Responding to Marrieds for Dummies

Welcome to Part 2 of my “for Dummies” series. This is a response to last week’s blog post Talking to Singles for Dummies. Go on, read that first, I’ll wait.

Okay, so now that you’ve read about how married people should talk to singles, let’s look at how singles should respond to the mostly well-meaning married people in our lives who just don’t know how to talk to us about our singleness. We have a few options:

Get Annoyed, Offended, or Hurt

Although this is not the best option, sometimes it just happens. For the fifth time today, someone tells you to “buck up because it’s not too late, you may still find a husband or wife” and you can no longer contain your eye roll or exaggerated sigh. I get it. We deal with this constantly and, as flawed human beings, we can’t always respond with patience and grace as much as we may like to. In these moments, I think it is important to ask ourselves if the person talking to us is trying to hurt us, or trying to help us. I guess there are probably some vindictive people out there who would say such things in order to rub in the fact that we’re single or to make themselves look better, but honestly I can’t think of anyone in my life who most likely had that motivation. Everyone I know who awkwardly stumbles through platitudes and cliche phrases about my singleness is doing so because they are trying to encourage me, make me feel better. They may do it very badly indeed, and actually make me feel worse in the process, but that was not their original intent. Remembering this can help, remembering they are saying these things out of love. I might still be annoyed, but hopefully will be able to stave off being offended or hurt.

Ignore the Statement

One way to respond to these unfortunate statements about our singleness is not to respond at all. Sometimes it’s best to just move on to a different topic and act like the person said nothing rather than delve into the issue. This is part of picking your battles. The older I get, the more I realize that many battles are just not worth fighting. I used to struggle with the meaning of 1 Peter 4:8 which says “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.” As someone who thinks honesty and forgiveness are key to reconciliation, I used to think most sins needed to be aired. But when offense is given accidentally, and even more so out of a motivation of love, just smiling and moving on can be an incredibly gracious act, and can be freeing to us as singles as well. It’s not always our job to educate every person we come across about how best to talk to singles.

Model How You’d Like them to Talk to You

Often, one of the best responses is to reply to them with a statement you’d love to hear them say to you about your singleness. So if, on finding out you’re single, someone says “don’t worry, my friend just got married at 45, so there’s still time!” you can reply with, “Actually, I have an amazing life as a single person, for instance this week I got to visit my friends in LA…” This both gently changes the subject but also shows them there is a lot more to talk about with you than your relationship status. You can remind people that singleness has its positives, not just negatives, and they can rejoice with you in those aspects instead of merely pitying you for be unattached.

Gently Remind the Speaker of God’s Truths

When bad theology creeps its way into these conversations, this may be a battle worth gently pursuing. Some questions to ask yourself before doing this are: Is this the right time and place to address this? If we’re in a group, can I do this in a way that won’t mortify them? Am I angry, so should bite my tongue until I calm down, or can I do this lovingly? How can I make sure my words and tone are gentle, yet true? When your mature Christian friend who got married in her twenties says, “You just need to have faith that God will bring a man into your life at the right time!” you may gently remind her, that “Actually, I have faith that God is working in my life in the best way for me, and that he will complete his good work in me whether single or married” (Philippians 1:6). We can gently remind them that a spouse is not promised for everyone, but God has many other amazing promises for each of us which we can all rely on, married or single.  We can remind them of the benefits Paul sees in singleness and how Christ and most of the disciples were single. This approach is important, especially for people we know believe in the God of the Bible, because it will remind them to look to the Bible for their truth instead of the romantic ideologies of modern America which have seeped into church culture. This needn’t be a lecture, but a sentence or two to bring their encouragement back to the actual life-giving, perfect, beautiful promises of God can build up all who hear.

Privately and Lovingly Rebuke a Repeat Offender

For those who repeatedly bring up your singleness in a way that increases your pain, discourages you, or gives you false hope it might be time to have a private conversation. If you’ve already tried the above and someone just can’t seem to stop, then Matthew 18:15 is very helpful. It says “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.” Honestly, I’ve never had to go beyond this point, because this one is very powerful. It can even develop a closer relationship between you and your married friend. In a one-on-one conversation, let them know how their words affect you and how they can help lift you up instead. Again, do this with love and grace instead of blame and anger and it can be an incredibly beautiful bonding time in your relationship. Being open and honest about your struggles and how their words increase them instead of alleviate them will mostly likely open their eyes to things they didn’t realize they were doing. Telling them what they can say/do to actually help you can be empowering for them as a friend, because they now won’t have to search for words or actions in, what to them might be, an uncomfortable situation with which they are unfamiliar.

Embrace Teaching Opportunities in your Church

The last thing which I’ve found very helpful is for more single people to embrace leadership and teaching opportunities in the Christian community. Sadly, many churches don’t offer many to singles, so you might have to approach your pastors or elder board yourself with suggestions. Earlier this year, my Los Angeles church held an evening conference on singleness and we marketed it for both singles and marrieds. This was important, as I believe married people are actually the key to changing the way the modern evangelical church views singleness by how they raise their children. I was able to speak at the conference to both audiences at once, to singles, and marrieds, and this was a breakthrough moment for some of my married friends. Many of them had no idea how the words they used without much thought could affect the singles in their lives, or how saying “when you get married” instead of “if you get married” to their kids added an unbiblical expectation and pressure on them. In fact, some of the best feedback I got after that session was from married men and women. Churches need to give more opportunities for single adult men and women to have voices in the church so that it becomes normal – not something to be pitied or looked down upon. So, my encouragement to you is to seek these out, and if they don’t exist, talk to your church leadership teams about creating opportunities for singles to teach other adults.

I’m sure there are other ideas on how to best respond to our married friends when they address our singleness in unhelpful ways.

Singles, let me know what has worked for you in the past.

Marrieds, what do you think would be the most helpful way for us to respond?