1. If you are single, there is something wrong with you. You shouldn’t be happy with your life if you are single.
Being single does not mean you are inherently wrong, broken, or incomplete. It simply and only means that you are not married.
You should be happy with your life, regardless of your situation in life. No matter what your marital status, life will throw you curveballs, complications, tragedies, and extreme happiness. There’s a reason they compare it to a roller coaster. Your job, your entire purpose in life, is to be happy. “Men are that they might have joy.” (2 Nephi 2:25) There was no exception given for, “Except the single people. They have to stay miserable forever.”
Believing the lie that single people are less valuable or important, or that being unmarried means you aren’t loved, is a dangerous and awful trap. It opens the path to doubts that question your worth as a child of God. It cheapens the belief that every Child of God has a purpose and a reason for existence. It creates doubt in your own individual worth, and fuels the fires that lead to body image struggles and spiritual doubts.
Sister Kristen Oaks told a CES Devotional, (September 2011), “I say to those of you who may lead a single life: depend on the Lord, enjoy every opportunity, and delight in the life you have. Women were born to nurture, and we are surrounded by opportunities to do soin our Church callings, families, neighborhoods, and communities. Relish those opportunities.
To the men: We live in a world that teaches that education and financial security should precede marriage. The Lord teaches otherwise. In the interim before marriage, I also see many of you enjoying travel, video games, boys’ night out, and free meals. Men, the sisters need you to be the most valiant you can be. This is true, and I want you to listen: In the Lord’s plan, those of you who marry will progress to a degree that you never imagined. That is a promise.”
If you are not single, ask yourself if your words and actions towards your unmarried friends, family, and acquaintances, values them as a Child of God, or shows your lack of acceptance of them because they are not married?
2. There are no good ones left. I’ll never meet anyone.
I won’t pretend it doesn’t feel like this sometimes. But the truth is, there are thousands and thousands of worthy, active, and attractive LDS singles out there. If you haven’t found one yet, you just haven’t looked everywhere.
Get in the car and drive a few hours to a singles conference in another city or state. Do a Google search and find more online dating sites. Join one (or more) of the dozens of LDS singles Facebook groups. Contact old flames. Contact old friends and ask them to set you up. Don’t just sit at home, attend one stake singles activity a year, and declare that there are no fish in the sea.
And don’t forget to continue to improve your own appearance and offerings. Are you putting your best foot forward?
3. Everyone else has someone to love, and nobody loves me.
It’s easy to believe that everyone else is loved and has someone to love, and you are all alone. After all, everyone else has a family to sit with at church, and you’re in the overflow, alone, on a hard chair. But this way of thinking trumps up the good in other’s lives, and disrespects the good in our own. It creates a resentment and jealousy that only leads to internal depression.
Somewhere, deep down inside, we all know this isn’t true. You have a family, parents, siblings, cousins, etc., that love you. You have friends who love you, and if single, understand how you are feeling. If you need to feel loved, (and you absolutely deserve to), volunteer to teach the Sunbeams for a week or two. You’ll get your free fill of hugs and love, and not just from the teacher you replace.
4. God is punishing me and that’s why I’m still single.
“Is God punishing me? Is that why He won’t answer my prayers to find a spouse?”
It’s the inevitable question that singles sooner or later ask themselves. What horrible sin or misdeed have I not repented of that God is punishing me for and that’s why I’m still single?
During my school years I remember that on more than one occasion, I studied for hours to prepare for a test. And sometimes fell asleep with a book in my lap, and never said my prayers that night. I would be wracked with guilt during my test, afraid that I wouldn’t get a good grade on it because I had sinned the night before and not prayed. I suspect that I’m not the only student who has felt such fears in an exam room. We’re convinced we will be punished for our lack of perfection.
How grateful I was the day a friend bluntly said to me, “The Atonement is bigger than one small mistake. If the Atonement can’t make up for missing one night of prayer, then what was the point of the Atonement at all?”
You are not being punished with singleness.
Don’t fall into the trap of believing one of these lies.
Come 400 more LDS mid-singles for your future eternal companion at the Northern Virginia Mid-singles Conference, October 10-12, 2014. Details at www.midsinglesconference.com.
Erin Ann McBride is a writer, dreamer, and single woman. By day she works in social media marketing, and by night she hunts unicorns and writes romantic novels, “You Heard It Here First,” and the sequel “This Just In!” And you can always find her at the Story of a Nice Mormon Girl, or on Twitter as @erinannie and Instagram as @erinannie17.
michael hogganAugust 25, 2014
Not all of us will be able to marry in this life. Furthermore, some of us will end up divorced with little prospect for remarriage in this life. I know people in both situations. Marriage is a union between men and women. Blaming one gender or the other for singleness, while perhaps understandable, is certainly counterproductive. Personally, I think we have absorbed too many attitudes about relationships and marriage from the broader non-Mormon culture. This adversely affects both genders. I am not a particularly happy person. However, my divorced status is only a part of the reason for that. Question for Rick Calder What do you mean by superstitous childhood?
BillAugust 21, 2014
Lie # 5. The only single worth pursuing is an LDS single.