An unmarried woman, unhappy in India

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Hi Cary,

The theme of my letter is no different from the ones you probably receive by the dozens every day. I have gone through your site every morning devouring citations by troubled souls. But even when I spot some common patterns, I’m not sure why I feel my own problem is unique and quite frankly, I need your help.

I guess I should start with an introduction. I am a professionally qualified, independent woman living in a large metropolitan city in India. Most would say that I am quite accomplished. I enjoy a good position in a very large multinational corporation, I have a house of my own and I am seen by people as a warm, intelligent, mature and sensible person. My circle of friends and family is small but very caring.

Of course there is a catch. I am also single, have been so for most of my life. This is considered a disqualification at my age in this country. At the very least it makes me an oddity. People wonder why I am single and when they find no apparent reason, they often wonder aloud if I am ‘too independent’ and if I ‘scare men off’ with my financial independence and self-reliance.

I used to find this irksome in the beginning. As far as I was concerned, being single wasn’t a permanent choice I had made in life. I was simply waiting for the right man to arrive. Arranged marriages are quite the norm in India, even now. And in my twenties and then in my thirties I met quite a lot of men. But the ‘system’ left me aghast. Taking a lifelong decision over a cup of coffee with countless prying relatives and middlemen seemed so much at contrast to the careful, considerate approach I had otherwise formed in life with respect to most things. I found the process insensitive, intrusive and invasive. And even when I went through countless organized meetings with prospective grooms, I realized I was just not cut out for it.

On the other hand ‘love’ didn’t happen to me either with the exception of a very intense relationship that ended quite abruptly at a young age. It was a long distance affair that wilted and died a slow motion death. After that there were close encounters — men who fell in love with me, whose love I couldn’t reciprocate. And then those whom I felt I could have loved but they were with other people.

By and large, even in the midst of a suspecting world that cannot fathom why and how a girl like me is single, something tells me this can happen. Oh hell, there are worse things that happen to people in the world, like hunger or poverty or disease. And an educated person like me cannot lament the lack of love forever. So mentally, I am quite prepared to not hang my boots just yet. Except, emotionally, I feel a little rudderless.

Gradually as time is passing by, I am wondering what am I doing with my time and life? What is the purpose of building this home I have spent years paying a mortgage on? And after I die, who shall inherit it? Is this all there ever shall be? Will I ever be able to share the inconsequential details of my days with anyone? And why this daily grind? Who do I strive every day for? I do a lot of problem solving at work, Cary. And clearly I know there is a problem here. My heart and my mind are in conflict. And I’m not in a happy place.

What’s your advice to women like me? We’re traveling far and wide in life, making small strides every day. We’re career women. We have financial and social standing. But still, it’s not enough to keep us from being vulnerable. If love and companionship are going to be elusive, how should we placate our hearts? And what should we make our next goal?

Maybe your advice can help me find my way from here.

Sincerely, Lost Somewhere in the Middle

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Dear Lost in the Middle,

Your letter led me in several directions, and was not easy to answer. I started thinking about consciousness and selfhood, and horizontal identity as talked about in Andrew Solomon’s book Far from the Tree, and the status of women in India generally and Indian culture, and the problem of abduction and forced marriage …

So it took me a couple of weeks. But I’m going to finish up today and see if I can boil down my thoughts to a few simple paragraphs.

First, and most generally, let’s talk about the things you have in common with all people. I think it might help you to see your feelings in a broad human context, and think of yourself not specifically as an unmarried professional woman in India but just as a person. Just as a person you may feel lonely. You may wonder why you have done the things you have done, and what the future holds.These are not feelings limited to you. I suggest that you place yourself in a broad context and approach your life questions broadly. For many of the answers are the same regardless of your status and culture. If you are lonely, seek friendship. If you have tax and inheritance questions, consult an attorney. If you wonder why you have done certain things, if you want to ponder the meaning of your life with a wise and sympathetic witness, then seek a wise and sympathetic psychotherapist and begin examining your life. If you are troubled by the cultural attitudes that circumscribe or limit your life, then become active in Indian cultural affairs. These are things that you can do. You have money and friends and a house. You can begin this journey.

You can begin this journey and it will help if you do not seek answers quickly. Rather, become active in the search. For the search itself is the answer. The activity is the answer. To be swept up in the stream of life is the answer. If you decide you want to change attitudes and laws regarding the status of women in India, then dive in; join a group of women or form a group of women and see what you can do. The activity will change your life. It will deepen and enrich your life.

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OK. That’s two paragraphs. Now I want to say one thing about Andrew Solomon’s book Far from the Tree. But I don’t want to talk about it too much. I actually want to recommend that you read it. Then you can talk about it with other people. The reason I want you to read it is that I want you to think about your horizontal identity as a single woman and how that conflicts with your vertical identity as a daughter and citizen and employee. I have a feeling that you have a very particular sensibility and you have made choices in your life in accordance with that sensibility. You have, in other words, honored your true being. In doing so, you have made sacrifices. Or rather, you have refused to make sacrifices and those refusals have in themselves been sacrifices. That is, you decided you weren’t just going to turn your body over to the state, as it were, the state of men. You weren’t just going to say, Oh, Gee, I’m a woman in India and women in India marry so I must marry. You said, Wait a minute, this doesn’t feel right, I think I won’t do this. Not until it feels right. And that was a sacrifice because in doing so you ran the risk of never marrying.

That is the cost of being true to oneself.

The reason I think of your horizontal identity is that I think you may gain support and a feeling of belonging if you will seek out and bond with other single professional women. For you have distinct qualities that will unite you. You will understand each other. There may not be such “fraternal” organizations readily available in your area. I don’t know. When I search on the Internet under “single professional women in India” of course, no surprise, I find dating sites. Which tells us a lot, doesn’t it — that your status is viewed as a lack, a state of incompletion that must be completed by supplying a mate. As, in the case of the deaf, people think it’s a state of incompletion that must be remedied. Whereas, surprisingly if you don’t follow it, a good number of deaf people do not want to be made into hearing people. They want to preserve their identities. You may, similarly, not want to be “completed” by the addition of a man. You may want, actually, to remain as you are but not feel you are incomplete.

Do you feel incomplete? Maybe you do. We all do from time to time.

So I think I addressed consciousness and selfhood by suggesting that you think of yourself broadly and link your feelings to larger humanity. And I mentioned  Far from the Tree and horizontal identity. And, finally, as you may know, India ranks 114th overall in the 2014 World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap report, while at the same time ranking 15th in the category of women’s political empowerment. So clearly there is a gap between the attainment of women in the realm of politics and the way women are treated in other areas of Indian life. This schism may be a clue to how you are feeling: You have done well, and yet in your day-to-day your accomplishments are not valued and or your status does not reflect your accomplishments.

Finally, I would just ask in general, What are you missing, in particular, that can be traced to your individual choices? What is that thing that is missing? And how do you find it?

Good luck! You are not alone.

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6 comments

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  • Dear Single Indian lady,
    I can relate a lot to you. I am myself a 52 yrs old, single, Indian lady living in a large metro in India. I can’t say I am single by choice but in a sense, I did choose to remain single inspite of God sending me good marriage proposals that at the very least as a God fearing Christian, I should have humbly considered.

    All i can say to you is, count your blessings because you are in a far better position than some of us.
    You live in your apartment (owned by yourself). that’s a big blessing in & by itself. Ok the mortgage payments take a toll nevertheless its your own roof u are living under.

    I live in a family flat (owned by our late Dad) alongwith our eldest brother who has also remained single. We are both now in our early to mid 50s. Many Indians would say he had to sacrifice his desire to marry to take care of me, his younger sister. Maybe true in a way, but our brother has also been very very choosy when thinking abt marriage, wanting a woman who resembled our dear late Mother, who passed away in 1997! now that’s not always easy to match. Our mother was a very fair skinned beauty and I honestly don’t know many fair skinned beautiful, Indian women who remained single beyond 25yrs max 30!! In short, there are few of those in supply in the marriage market here in India!

    Over the years our brother has become very grumpy, irritable and argumentative, generally difficult to get along with on a day to day basis. He exercises control over the home in ways you can’t even imagine. Over 12 years ago, I had asked our dad to give me a share in this flat which he did because i had chosen to remain single. Looking back I do not know if was the best decision – to remain single in a shared family flat.

    Recently I have invested in a very tiny studio apartment(that was all i could afford) which is still under construction and I can only take possession and occupy it till end next year or mid 2017!

    In the meanwhile, over 2 years ago, my married sister came down from Australia to stay at our flat. She and her husband have some issues in their marriage due to which they, though still on speaking terms, don’t live together. Also having spent all of their married lives working as Christian missionaries they have not been able to build or buy their own home.

    Our brother harasses our sister continually. He is 56 yrs old now and we have been praying a lot for him but he refuses to turn to Christ our Saviour- I believe that ultimately only God can help us get through in life.

    So when i read your story, I can only say “girl you are not doing too bad for yourself really!”

    count your blessings in life – there are many blessings God has given you, despite your singlehood. its just that you are not seeing it from His viewpoint

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  • LW, do you want love in your life? Then fall in love.

    Not with a person; with a good cause. Devote your passion to saving something. Save poor young village girls. Save a persecuted ethnic group. Save tigers.

    You may or may not meet your husband in the process. But if you do, it will be because he is stunned with delight and amazement by the way you are living your life.

  • Wow–what a beautiful letter, and beautiful response.

    Dear LW,

    . . . from another travelling soul, who, like yourself has also made many choices that are outside of the norm, I would like to tell you that while it IS a difficult thing to swim against the current (and yes, what may be indulged by our peers and elders in our 20s is definitely less so in our 40s!) there are rewards as well.

    The roads-less-travelled are not always the easy roads–that’s why so many people don’t take them–but they offer very different experiences than the main roads. Ah, but that’s the catch isn’t it? We do end up wondering if going off the main road was “worth it” because it’s a bit lonely, and we know that everyone else whooping it up over at the giant truck stop on the main highway.

    At age 45, I have many of the same questions as you. Is it worth it? What is my life for? If I don’t do X, then which other choice will have equal worth and meaning? That questioning seems to be the price we pay for veering off the tried and true well-worn paths. The path of least resistance is not always the right path!

    I don’t have any pat answers, except that so far, being true to yourself IS worth it. It requires strength, but deep self-knowledge is a rare gift that a lot of people never attain (and they try to fill the empty hole with shallow experiences and consumer junk–and we all see where that leads).

    What about true love? Well, I think it is real, but it means keeping true to yourself but at the same time exposing yourself to (calculated) risk. After all, if we love, we may also lose.

    It’s also a bit of a numbers game. You need to be in situations where you are exposed to a lot of people with similar interests and goals, so that you can connect with the one or a few who may be true gifts in your life.

    Can you meet these people in your home country? I don’t know, only you can answer that, as I don’t know your country or culture very well at all. If you home culture does not fit with this quest, perhaps you could make a point of some short- or long-term travels elsewhere, perhaps for career or educational purposes–this would put you in contact with different groups of people.

    I want to wish you the best on your journey. There are a lot of us out here, muddling through a lot of the same things (while our friends and families keep asking “When are you going to . . . ?) Keep looking for us, we’re all around!

By Cary Tennis

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