How to be happy without having a partner?

When we think about what it means to set out to be happy, it often happens that we imagine an individual process, a path that each person must go through making their own decisions and based on their own terms of what they want and gives meaning to their lives. There is a grain of truth to this; it is clear that happiness goes hand in hand with the possibility of being autonomous and making weighty decisions about what we want to do in the short, medium and long term. However, in practice, this is not as individual an experience as it seems; the way in which we relate to the rest of society has a great influence on it.

A clear example of this can be seen in the large number of people who believe they cannot be happy if they cannot stay in a relationship. This type of phenomenon not only damages the mental health of many people without a partner, but also promotes harmful relationships based on emotional dependence between those who do have a boyfriend, girlfriend, husband or wife.

So let's see

The main keys to being happy without having a partner and really take advantage of being single without considering it simply “a phase”.

• Related article: "Unwanted loneliness: what it is and how we can combat it"

Achieving happiness without being in a relationship

Let's see a series of guidelines and tips to overcome these dynamics of self-sabotage and self-esteem wear, to be happy without having a partner.

1. Get rid of the myth of the better half

The idea that we need our “other half” is one of those beliefs that, despite being deeply rooted in our culture and being very normalized, if we stop to think about it, they are totally irrational and even border on superstition, as well as being very harmful for it. Assuming that there is someone “waiting for us” will make us consider singleness a lost time, a limbo that we must leave behind as soon as possible and in which it is not worth focusing on anything other than finding that average orange.

The kind of love that binds us to someone in the context of dating or marriage, the bond based on a life project in common with someone special, is an experience impossible to separate from what we feel for that person in concrete; We do not fall in love with abstract concepts or things that we have not experienced, but with flesh and blood human beings with their own particularities that attract us intensely.

Bearing that in mind, and assuming that what motivates us to start and maintain a relationship is love for someone... How do you explain that many people feel a strong discomfort due to the fact of not having a partner? The answer is simple: what is behind this type of dissatisfaction is not a latent love, but something else. A combination of individual psychological elements and collective social dynamics that give rise to insecurities fears, obsessive thoughts, and in general, a situation of emotional vulnerability that must be faced and managed.

• You may be interested: "What is emotional dependency, and how to overcome it?"

2. Detect and identify the different forms of social pressure that affect you

To a large extent, the supposed need to have a partner to be happy is based on the expectations that, coming from outside, we assume are born in ourselves. For example, gender roles lead many women to believe that if they reach a certain age they have not married and/or have not formed a family with children, they are worth nothing, since they have failed in their main traditional function: reproduction and support to man in the domestic.

On the other hand, the idea of ​​what it means to be a successful person often includes having a big house and a family that inhabits it, and the figure of the lonely person who is forced to share her loneliness with her pets is the representation of what it means to fail in the first leg. But those representations of what is good to aspire to and what is bad to avoid are completely arbitrary, they only continue to exist because they are not sufficiently questioned.

• Related article: "Social pressure: what it is, characteristics and how it affects us"

3. Enjoy your true friendships

Friendship should not be seen as a substitute for a relationship, or as a "reduced" version of what it means to have a boyfriend or girlfriend. It is a genuine connection between two or more people perfectly capable of providing several of the most stimulating and exciting things in life, but to take advantage of it, you have to put aside limiting conceptions of what it means to have a friend or a friend.

Once we become aware of the irrationality and unfairness of these inertias based on tradition and "what is expected" of people to keep the society in the same way, we will realize that what we thought we needed is just a mirage, that what we assumed we lack is already in us.

• You may be interested: "This is what true friendships are like, in 9 characteristics"

4. Focus on the present… and plan for the future

Although it seems contradictory, it is perfectly possible. What it is about is not to be aware of signs that you can stop being single in a short time; accept that your reality is that of a person without a partner and appreciate the opportunities that this way of life offers you, instead of compare yourself to an idealized future (or to a version of you that doesn't exist and is too happy just to be in a relationship loving). If you don't, you will use that tendency to fantasize as an excuse not to get involved in what you really want to do and could do from the here and now.

Thus, starting from the reality that you know and that is not based on fictions, establish personal and/or professional projects that are meaningful to you, that connect with your values ​​and interests, instead of obsessing about whether that will bring you closer or further away from the possibility of meeting someone to start a relationship with.

On the other hand, even if we do not have a partner, it is important to know that in the future that person may arrive and it is good to be open to it being so and have an excellent predisposition to receive someone special who add up; now, that should not lead you to adopt an attitude of constant waiting keeping all your plans "frozen" in case your lifestyle or priorities change with the arrival of someone special.

• Related article: "Mindfulness: 8 benefits of mindfulness"

Do you want to have psychological assistance to improve your relationships and your self-esteem?

If you want to reconcile with being single and stop feeling the need to have a partner at all costs, get in touch with me.

My name is Lorraine Irribarra, I am a psychologist, and I propose a training program in the management of emotions and expectations of what it means to be happy to avoid emotional dependence; all this through dynamics to reinforce self-leadership and self-esteem, Mindfulness, and if you need it, psychological therapy to intervene in your problems in greater depth.