Sometimes, while laughing at myself and in my moments of intense reflection, I have always wondered if the slogan of most women commonly called “war casualties” (like I was before) is: ALL MEN ARE BAD: where are the ones who are supposed to marry us tomorrow? A sarcastic voice then replied: “They are in the process of divorcing or negotiating with their wives to change the marital regime from monogamy to polygamy; or, the rest of the good men are somewhere on another planet, in the famous region of ‘One lost, ten found’.” Lol!

When you migrate then to the woman victimized by the dishonesty of men, she wants to explain her misery, her betrayal to everyone: “A child like that, it wasn’t worth it. Who even sent me? When I look at him, I wonder today what attracted me to him.” Lol! We generalize our failures, our relationships, and the person we were in a relationship with. What happened to us has become the norm: “all men”; “it’s always like that”; “they are all…”

Afterwards, the part of the movie we often forget is that we consciously chose them, we weren’t drugged to accept being in a relationship, lol. The thing is, at some point, it becomes exhausting and annoying for those close to us. Who likes people who constantly complain about how others are mean, that they are the cause of their misfortunes?

In reality, most of those we talk to don’t care. Others are proud that you have problems. Others simply have their own problems that already take up enough of their minds. So, it’s better to cry out to God, take the time to dry the tears, pull oneself together, and work to rebuild slowly but progressively, in order to enter the next relationship on solid spiritual and emotional foundations.

If the next relationship works and leads to marriage, so much the better! If not, too bad! At least it will increase the years of experience in romantic relationships to better start over next time. Isn’t that the main point in most announcements that qualify or disqualify for a position of responsibility: the number of years of experience? I told myself, we might as well see it that way!

I learned to recognize the trial that makes us grow more than it chastises us, when we understand with hindsight the lesson it teaches us: well, that’s another debate. It’s our character that needs to be reviewed, and that’s where the strongholds (modes of thought) that are not indomitable by prayer and intentional change of mindset are anchored.

One way to feel better and better in my current and not definitive single status was to replace “complaints” with “I am also somewhat responsible for what happened to me. I could have better understood this or that aspect of my past relationships.” I am responsible for my choices that I made or did not make. One can even go as far as accepting the results, telling oneself that we made the choices we deserve.

Accepting to also take responsibility for the consequences of our actions, embracing them even though we are not always responsible for the other’s disposition of heart. I wasn’t truly living my relationships for myself, but I was living them more for the other person. I was already playing my role as a married woman in my head without actually being one, thinking that it would speed up the process and shorten the engagement time to marriage. I was wrong.

But when I adopted this mindset, I also felt responsible for my own happiness. And that’s when I understood that my daily happiness had to come from me first: we don’t thrive in someone else’s shadow. Yes, one can live well while being single. We can stop desperately seeking happiness and instead create it ourselves. At that moment, it would be easier to give instead of simply expecting to receive and being frustrated about not receiving enough…

This text is an excerpt from the book “Beautiful, Intelligent and … Single?” written by Suzanne KWEDI.

We invite you to read the following article “Changing Mentality Regarding Singleness.”