Are We Failing if …

We Don't Live up to Society's Expectations?

This post started as notes on my phone after chatting with a friend on Instagram back in June 2020. She'd posed the question on her stories a few days earlier about feeling the pressure to buy a home as an adult, instead of renting a place.

I replied with "It's what society expects; marriage, kids and a mortgage, although not necessarily in that order." And when she agreed I added, "So if we don't have one or any we feel like we're failing. Even though we're not."

What society expects from us is to finish high school with the best grades and then either go into work, get married have kids and get a mortgage. Or, finish high school with the best grades, go into further education and then onto higher education. Then when you've finished school, you get a job and then it's presumed you'll get married have kids and get a mortgage.

Either way, it's like a ticky box exercise and if you don't have all those things by a certain age, society starts to ask 'what's wrong with you?' Even though nothing is wrong with you. Society envisages marriage, kids and a mortgage from people, especially for people of a certain age and so if you're in your thirties and above, are single, childless, renting your home and/or live in a houseshare, you occasionally get the impression that people are looking at you and wondering why you aren't doing what's expected.

Why aren't you ’conforming’?

Why are we, as a society still thinking that marriage kids and a mortgage are the norms when the world has changed so much in the last few decades. Some people can't afford to buy, some prefer to rent while others have had situations in their lives that mean they're not in a place or position to comply with the 'normal' expectations.

Because of my past, I'm not in a financial position to be able to have the money on my own to afford a downpayment and a mortgage in the areas that I'd like to buy a home where I currently live. Would I like to own my own home? Well, yes, I would, but I have no idea how or when that will happen. I've rented all my adult life so it's not new to me and I'm very much okay with renting until I'm able to buy a place. And for whatever reason, if I spend my life renting, then I was never meant to own my own place.

We aren't all square blocks that fit into one square hole. We all look different. We all sound different. We're all made different. We've all had different experiences. So why is it expected that we're all going to accomplish the same things by a certain deadline set out by society?

What is normal?

There isn't a 'normal', because we're not all the same. We are all amazing, are all unique and where if we were all the same and made from the same mould, I think that would be a very boring world indeed. We do things at our own pace and in a way that we want to do them from our choices, decisions and actions or inactions. What's so wrong with that?

Not everyone fits into the expected norms. We aren't cookie-cutter people. We've grown up in different environments and had varying experiences, so we aren't going to be the same. Therefore we're all going to be at different stages at different times so there isn't one recipe for life.

It's taken many years and a lot of hard work to get to this point of being okay with where I am in my life, although some days I do still struggle and wonder if there's something wrong with me. But there isn't anything wrong with me. It's just the programming that I've been lead to believe from society that because I'm of a certain age, still single and renting that I'm not normal.

At this point, I'm almost forty-five years old, I've been single for almost seven years and in no hurry to change that status. I am still renting my home and sharing it with a housemate as I'm still not in the financial position to buy my own place. I am educated to a degree level and I have a job, but according to what society expects I'm failing in some areas of my life. Am I bothered? Not really. I'm very happy with where I am.

Why am I still single?

I have been intentionally single since 2014 when my last relationship ended after about a month. At the time I was devastated that it had ended but after a few months, I began looking back at what happened, I started to realise that in hindsight it wasn't the right relationship for me and that he wasn't a good guy. Why was I drawn towards another guy who wasn't great for me?

I decided that I would stay single until I figured out why I was attracted to guys who weren't healthy for me. I started to unpick that short relationship, my longterm abusive relationship, and also the relationships with friends and family.

There's been a substantial trauma to overcome in the form of the longterm abusive relationship and therefore I've had lots to unpick not only about myself but also those who have been, and who is around me. I wasn't in a positive mental position to have a healthy relationship with another man, so I haven't had one. There was no way I was going to repeat the past behaviours that I'd done the last few times when I was romantically involved with someone.

I wanted better for myself and I certainly deserved better. So taking the past seven years for myself have unquestionably been worth it, and I'm so grateful that I decided to do that for myself. I've never really been one to do something just because everyone else is doing it.