Seeing your family and friends is great, but sometimes it just reminds us that we're alone.
Sometimes being single is great. Sometimes I just want to shout, "You don't get it!" to this couples-centric world. Here's what I want to say to all of my married friends:
What you don't know...
1. What you don't know is that being single means you're no one's number one priority. That means you will be passed over for family night, baseball practice, and dance recitals. Your needs and feelings will be set aside in favor of husbands and wives and girlfriends and boyfriends and little people with large demands. What you don't know is how isolating that is.
2. What you don't know is that sitting down to dinner with your family, being invited to family night and dance recitals and baseball practice only amplifies the loneliness. It only highlights what I don't have. What I'm missing out on. What I don't have the option to have.
3. What you don't know is that when you tell me how hard marriage is, how unrewarding parenting can be, how it's not all it's cracked up to be, that I'm lucky to not have to answer to anyone ... it makes me hate you just a little bit. You don't know that you're undermining my feelings. That by saying those things you're saying I don't have the right to feel the way I feel.
4. What you don't know is that I love coming to family night, and baseball practice, and dance recitals. You should be putting your family first.
5. What you don't know is no amount of friendship and companionship and family can make me part of a pair—a unit. It can't move me up on the priority list. It won't erase my loneliness.
This article was originally published at Just Shireen. Reprinted with permission from the author.