of getting married?” or “but I couldn’t do that if I had a family, could I?” Because it wouldn’t matter.
If you knew you would stay single, would you…
- Start on the career of your dreams?
- Buy the house you’ve fantasized about?
- Make clearer plans for your future?
- Travel?
- Start designing an inspiring solo life?
An Unclear Future is a Tether
So many women live their lives in a state of suspended animation while waiting for a spouse. They don’t want to make any decisions that might close the door on the knight in shining armor, or make any major life changes that the future mystery lover might not like.
This sort of ‘planning’ is foolish. Crafting a tentative future around a shadowed, mystery future does nothing to help that future materialize. All it does is keep your life on pause.
The Benefits of Planning on Spinsterhood
What’s the better option? Instead of juggling a handful of possible futures (“Will I get married? Will I have children? Will I work? Will I be a stay-at-home mom?”), just plan your life around your dear old self. The only aspect of your future that’s certain is that you will be there.
Planning your future around the assumption you’ll stay single isn’t giving up. It’s taking control. Planning for spinsterhood means planning a life that works for you.
Stefanie O’Connell makes a compelling case for planning your financial future as a single woman. Her argument is that the future is uncertain, so you’ve simply got to plan to care for yourself. A lot of the same reasoning applies here. If you plan for a single future, you plan for self-sufficiency. This type of self reliance will not only keep you covered if you do remain single, but it will keep you from ‘settling’ in desperation.
Planning on Spinsterhood =/= Taking a Vow of Spinsterhood
If you’re not convinced, consider this: planning on a solo life does absolutely nothing to prevent you from getting married later on. Being emotionally and financially set as a single woman won’t inhibit you from finding a partner. But being dependent will limit your choices.
And, after all, what do you find more attractive? Someone living an indeterminate life, or someone out in the world living their dream? Whose life would you want to merge with?
In the end, you are the hero of your story. You’ve got to make the decisions that will shape your life.
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I think this applies to guys as well. I’ve stayed in a highly-compensated career path in part because I feel like I need to keep the option open to support a family, and also because I feel I would be considered less “eligible” if I was instead doing what I wanted — working alone (for a few years+) on one or two products that I’m passionate about, with no income, very likely spending all of my savings to get them going, and with no guarantee that anything comes of it. After which it would probably be very difficult to get back into the kind of job I have now, though I’m sure I could get something that paid the bills.
If the prospect of potentially marrying someone was never an option, I probably would have aimed a lot lower in my professional life, and a lot higher in my personal/creative life, but it’s hard to know up front what the right decision is.