Why People Care So Much About The Fact You’re Not Married Yet

Everyone knows someone in their life they think should be married by now.

Even if you’re someone who claims to have zero cares in the world about what the people in your life do, or how they have their relationships, everyone has a little gossiper inside them.

An opinionated little devil that sits on your shoulder and thinks judgemental thoughts about their loved ones. Especially when it comes to the topic of marriage.

We all do it. Don’t pretend you’re not human.

Sometimes we don’t think other people’s inner devil could be judging the fact we’re not married. That isn’t until someone lets slip what they’ve been keeping deep inside, usually after too many glasses of wine.

Someone says to you, “why aren’t you married yet?”

Despite the fact we all know we have this curious inner gossip, we wonder why people are quizzing us about our marital status.

And, more to the point, why do they care so much that we haven’t tied the not yet?

They want something from your marriage (selfish, we know)

Let’s settle the elephant in the room. There is always some self-interest when people dig into your marital status. For the traditionalists out there, people assume marriage leads to children.

And for some people, that means grandchildren. Yes, they want little children running around them again. For some, not only your parents, they want for you what they can’t have. Or they might want cousins or playmates for their own children.

Now, we know we’re a modern society and reproduction has nothing to do with marriage. You can still have a family without the ring and the piece of paper.

Or even the relationship.

But when the children aren’t coming along, your loved ones will often assume you are waiting for marriage first. Or at least, that’s what has held up your decision to have kids.

They think it’s been too long

Everyone has their own expectations for how long two people should date before they get married. Some will say at least a year, and others will say at least a decade first. Each to their own.

But when it comes to the relationship you’re in, people will determine when you’re ready to get married on your behalf.

This determination isn’t unfounded. It’s because you’ve given indications it could happen through the following life changes:

• You had a child together
• You share parenting duties together with children from past relationships
• You’ve been living together longer than you haven’t been, whilst dating
• You’ve bought a house together
• You have significant investments together, such as a business, property or entwined finances
• You’ve talked about getting married but never pulled the trigger

In short, they are wondering why you would wait any longer. You’re practically married anyway, why wait?

They know that’s what your partner wants

I would love to think it’s ‘give and take’ within relationships.

But when making significant life changes in a relationship, such as getting married, one person often doesn’t get what they want.

It’s can be that one person is ready, the other isn’t. Or one person thinks it has been too long, and the other doesn’t think you’ve waited long enough. Or one half of the partnership obsesses over timing, the other understands there is no such thing as the right time.

And if your loved ones have a close enough relationship with your partner, they will know what side of the argument they are on.

If your partner is waiting for you to be ready for marriage, they might have told someone who takes it into their own hands to do the badgering.

This is especially true in male and female relationships. The convention is that the man proposes, which often puts him in a power position.

The woman doesn’t have a say over when it happens. She has to wait for him to be ready. It’s frustrating to be in the position, and other people know this.

So they go to bat for you.

They think you’re getting too old

You’re never too old to get married. We should make that clear.

But if you’re doing the married followed by kids routine in life, there is a cut-off point where you are too old. I hate to say it, but our reproductive systems don’t last a lifetime.

Women, like me, can’t wait until we’re fifty to start having children safely.

Nor do we want to.

The people bugging you about getting married know this too. They are familiar with biology and want to make sure you are, too. They worry for you.

If you wait any longer, you risk losing the opportunity to start a family at all.

They think you will miss your opportunity with this partner

And speaking of waiting forever, some partners aren’t going to wait until they’re old enough to be grandparents for you to make a meaningful commitment. If that’s what they’ve expressed they want in a relationship by the way.

If the person you’re dating doesn’t believe in marriage, this is a moot point.

If the timing is right on paper, if you’ve been dating long enough, if everything aligns for you to get married, and you won’t, you can’t expect a partner to stay with you.

Your partner respects your decision to take your time. But they don’t have to remain in the relationship if it’s dragging on longer than they can wait.

This isn’t about them getting what they want or you not getting what you want. It’s about two people moving through life together. If you can’t agree on what the next steps look like, it’s a sign for most people that it’s not working.

They are sharing the pressure around

If it’s your parents giving you flack for your marital status, more than likely they are passing down their marriage values to you. Whether it’s their religion or social expectations for relationships, they want you to do what they did in their day.

More than likely, they’re harassing you because that’s what their parents did to them. Or that’s what society expected of them at your age.

As much as times change, and we hope that people realize marriage isn’t the end goal anymore, it doesn’t stop any generation from inflicting their values onto you.

It could be your peers passing over the pressure they’ve recently endured from their loved ones. In the spirit of how misery loves company, it’s your turn to feel the heat, too.

This might not be a subconscious choice of theirs. They aren’t deliberating trying to treat you this way, especially as they hate it as much as you do. But this pressure tends to get shared as it intensifies.

Despite our objections, people have the right to wonder

You can’t stop the little devil inside people from wondering if you’re going to get married or not. As much as we think we can tell people to stop caring, that’s not within our powers. We can’t control what people think of us, their thought processes or how they analyze our life.

You don’t have mind control powers.

And despite our objections, people have the right to ask you.

But it’s what you do next that’s most important. You don’t have to:

• Answer their question at all
• Tell them why you aren’t married
• Tell them what your martial plans are

It’s your life. You don’t have to tell anyone anything you don’t want them to know.

But when people become intolerable about the subject, it helps you to remember their intentions. Their verbal concern isn’t from a place of being nosey, hurtful, or even malicious. They’re genuinely wondering about your happiness, and they ask because they’re concerned you’re missing out on life.

And yes, sometimes the execution of their concern could be better. I don’t disagree with you on that one.

If it were me, I would set the record straight. I would tell the people who care too much how you feel. And no, not how you feel about marriage.

Tell them about how you feel about having your private life dissected like you were on a reality tv show.

Re-assure them you’re happy and you have it under control.

And if you aren’t either of those two things?

Well, fake it until you make it. Because if you say you need help in the marriage department, you’re opening a can of worms you can’t close.

But that’s a problem for another day.