filed in Daily Life
Rebel
In my family, being single felt like swimming upstream. I had great role models for marriage, but also enormous pressure to partake of it. Eventually, I got used to not pleasing everyone. And in the end, it was freeing.
Illustration by Carolyn Sewell
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My parents have had a catastrophically horrible marriage and I was witness to it most of my life. My dad told me to get a dog if I ever feel lonely. When I still complain, he tells me that I’m not being realistic…”marriage isn’t some blissful arrangement that will solve all your problems,” he says. I still feel like the odd person out since both of my siblings are married and my parents still are…despite or perhaps because of their mutual loathing. No one expects me to marry or even brings it up, but that can sometimes hurt just as much as being pressured.
That’s another side of it, Leyla, that I hadn’t imagined.
It’s a little different for me than Leyla. I grew up as an only child to a single-parent, my mom, who never got married. My dad was never ever around. I think because of that, I really desired to be part of a union, to at least have a man around, but a good one. I complain to her too but her living example to me is that marriage is not for everyone, and sadly, it might not be for me.
It’s important you hold out for a good one.