Why is all this happening at the same time?

Let me first clarify what I mean by my title! There is indeed a lot happening in the world all at the same time, however, I don’t mean any of that global stuff. I “merely” mean why are there so many posts and videos from women about intentionally choosing singleness?!  And not merely choosing singleness per se, but choosing singleness over the men who are currently available?! So, many of these women are saying that, like me, actually they would like a relationship – but they want to make sure that the men in question are worthy of their time and effort. Otherwise they would rather be single.  Which is *exactly* what I have been saying!

I must admit that I do find this quite gratifying, because as far as I know I was the first person to write a post like this, right here on this blog (or I have a short memory!) The likelier story is that whispers of this idea were already floating around, or feminist ideas may have been going inexorably in this direction, and I just caught a whisper, distilled it before many other people did. Undoubtedly there would have been other bloggers and/or writers saying similar things before me.

So I might not be able to wallow in gratification after all. But the question still remains though – why are so many women all saying the same thing at the same time?!  Why does it appear that we have all just noticed or woken up to this issue just now? And we are all voicing similar thoughts?!

Before I investigate that question, another thing that many people’s thoughts seem to be coalescing about is the following, which I have also written posts about, here on this blog: church and church life, and specifically being taken for granted / treated poorly in church, while being manipulated for all your money. Admittedly, I was definitely not the first person to write post about the over-emphasis on money in church. However, something that has shocked me within the last few weeks is this: I have seen videos on YouTube where other women of African descent, African-Americans, complain about being used and exploited in church specifically because of their skin colour, while they are often holding up the church financially through their financial contributions. That genuinely shocked me, because where I have been ranting about my own church experiences, I thought that they were exclusive to me. It seems though that there is if not an agenda, then definitely a widespread understanding that women who look like me are available to be taken advantage of  like this – even by men of the same skin colour.

I think that this is what links both of these issues: literally the internet, and the fact that the internet gives everyone a voice, no matter how small. So I for instance might post a blog post or a video ranting about my experiences….and then someone else might post a video…  When sufficient people have posted videos then we can start drawing out similarities, noticing patterns between our different experiences. Some people are better at marketing at others, a younger version of me was more active in marketing “Huggie-Wuggie” than this current version of me, but the only difference that makes in practice is that the more publicised videos, blogs etc attract more comments, where other people share their experiences…  And then it becomes unavoidably obvious just how widespread these issues are.

When I was initially writing my posts, I neither needed validation nor sought any out about my “rather be single” stance. Because I knew I was right. There is no way I could possibly be wrong by insisting on a man of outstanding character, and insisting that that character be unmistakably demonstrated before I go anywhere near a relationship with him. Countless people (OK, one or two!) told me that I was being too fussy, or that the man I was looking for “did not exist”.  And yet validation is what I have received by the truckload from other women’s experiences. I have chosen singleness pre-emptively, as my default, before putting myself through the potential trauma of a relationship with a man of underdeveloped character. Other women have gone through those relationships, and they complain bitterly about their ex-husbands or ex-boyfriends.  And it is always the character that they complain about:  All of these main complaints that women on Reddit and YouTube complain about regarding their husbands are all issues of character: (I was not aware of Reddit at all when I started writing my blog!)
– Laziness: does not pull his own weight at home, does not contribute to house chores, does not contribute sufficiently to raising the kids. This accounts for so many Reddit relationship posts

– Disrespectful and/or abusive like all those husbands who call their wives fat

– Manipulative: like the wife who tried to get her husband to pay for the meals of her friends without informing him first. He just walked out. Yes, this is a wife at fault here, it does work both ways, and frankly men do complain too!

– Cheating: like the husband who cheated on his wife with one of his coworkers, causing his wife to then miscarry her own baby, and then the coworker, also pregnant, then proceeded to taunt the wife by sending her pictures of her own (co-workers’) ultrasounds, and eventually inviting wife to her baby shower…

– Financially abusive like the man who does not allow his wife to keep any of her own money, even though she is the one earning it all.

– Lying

– Selfish/self-centred

And you know the worst thing? People on Reddit commenting on these stories are always quick to recommend divorce or a break-up. And to be fair, divorce/break-up does often seem to be the only appropriate course of action in many of these cases. But here is the thing: whether or not a divorce is necessary, or appropriate, it still causes so much upheaval. Would it not make so much more sense to give women the tools to evaluate relationships before they throw themselves in, for better or worse, to save them from the future upheaval of a divorce?

You know, there may be times when people decide to divorce for matters of sheer incompatibility.  In those cases, it could not have been foreseen.  But you know what? From what I am seeing, in many of those cases, people are putting in the effort to make it work. The point about character though, is that if you give it enough time, it is forseeable. People will often try to hide who they are for the sake of convincing someone to marry them, but if you give enough time, and if you are looking out for it, it will definitely come out. My stance goes a step further though, than just marrying a great guy. I am looking for someone who is aggressively pursuing Christlike character which comes about from aggressively pursuing Christ, so that none of these issues will even almost be an issue. And hopefully even if such an issue does arise, we will be able to work though it with prayer, repentance, forgiveness.  I am also looking for someone who is not only looking to pursue Christlikeness for himself, but who is also looking to surround himself with like-minded people. This might sound somewhat self-righteous, but since this predictably comes about as a direct consequence of pursuing Christ, (NOT Christian status) I am unspeakably grateful that I did not in the end cultivate any relationship with any non-Christian guy. Because they could not possibly have been pursuing Christ, and consequently they could not possibly have been pursuing Christlike character. Even if someone is genuinely making lots of effort to be a good person, sometimes the character challenges we face in life are bigger than us. If someone is not a Christian then I know that he will not be praying (consistently), or otherwise making use of divine help. He will not be reading the Bible the way I would, with my ears and heart open for God to speak to me. Additionally, something else to be deduced from these Reddit posts is a point I may not have made overtly on this blog before, but I have been aware of: sometimes, these situations will arise subtly. At first, it truly will not be hubby’s fault that he is never available to help with the kids because he has a late shift and by the time he gets home they are all in bed, but then his shift changes or he loses his job, and then wifey can’t help noticing that he still does not step up with the kids, or he makes excuses “You are just so much better at it than me!”  If Reddit is anything to go by, similar things happen so much.

Anyway, to go back to the original question of why all these things seem to be happening all at once, I think that the internet is a big answer, but also people themselves have changed. The fundamental nature of human beings will never change, however, societal expectations have changed, also the social glues holding us all together have weakened, both men and women have become more selfish – men have become more selfish, as women we  have also become more selfish in our own right, and also in response to men’s increasing selfishness. On one hand, I applaud us women for standing up for ourselves, on the other hand I must admit it left a somewhat bitter taste in my mouth when just before writing this post I watched a woman say that a relationship with a man should quantifiably make her life better. Here is the thing, I have said exactly the same thing, here on this blog, many years ago, and possibly many times over, perhaps that is why I cringed when I saw how it sounded when someone else was saying it.
To clarify what I said then, to offer the clarification that even back then I knew I should have offered:

Being in a relationship is a sacrifice, no doubt about it. There will be times when you will look back wistfully on your single years. Married women often say or hint that they envy single women our freedom. If you were to make a choice based solely on convenience or what is in your selfish best interests, then clearly singleness would win. Being able to do whatever you want howsoever or whensoever you please without having to ask permission from anyone is always going to be easier. Especially if you’re making enough money to give yourself a good life. So we all enter marriage being aware of just what a sacrifice it is. And yet, when you are in a loving relationship with someone who cares about you, surrounded by support, seeing the fruit of all your hard work and tears – that makes it a worthwhile sacrifice. If however, you are not in a loving relationship, but just pouring yourself out or enduring drudgery so that someone else can take advantage of all your hard work – why would anyone do that?!  Historically marriage has automatically been seen as the superior life path, not even a choice really, but rather the default for anyone who can find a man to want to marry her. The point of my posts is that actually, singleness is a choice that I can actively choose, not just wait for it to be foisted upon me by lack of available men, if the alternative is a miserable marriage. In fact, a marriage does not actually need to be miserable for singleness to be a preferable choice for me. By the grace of God, I aspire to achieve various things in singleness. Marriage will only be worthwhile if it demonstrably offers superior things to what I could work towards in singleness.

When I wrote those posts, I did not appreciate then as I do now that actually, singleness requires a ton of sacrifices too. But it does. And the fact is that I have not actually chosen singleness in itself, I have simply chosen it over the men I have met thus far. Actually no, I am now daring to hope that I have met the man who will make marriage preferable to singleness.  If (please Lord!) this is true – finally, then the truth is that I met him years ago, I have known him for years. But even if that is true, I know that I will simply be swapping one set of sacrifices for another.

But that was another digression! To go back to the question at hand, one final point that has strongly struck me is this: as proof of increasing selfishness and individualism, if any were needed – the fact that some grandparents are now demanding payment from their own children for babysitting duties. Wow. Actually I don’t think that that says anything bad about the individual grandparents in question as such but rather about society as a whole. Has it really come to this? What is it going to take for us all to realise that the way we live is increasingly not serving any of us?

Actually no, wait, there is a further point that I wanted to make, and actually, this might not fit neatly into this post but I still think that it is worthwhile to share: people are now saying in response to many of these issues that women share on line, that women should avoid wife duties before they get married. So many women have been left without any legal protections when their long-term boyfriends, for whom they have had children, just dump them just like that, and go off to the next woman. There is a particular woman whose story stung with its unfairness. Her boyfriend persuaded her that actually he did not want children, so she decided not to have children with him  (although she may well have wanted children). And she has stayed with him, unmarried, for so many years that it is no longer possible for her to have biological children. Additionally, she was not working, so she was completely dependent on his income. Then he decided that actually, he would quite like to have biological children after all but since she is no longer capable of having them, he is going to find someone else. It was the boyfriend writing in. So he is planning to dump her just like that, without income, without any children or the possibility of having children (thanks to him) and without the legal protections that a divorce would bring.  And it was almost unbelievable how self-centred this man was. After she had literally given him the best years of her life, he just decided to ditch her so coldly.  It is in response to such stories,  that people are telling women to avoid wife duties until they get married. And as a Christian, I can’t help feeling a tiny bit [trying to find a  more acceptable word than “smug”  –vindicated] – not about the individual stories which, like this one, are often heartbreaking, but about the general response: is this not what we as Christians have been saying all along?! Don’t give someone your body before the ring (wedding, not just engagement), it is too dangerous, don’t move into his house, don’t be doing all the work…  And then I saw another post, questioning whether the supposed sexual revolution has really been of benefit to women. Of course it has not, I could have told you that, I have told you that repeatedly. Because of course it is women who are going to be taken advantage of more often by men who claim to love them but refuse to commit, of course it is women who are going to be left holding the baby or as in this case, left without any chance of holding their own babies.  Of course it is women who have more to lose – it always has been. Here is the thing: “religion” is often portrayed as an instrument of oppression, and God’s laws especially around sex are seen by Western society at large as being restrictive or quaint. But when we realise that all of God’s laws are for our benefit, then that changes the perspective completely.  Here is the thing: man-made religion, the parts that have been added to faith or amended by human beings often is oppressive, but the true law of God itself brings freedom to our lives.  So I encourage everyone reading this to embrace fully the authentic word of God by learning the Bible for yourself, while firmly walking away from the fake stuff, and sadly much of what is to be found in churches is fake.  If you want to be a feminist, if you really want to be a feminist and act in the most unrepentant self-interest (which is not the same as selfishness, which involves harming other people) – then you will take hold of the words of the Bible and cling to them desperately as your salvation – because that is exactly what they are.

And two easy (ish) ways to conduct your relationships: refuse to be alone with someone before you marry him, and evaluate someone very carefully before you marry him.  I’ve also remembered one other point I was going to make: It has occurred to me previously while writing on this blog that if everyone applied the rules I speak of on this blog, then literally no-one would ever get married.  Well guess what? It seems like other women are coming to that conclusion too, that increasingly, no-one is worth marrying!  On YouTube, you will literally hear women generalise that “no men are worth marrying”. (Which goes further than I have gone.  Because I acknowledge that outstanding men are so rare, but all the same they remain out there.) What can I say?!  Right again! As I say it just was not possible to be wrong. Character is without qualification the number 1 necessity for marriage, and if no-one has great character, or no-one is aggressively pursuing excellent character then that means no-one is worth marrying. OK, this truly is the final point: I can’t help pointing out, in another moment of feeling vindicated, that a general decline in character seems to coincide with a falling away of the Western world from the Christian faith. I’m sure that I have said this before: it was character and integrity and regard for human life (or at least the life of co-citizens) that set apart the West from Africa. It was not/is not  intellect, nor any other inherent superiority. As the Bible says in Proverbs 14v34 “Righteousness exalts a nation [but sin is a reproach to any people]” The UK, the West in general, owing largely to its strongly established Christian tradition used to be synonymous with integrity and compassion. And yet we can all see around us that that is being eroded day by day. A special note needs to be made of our current Home Secretary whose heartlessness is simply breathtaking and who is a woman at that. The way integrity and compassion are fast receding from public life is exactly the same way they are receding from private life, which is now indirectly resulting in many of us choosing to be single.

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EDIT: After initially writing this post a few hours ago I have gone back to watch some more of these videos, and I have been struck by these additional thoughts:
– Marriage and family life has always been a sacrifice especially for the woman, but with the modern Western set-up it seems to be more of a sacrifice than ever. I am going to have to trust that women truly do know what they are talking about when so many of them advise against marriage.  I think that many of us understand that it will be hard, but perhaps it is hard to appreciate just how impossible it will be until you are actually in the situation yourself. And people are saying that family life is impossible, especially for the woman.