Getting married or not is starting to become a very personal choice these days. Back in the olden days, it seemed extremely necessary for sustenance. But now some people do just fine without it. A lot of people have epiphanies at various ages that maybe marriage just isn’t for them. The pressure of marriage is slowly waning from this world, so do not let it get to you or be caught in the loop of the “I’m afraid I will never get married” mindset. Instead, take some time to evaluate comprehensively what you really want from life. And if you’re looking for signs you are not meant for marriage, you’ve come to the right place.
18 Guaranteed Signs You Will Never Get Married
“If you ask me what is it like to not get married and live alone, I would say it does get a bit lonely at times since I am 38 now,” says Belinda Sie, an investment banker, “But the very thought of making adjustments in a marriage and sharing the roof with someone makes me anxious.”
“I’m too invested in my career, my 4 pet dogs, and my travels that I don’t seem to have space for anyone else in my life. So, when I realize that I will never get married and have kids of my own, I am not filled with a sense of unfulfillment. Nonetheless, I sometimes ask myself, will I miss the companionship of a partner when I get old?” she adds.
Among your interactions, flings, dating stories, or even regular everyday experiences, you might notice instances that can be construed as signs you will never get married. Whether you frantically panic over “I will never marry” or take it in your stride is all up to you. Pro tip – recognizing those signs and understanding where you want your life to be is far more important than worrying about whether this is acceptable or not.
If you are confused about marriage and do not necessarily think it is meant for you, a few signs will help you confirm that stance. They will help you decide what you want for yourself. How do you know you will never get married? Here are 18 guaranteed signs to help you get in touch with your innermost thoughts on marriage:
1. You do not understand the purpose of it
When you think about history or the purpose of marriage, you often question why it even exists. You like relationships and enjoy having a significant other but you just cannot internalize having a paper to determine how real it can be. One of the main reasons you don’t want to get married could be that you don’t want to be tied down by a piece of paper. It is a normal feeling for some people. As we grow more aware, we raise questions about traditions that do not make total sense to us. Something similar happened with Barney. “My partner and I love each other very much, but I will never be married to her. We don’t need the government to tell us when our love has been certified, and we’re not too desperate to save a few tax dollars through the ‘institution’ of marriage. “Though my friends are all for it, I feel like I will never get married, even if it’s just to prove a point,” he says. Life takes us down multiple paths and marriage might not be one of them.
2. A lifelong commitment baffles you
Don’t get us wrong, this does not mean that you are a commitment-phobe. You may commit to many individuals in your life and even fall in love. But each time that happens, you just might not see yourself spending an entire life with them. Don’t fret, you may have just not found someone that you love enough to want them in your life forever. Or perhaps, being with someone for life just does not strike a chord with you. You like it when people come and go and enjoy the variance it brings. When you try to figure out how to cope with never getting married, try to understand if this institution is not for you to enroll in the first place. If you’re someone who enjoys experiencing things as they come to you, it’s absolutely okay to take your own path.
3. You are not impressed by other people’s marriages
Sometimes you observe marriages around you and whether they are objectively successful or not, they just don’t seem all that great to you. Whether it is your parent’s marriage or your newlywed friends, you just cannot wrap your head around why people get so excited by this prospect. It is normal not to get married, since some people just do not feel that urge to settle down with someone. Realizing you’ll never get married can be a liberating experience, especially when it stems from you not thinking too highly of the whole shebang. Whether it is about enjoying being a successful single, wanting to live alone, or keeping your options open, you often tend to see marriage as something that ties you down.
4. You are happy with where you are in life
Being a hard-hearted career gal or an easy-going homebody with a lot of side passions, you can still want to just sink into life wherever it is in that moment. There are no rules as to what should make you happy. Job or not, partner or not – if you feel content where you are, you might not feel the need to have a successful marriage. If you feel like marriage is something one does to complete themselves and you already feel complete, you might find it unnecessary. This is one of the most significant signs you will never get married. When you are asked what it is like not to be married and to live alone, you have a broad smile on your face, and that gives all the answers.
5. Weddings seem too much for you
“Marriage? I don’t even think weddings are fun!” If you hate going to weddings, consider them icky and often say the above sentence, it’s one of the bigger signs you will never get married. Especially, if you hate purchasing wedding gifts. If you think the whole wedding shindig is a huge waste of money, space, and time, you might not be ready for marriage now, or ever. You think of how you can use that money for solo travel, buy a new bike, or that Rolex watch you have your eyes on. What’s it like to never get married? Imagine saving a fortune on things you can absolutely live without. Perhaps having a fat bank balance is what it’s like to never get married. If a wedding ceremony feels like a hopeless waste of money to you, then marriage is surely not for you.
6. An addiction to traveling
If you are a big-time excursion enthusiast and the hodophile in you refuses to stop, you might be addicted to traveling. It could be a phase or the way that you want to live your life. A lot of people even choose careers that make them travel around for a living like travel journalism, photography, and the like. If this sounds like you, marriage might not be on your radar. To put it bluntly, marriage is not in tune with such a lifestyle. You may not treat marriage as an important thing given how you want to spend the rest of your life. It’s a fair decision.
7. You have weighed the cons of marriage
Marriage is not necessarily a recipe for a good life. It brings with it a plethora of challenges, and you’re lucky when those challenges seem worth the love and security you get from the relationship. When you truly sit down, make sense of your life and weigh the pros and cons of this institution, it is all right to feel like it might not be worth it. For instance, many changes happen in a woman’s life after marriage – which you may not want as a woman because you already feel settled in your single life. As a single man, you may not see why there is pressure on you to settle down when you feel so content in your current state. Marriage is beautiful but it does have a lot of cons that you might not be willing to deal with. When you truly consider all the cons, you might just end up saying, “What if I never get married because it’s so not worth it?”
8. You are preoccupied with other things
You may realize you will never get married because you are too busy and occupied with things that are far more important to you than marriage. And you like it that way. You are not one to sit down and take long breaks. Work, hobbies, social service, or other things – your days are packed with learning, growth, and fun. You are someone who constantly dabbles in different things and cannot see yourself changing that for another person. If there were signs you are not meant for marriage, your busy lifestyle is perhaps the biggest one. This does not mean that marriage does not allow you to venture into other things. It’s just that the balance might still not be enough for you. If this is how you feel, then you might not be happy in a marriage.
9. You have never been in love
A lot of people have never actually been in love. You may have dated or had lots of open relationships but never once felt a special spark. If you have not felt it, it can be pretty difficult to simply believe in the concept. Without believing in a sense of spark, chemistry, or compromise, one cannot randomly choose to get married one day. A lifelong commitment such as marriage requires conviction, and that can come only when you see it as something that will make your life better. If you’re realizing you’ll never get married and freaking out about it because you’ve never found love, it’s vital to understand that finding true love is not a race against time. Things come to you in their own time, and maybe what’s in store is worth the wait.
10. Your partners often change
If you like to date around and like casual sex, marriage may seem like a tough proposition for you. A lot of people like the adventure and excitement that new people in their life can bring. Dating can be exciting if you keep it happening! If you enjoy a frequent change of partners, marriage is not for you. Some people like to move from one relationship to another. The very thought of spending your entire life with someone might be loathsome to you. Realizing you’ll never get married comes from understanding your everyday habits and putting them into perspective about who you really are. If someone were to ask you what’s it like to never get married, you’ll probably reply with, “The best decision of my life.” As it should be, go out there and have some fun.
11. Monogamy makes no sense to you
It is important to understand that marriage is just not for everyone. In the same way that your partners change often, it is also possible that you are polyamorous or prefer open relationships. The idea of loving and caring for one single person just doesn’t resonate with you and you prefer to have multiple partners, which is totally fair. This does not mean you don’t know how to love. You love your friends, your parents, your pets, your nephews, and your nieces but showering love on a life partner is not your thing. This is when you realize you will never get married. Your relationships are short, passionate and free of drama and emotional attachment and you like it that way. The more you realize the kind of person you are, the easier it’s going to be to cope with never getting married.
12. You are not one to compromise
Marriage is a concept that is built on heaps of trust, compromises and adjustments, among other things. Marrying someone is like making them and their choices a part of yourself. You must think about their needs at every step of the way to keep your relationship afloat and healthy. If you are someone who is often unwilling to compromise, marriage can be a rocky trip for you. If you want a life carved around your rules and your rules only, this could be one of the signs you will never get married. Something similar happened to Stacey, who tells us about her journey. “I feel like I will never get married since my past relationships have suffocated me with how much my partner wanted me to change. The more I understood that marriage is going to mean a lot more of that, the more I wanted to get out of any serious relationship I ever found myself in. “I’ve since been unicorn dating, and I’ve absolutely loved it. I’m having a great time without ever having to worry about anything that ties me down. I will never be married, and I don’t see why anyone should, to be honest,” she says.
13. What’s “official”?
If the term official or exclusive scares you, you need to tell yourself – “I will never marry.” Marriage is all about shared exclusivity and putting an official stamp on what we consider love and compatibility. If in all your romantic relationships, you have run away from the world official, you are not ready for marriage. In your entire life, you have never dreamed of yourself in wedding attire, you never thought that you would wake up with your spouse and take your children to school. This is an absolute tell-tale sign that you will never get married.
14. You are often skeptical about people
You might not be able to open your heart to people as often as you’d like. Be it due to past heartbreaks or general reclusiveness, if you are not the one to invest too much of yourself in relationships, this might be one of the signs you will never get married. It’s hard to sustain a marriage that is festered with trust issues. If you take too much time to let your guard down, marriage can be a difficult affair for you.
15. Signs you will never get married: Change scares you
A lot of people like things just as they are, irrespective of whether they are good or bad. They simply want to be okay in the madness they are currently surrounded by and cannot have it change. Change is essential but not always comfortable. They are drawn to the same friends, the same old house, and even patronize the same cafes and order the very same coffee each time. Marriage is none of that. Marriage changes things to a point that you may hanker to find any similarities with your single life. If that is the case, be careful what you plan your future may be.
16. You equate marriage with the stress in life
Marriage is a beautiful union but it has a lot of added freebies with it. Kids and a good earning job are considered necessary to complement and endure a successful marriage. Whether that is true or not is under speculation. However, if marriage symbolizes a crazy ride of a life that you are unprepared for, it might stop you from getting married at all.
17. Your live-in relationship is already fabulous
One of the signs you will never get married is that you are already rocking a live-in relationship. Things are as serious as they can be and you are happily living together under the same roof. When everything is already great, why complicate it with some legality? People who are content with happiness in relationships do not go out looking for ways to make it better. You may even want to adopt a baby to keep the household fresh and going. But marriage? Perhaps you do not need that drama.
18. You’re a rebel and do not like traditions
Some people just live life constantly on the edge and there is nothing wrong with that. Life is too short and one should have the freedom to design it the way they like. Traditions and customs are meant to guide us toward what a happy life should be, but the idea of happiness can neither be universal nor set in stone. If you believe in creating a happy life on your own terms, you might be a rebel. And that may include rejecting the idea of marriage completely. That is just your way to fall in love with life.
How To Cope With Never Getting Married
Society may tell you that marriage is the be-all and end-all of a happy existence. However, that is beginning to change. With the fallout rates increasing so much and unhappy marriages everywhere, people are realizing that marrying for the sake of it often does not work out. An unwanted marriage will result in a loveless marriage. How to accept not getting married is all about reorganizing your life in a way that suits you perfectly. To stop letting the pressure get to you, you must build such a fulfilling life that you can barely think about anything else. It could be a career, a relationship, hobbies – or all of it! As long as you are in the search for a path that is perfect for your personality, you won’t worry about getting married at all. Just endeavor, explore, and wait patiently. You will find something that is worth all your time and effort. That way, the thought “I’m afraid I will never get married” won’t make you unsettled or confused from time to time.