One of the biggest delusions about marriage is the belief that you’ll be happier than when you were single. That somehow the ring is like a magic wand that suddenly lights up your life even when it was all gloomy while single. Nothing could be further from reality.
Another delusion is that marriage somehow sorts out whatever character flaw an individual has before marriage. But whatever you tolerate while dating will be amplified in marriage. Marriage doesn't fix dysfunction, it reveals it. That's just one of the dangers of marrying a potential, rather than a reality.
The idea that you’re missing out on happiness if you are uncoupled or unmarried is fallacious. Not only that, it’s dangerous and has unintended consequences.
We fail to celebrate singleness. Too often in our society, especially in our religious culture, to be single is to be viewed as incomplete, with marriage believed to equal completeness. This broadly held belief often causes single people to generally feel "less than" in a culture and within an institution that’s meant to point everyone towards fulfilment and happiness outside human effort.
Not everyone is keen on marriage and, therefore, not everyone is meant for marriage. But we’re all deserving of fulfilment and happiness irrespective of our marital status. We are all complete individuals and should be whole and happy whether we get married or not. In fact, we are more ready for marriage when we are happy being single, in spite of our age, than believing that we’ll be happier when we’re married.
We need to create a culture that celebrates individuals whether married or not. Singleness offers us ample opportunities to pursue our individual dreams and visions. It offers us far more independence to achieve our life goals, and to actually be selfish about going after what we want. We are better able to serve humanity because we are solely in control of our time and resources.
We set people up for disappointment. Young people grow up thinking that marriage is how people find happiness. But soon after getting married, they realise they are not as happy as they dreamed they would be. Some days they are downright miserable. Their misery isn’t necessarily the fault of their spouse and it certainly isn’t the fault of marriage, but they see their unhappiness as a sign that something has gone terribly wrong.
“I didn’t sign up for this,” they tell themselves. So instead of working on their marriage, they begin to look for a new relationship that will make them happy.
Marriage does not bring you happiness but true satisfaction comes when you are hungry and thirsty to live a morally upright life.
People need to desire to pursue their life’s purpose and calling, whether married or single. That’s what will bring them satisfaction, not a 24ct. gold band on their ring finger. If they find someone to marry, it should be someone with whom they’re prepared to share that life’s purpose and calling, not merely someone to share a house and babies with who drains your life of meaning.
We turn marriage into an idol, taking a good thing God created and turning it into the ultimate thing, with the attitude that “I cannot live without him. He is what life is all about to me.”
Of course, another way we do this is by expecting our spouses to do or provide what only God can. People put such unreasonable expectations on marriage – like fulfilment, happiness and completeness – that their world collapses when they discover that marriage simply can’t provide these. Well, it isn’t meant to. Another fallible human being is incapable of providing you with happiness, completeness and fulfilment.
When we fail to recognise marriage as a metaphor for something much greater than us, and that marriage itself is not forever, it automatically becomes an idol we seek with illegitimate intentions, like happiness. Anything whose purpose you don’t know, you will most likely misuse and abuse.
When we give people the impression that just being human – whether married or single – isn’t enough to bring them complete satisfaction and happiness, we’re implicitly saying they’re not enough. When you don’t depend on your spouse to be the source of your happiness and joy, you allow them room to be human and still be OK with their humanness. You also cease to idolise them, and the institution of marriage.
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