It’s Not You summary

What is your idea of a happy life? Does it include marriage and kids as well as a satisfying job? Research does show that individuals who are married tend to be happier than single people. However, it’s important to keep in mind that 40 percent of marriages end in divorce, and that there are still plenty of women who are happily single.

It’s also important not to ignore or suppress your feelings of unhappiness if they arise.

If you’re a single woman who has struggled to find a partner, here’s a question: Are you a confident woman who has full control of your fast-paced professional life? If so, this is a good thing, right?

Well, if you are a self-confident woman, know that this confidence may intimidate men who feel that you might not have the need, or the time, for a meaningful relationship with them.

According to dating experts, many women end up single because they’re not confident enough – because they’re needy. Such women are criticized for seeming too desperate to get married. This desperation, assert the experts, is off-putting and a little sad.

But this label of “desperate” is often utterly inaccurate and is often applied to women who are far from desperate.

If you’ve been on a number of unsuccessful dates, you may be familiar with a popular post-date activity: getting together with your friends to recount how badly it went.

This activity may seem innocent enough, but these friendly chats could end up hurting your chances of forging a successful relationship.

Here’s another common yet misguided piece of advice: Before you can have a happy marriage, you must have enough prior experience with long-term relationships.

There’s never been any proof to suggest that experience in long-term relationships is required in order to enjoy a happy marriage. Rather, the opposite would seem to be the case, since there are plenty of people who found their first love in their late thirties, forties or fifties and went on to have a happy marriage.

One of the toughest parts of being alone is being stuck with your own thoughts, and asking yourself questions like, “Why am I still single?” Or, “Why did he abandon me?” It can be easy to get stuck under a cloud of negativity.

Unfortunately, many single women become trapped in what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls psychic entropy, which is when the mind can only focus on negative things.

When you think about love, you probably think about romance. But romantic love isn’t the only form of love or the only way to find happiness.

Love can be found in every moment of your day-to-day life, not only in romantic relationships.