Marriage can get a bad rap in today's world, but a loving marriage can bring real fulfillment.
Many people today think that, in order to be happy, it’s better to be alone. Recently, I’ve read several articles arguing that the best way to be happy is to remain single.
The underlying argument is usually that, if you’re alone, you can devote time and resources to taking care of yourself. You can find fulfillment by doing what you want.
The view seems to be that family life is a hindrance that prevents people from being happy — especially women. The assumption is that women end up neglecting fundamental aspects of self-realization in a family context.
Continued below.
Is staying single the best option for happiness?
Interesting discussion point,....
I think there is no such think as better or worse, heaven and hell can exist in both marriage and singledom.
For myself I would rather be happily married than happily single, but I would rather be unhappily single than unhappily married, because all our joys and torments are doubled when we are coupled with someone else. And it's nonsensical to me to think it's better to take care of yourself in order to find fulfilment, I think the best kinds of marriages are when we find personal fulfillment and then have something to give each other, rather than having two half empty vessels that only feel whole unless they are together and live in a perpetual state of neediness which always leads to conflict.
The hardest lesson in life, especially when you are young, is not to idolise and put all your faith in another human being for your happiness and fulfilment, and perhaps some time living alone and learning ways to achieve wholeness whether that is by self reliance, or putting your faith in God to guide you, may be a way to shape you into a better marriage partner, unless you come to love yourself too much.
Personally I think God gave us loneliness for a reason, we need other people, but we don't get the other people we really need until we stop needing them so much.
I think a happy marriage is the reward for all our trials.
We can certainly get it if we force it, but be careful what you pray for, you can pray for a husband or a wife and be punished by being granted what you prayed for! It can be a marriage made in heaven or hell I ought to know, ive been married twice, the first time was after I visited a spiritualist group who contacted the dead, and I got a man with recently dead wife and mother, that marriage was a 1000 times worse than anything I ever experienced as a single person even in my most rock bottom moments.
My second marriage came after I submitted myself totally to God alone and this marriage is a long lasting piece of happiness and fulfillment like I never would have dreamed possible, we were whole when we met, despite our lonliness, which means what we have, we can give, rather than take, I find it SO much more enriching to give and receive than to devote myself to my own fulfillment to the exclusion of another.
The life of a nun is an extreme one, but as I understand it, it is not about personal fulfilment, but about building a relationship with God, which is outside ourselves, it isnt saying ~I~ am the temple, just the opposite.
