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Many tend to live in a couple, create relationships in order to feel psychologically secure. But others choose the path of loneliness and life for themselves. Why it happens?
Happiness patterns are varied. Today, we no longer consider meeting with a chosen one or chosen one a necessary condition in order to be satisfied with our lives. And at the top of Maslow’s pyramid of needs is not love, but self-realization.
Nevertheless, many find it in the family. “My husband and I have been together for 35 years and we always share hardships and joys,” says 57-year-old Svetlana. – We are Nikitins, so friends and colleagues used to call us. It would probably be impossible to separate us now.”
Everyone has a need for affection. But some satisfy it in a different way. “I have many friends, and two or three of them are really close, one might say, kindred spirits. With girls, I prefer to spend a pleasant time for a short time, so that it does not oblige any of us to anything, ”admits 33-year-old Denis. And there are more and more people like him.
Loners change society
Today, 30,6% of Russians (and this is 44,9 million of our compatriots) choose a solo life. And this is a global trend: “More than 50% of adult Americans are single these days,” writes sociologist Eric Kleinenberg in his book Living Solo. New social reality”.
He notes that, despite its increasing prevalence, “living alone” is a phenomenon that is little discussed: “Unfortunately, it is most often considered one-sidedly – as a consequence of narcissism. In fact, life alone is more varied and comfortable than it seems from the outside.
Increasingly popular, this phenomenon is changing the “social fabric” and the idea of relationships, and has a strong impact on the process of personal maturation, aging and dying. Such a life corresponds to the key values of our time – individual freedom, personal control and the desire for self-realization, which are dear to many from adolescence.
Studies of the lives of those who choose to remain single are few and far between. However, it is already obvious that financially independent individuals predominate among singles. They are able to achieve ambitious goals, consistently build a career, learn throughout their lives. In addition, they communicate more with friends and relatives.
There is a contact
The nuclear family – the one that consists of two parents and children – is in crisis, as evidenced by statistics. In 2020, 770 couples were registered in Russian registry offices, according to Rosstat, and this is the lowest figure since 857. And the number of divorces in the same year increased by 1945% compared to the previous year and amounted to 12 divorces per 782 marriages.
“Families are created and immediately disintegrate,” says family psychotherapist Anna Varga in the article “A Russian Man Believes in a Miracle”. “We naturally tend to form associations, but, unfortunately, in the modern nuclear family there are no rules left to rely on.”
Despite the fragility of the modern family, many, time after time, stubbornly strive to create such a union. What is its value? For 70 years, Harvard University has been researching the lifestyle habits of men and women who have partners.
“The main discovery we got is that good relationships in a couple make us much happier and healthier,” said psychoanalyst Robert Waldinger, leader of the study. By constantly communicating with someone different from us, we get to know not only him better, but also ourselves.
“We were created for life together,” says psychology professor Marina Melia. – Communication with a partner causes a whole range of emotions: joy, admiration, and sometimes irritation. Being together is a deep connection that has unconditional value.”
What’s the forecast?
For the first time, psychologists have entrusted the study of romantic relationships to artificial intelligence (AI).
With his help, Samantha Joel, a psychologist at Western University in Canada, and her team decided to explore different aspects of couple relationships. What is the future for the couple and what affects its sustainability? Here are the main questions that worried the researchers.
Psychologists conducted a survey among 11 thousand couples in different countries of the world. Participants in a large-scale study were asked how satisfied they are with their sex life, how often they quarrel with a partner, whether they want to leave. The researchers then processed the data using artificial intelligence.
And it turned out that such subtle matter as romantic relationships lends itself to analysis. After processing a large amount of data, AI identified factors that affect the quality and duration of relationships in a couple. Here are the top five:
- the desire to continue the relationship;
- gratitude for the union;
- sexual satisfaction;
- desire to make a partner happier;
- low level of conflict.
According to these criteria of well-being in a couple, you can test your own relationship. If at least two of them are found in our union, then the couple has a chance to develop. But if we do not find a single match, it is worth considering: such a pair has few prospects. In that case, it might be better to be alone for a while.
Which couples live happily ever after? There are many different theories on this. Some psychologists are inclined to believe that it is better to be different, to complement each other, others talk about the optimal age difference, seek to calculate the “golden ratio”.
“The point here is not at all what our age difference is, whether we are owls or larks,” Marina Melia is convinced. – The main thing is the unity of life values: what is important and what is not important, what is good and what is bad. When we understand that the same thing is valuable both for us and for a partner, we feel a commonality, a kind of kinship of souls. When we have common values, we unanimously make many decisions. And vice versa.
For example, if relationships with relatives are important for us, and for a partner the most important thing is work and status, then when we have to go to an anniversary or funeral together, help a sick relative, disputes and quarrels begin. From mutual agreement or from disagreement, life in a couple consists.
The unity of values or their difference is manifested in everything: whether it is necessary to feed the husband breakfast, how to raise children and communicate with them, with whom to be friends, where to go or go. If we have a commonality at the level of attitudes and life strategies, then it is much easier to agree on tactical issues.
At the beginning of a relationship, it is already clear whether we have common values. “It’s worth starting to live in a couple when you feel that you feel good, you are ready to be together for many years,” emphasizes Marina Melia. A union in which there is mutual support provides each of the partners with a sense of acceptance and security, this feeling helps to endure stress more easily and more successfully achieve their own goals.
For the sake of the children
Historically, mankind has formed couples in order to raise children together. But today in Russia, almost a third of all families are incomplete. Of the 17 million Russian families, 5 million are families with single mothers, and another 600 with single fathers.
“And the trend is obvious: there will be more and more such families,” notes Marina Melia. – Parents do not necessarily raise a child together, but for his development it is necessary that he has two images in his mind: father and mother. Therefore, the task of the parent who lives with the child permanently is to create the image of the second parent. Most often, the child stays with his mother, and it depends on her what the image of his father will be, and not only on how often the father comes, what he brings, maybe he even lives in another country.
The psychologist cites the family of former US President Barack Obama as an example: “He was two years old when his parents divorced, but his mother painted for his son the image of his father as a confident, strong man, a Harvard graduate, and he lived with this image, inspired by him. Whoever the child lives with, he needs to know that he has two parents who love him.
Not everyone becomes a single parent by choice. So, according to the law on payments of July 1, 2021, a mother or father is considered to be the only parent if the second parent has died, gone missing, is not included in the birth certificate or alimony is assigned to him by the court. If the parents during the divorce agreed on alimony with each other, then such a parent is not formally alone, although the family is considered incomplete.
Be consistent?
The statistics of singles include not only principled bachelors of any gender, but also those who find themselves in the interval between marriages. 39% of Russians surveyed in 2021 believe that there are no insurmountable obstacles to divorce, it can always be done. Not surprisingly, there are not so many marriages for life.
“We are seeing a trend towards the creation of several successive unions,” notes Marina Melia, “the explanation is simple: the duration of active life is increasing. From 18 to 80 years of age, interests, opportunities, character change more than once, therefore it is a rare case when two people develop together and they are just as interested in each other all this time. So we have to learn not only to enter relationships, but also to leave them and start new ones, to create a culture of calm parting from scratch.
There is another option for a solo life: “I’m not alone, I just prefer to live alone,” says 32-year-old Irina. “I have a partner, we have been dating for two years, but we are both very independent and not sure that we will ever want to run a common household.” They consider themselves a couple, although they look like loners to others.
We choose different values: traditional nuclear family, guest marriage, or online relationships. Everyone can ask themselves the question – am I satisfied with the life that I lead? And if the answer is “no”, then change your lifestyle.
holiday of loneliness
We often think that bachelors and unmarried women will be especially lonely in old age, but is this true?
Elyakim Kislev, an Israeli sociologist and author of Happy Loneliness: On the Growing Acceptance and Welcome of Solo Life, has explored how loneliness manifests itself in older age. He analyzed data on hundreds of thousands of people from 30 European countries as well as the United States.
His conclusions are unequivocal: the history of modern loners is different from the history of the proverbial glass of water. It seems that in order not to suffer from loneliness after 70 years, it is not at all necessary to live with a permanent partner and have heirs.
How often do those who have never married feel lonely compared to those who have tied the knot at least once in their lives? At the age of about 60 years, the feeling of loneliness intensifies, and is almost the same for both, the sociologist found.
But over the course of their lives, bachelors and bachelors do not feel much more alone than those who are married. There is a difference, but it is not at all as great as we might expect, and is about a quarter of a point on an 11-point scale.
However, on another measure—increasing feelings of loneliness with age—the difference between singles and married people was significant. It turned out that with age, more and more married men and women feel lonely.
“The proportion of married people who feel lonely is about 50% more at the age of 60 than at 30, and by the age of 90 it doubles,” the sociologist noted. And this growth continues until the very end of life. Whereas in the group of those who constantly live alone, there is no such increase. Over the years, they get used to loneliness and see more pluses in their lifestyle than minuses.
Based on the results of the analysis, Elyakim Kislev showed that if we do not marry throughout our lives, this does not mean at all that we will feel terribly lonely in old age. Everything is exactly the opposite. In addition, single people tend to be happier and healthier. They pay more attention to education and maintain an extensive circle of acquaintances.