As the years pass and I grow older, I have come to a quiet
realization: I am single. I have been single for a long time. And chances are,
I may remain that way.
Strangely, that truth does not scare me.
Because I have been single longer than I have ever been in a
relationship, I have grown comfortable with it. I have learned how to exist
fully on my own. And that comfort has made me question something deeper: Why
are we raised expecting partnership as a guaranteed destination? Why is it
presented as the norm, the goal, the inevitable outcome?
Especially for women.
From a young age, many of us are taught to look forward to
marriage, to children, to building a home. We are told, sometimes gently,
sometimes forcefully, that our lives will naturally unfold this way. There is
even the assumption that children will care for us in old age, as if old age
itself is promised. As if life does not hold uncertainty. As if the roles
assigned to us are contracts signed before we are born.
But life is not that linear. Nothing is guaranteed. We could
leave this world early. We could leave children behind. We could choose not to
have them. We could simply choose differently or find that, for reasons beyond
our control, a suitable partner never quite comes along.
And that is where the real conversation begins: the
assumptions of roles.
The Shifting Roles & The Growing Gap
Relationships today are not what they were decades ago. The
balance has shifted.
There was a time when women needed men for financial
security, physical protection, and social legitimacy. Over time, women were
trained, sometimes by necessity, to be physically and mentally independent.
Many learned to provide for themselves. To build. To secure. To survive.
But while women were evolving into independence, many men
were not equally trained to be emotionally independent or domestically capable.
In conversations I’ve had with men in my life, a pattern emerges: men were not
raised to cook, nurture, self-soothe, or manage a home in the same way women
were raised to build resilience and autonomy.
And so a gap formed.
Some men laugh at the idea of women growing old alone with
cats. Yet those same women have often been taught how to survive independently.
They have been trained to build security. They have been taught intentionally
or unintentionally to carry both the “masculine” and “feminine”
responsibilities.
Meanwhile, some men were taught that their traditional roles
were superior. That providing financially alone defined their worth. And when
women began filling those spaces themselves, it disrupted the hierarchy.
Suddenly, the question becomes: If a woman can provide
security for herself, what does she need a man for?
And that question is uncomfortable.
Competition Instead of Collaboration
Some of what we see today is not partnership, it is
competition.
Some men resent women’s independence because it removes the
leverage once tied to reproduction and dependency. Some women feel men are
unnecessary because they have filled the gaps themselves. Both sides are
reacting to change rather than learning to adapt within it.
But relationships were never meant to be competitions.
It takes two to tango.
The missing piece is not dominance. It is balance.
Faith, Change & The Balance of Authority
Even in scripture, the conversation is more nuanced than we
often admit.
The Bible speaks of men as heads of households, but it also
instructs husbands to love their wives deeply and to listen to them. It calls
for submission, but it also calls for sacrificial love. Both can be true at the
same time.
Submission without love becomes control.
Leadership without listening becomes dictatorship.
Time itself is God-created. Growth is inevitable. If we
refuse to grow with time, are we becoming wiser or simply more rigid?
Traditionally, women were expected to submit physically, to
rely on men for provision and security. At the same time, women were often the
emotional core of the relationship: nurturing, understanding, holding the
emotional atmosphere together.
Men were expected to provide physically. Women were expected
to sustain themselves emotionally.
It created a symbiotic balance.
He offered structure and protection in the external world.
She offered emotional depth and relational grounding in the internal world.
Both forms of strength were necessary. Both required trust.
But now that many women can provide their own security, the
structure shifts. When physical reliance is no longer essential, what replaces
it?
Emotional connection.
Shared purpose.
Mutual respect.
The balance is no longer about survival. It is about
intentional unity.
Emotional Intelligence & Loyalty
Another uncomfortable truth: we are not as different as we
pretend to be.
Men are often raised to detach emotionally and tie intimacy
primarily to desire. Women are often raised to attach emotionally and detach
from physical autonomy. But in reality, both men and women are emotional
beings.
Men with emotional intelligence, those who are self-aware
and emotionally available, tend to build longer, healthier relationships.
Loyalty is tied to emotional attachment. When you are deeply connected to
someone, betrayal costs more.
Detachment, on the other hand, breeds chaos. It creates
emptiness. It builds cycles of dissatisfaction and infidelity, not because
desire is strong, but because connection is weak.
Emotional maturity is not feminine. It is human.
Choosing Peace Over Pressure
And so here I am.
Comfortable.
Traveling when I can.
Making decisions for myself.
Living alright, even with limited resources, because my needs are my own.
I do not worry about leaving children behind. I do not live
in fear of dying alone. I have been privileged enough to know love in other
forms… family, friends, community. I have been cared for. And because of that,
I have so much love to give.
To myself.
To others where needed.
I no longer long for the trap that society insists is
mandatory. If a partnership comes, it will be a partnership of balance, not
necessity. Not fear. Not social pressure.
If it does not, I am still whole.
And that, too, is love.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
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