“One doesn’t realize in early life that the price of freedom is loneliness,” C.S. Lewis wrote to a friend in 1960. “To be happy is to be tied.” His wife, Joy, had died of bone cancer just the day before.

Was Lewis simply being poetic in the midst of his grief and loss? Or was he getting at something more universal?

The idea of being “tied” or fixed to a certain person, place, or situation in today’s world of self-actualization has become repellent to a lot of us. We love being free to choose and change our minds.

After all, what if our feelings change?  What if our desires change? What if we “fall out of love?”

At the same time, we also want security. We like the idea of a kind, beautiful, sympathetic person who’s there to comfort us after a long day of work or classes, someone to either literally or figuratively hold our hand while we’re stressing out over our boss or that obnoxious homework assignment.

We want it all.

We want the benefits of a stable, committed relationship but we’re also curious to know what it’s like to sleep with other people.

We want to travel the world and have a hundred different spontaneous, exciting experiences but still have someone who loves us waiting for us when we come back.

And even if we’ve actually found someone who seems wonderful, compatible, and amazing, how can we be sure this is “it”? How can we make sure that we’re ready to give up our precious freedom to spend the rest of our lives with another person who might do things that annoy or disappoint us?

While no one can tell you who to marry (or whether to get married at all), I can give you four good reasons why you shouldn’t get married.

They may seem somewhat counterintuitive and you may or may not like them. But there is evidence to suggest they will help you figure out what you want with your life.

Reason #1: You Have Zero Risk Tolerance

If you are hesitant to get married or commit long-term, I have some validating news: being single is better than being in a bad relationship. Research has made it official. ¹

Research has also shown that people who are happily married tend to be better off in almost every measurable sense (physical, financial, mental) than those who aren’t. From this, we can extract a simple formula:

Bad: Choosing the wrong person to be with, especially long term

Better: Being alone

Best: Being in a relationship, especially a permanent one, with the right person

Choosing a life partner is a bigger decision than choosing whether or not to get a puppy, whether or not to join the Peace Corps, how to invest your money, which job to take, or which city to live in. In fact, it’s probably the single biggest determining factor of how the rest of your life will turn out.²

But before you think to yourself, “I guess it’s safer to just never commit,” consider how Future You will feel 20 years (or more) down the road.

Will you still be glad you’re single as you find yourself dealing with health problems, aging friends, and no one to share your random thoughts with late at night as you’re drifting off to sleep – or will you wish you had settled down after all?

The crude but handy analogy I’m going to go with here is investing in stocks: the stock market is risky no matter what, but making a sound investment in a balanced portfolio is all but guaranteed to bring you a much higher return after several decades, compared to making a foolish investment in single stocks, or no investment at all.

And unlike the stock market, the outcomes of our relationships are fully within our control as long as (here comes the kicker) both people in the relationship have made it a top priority.  

Reason #2: You See People as a Means to an End

I have a problem that a lot of other people seem to have: whenever I go to an ice cream store, I can’t figure out what I want to eat.

There are my old favorite standbys like mint and pistachio, but I can’t help but wonder if I’m missing out when I look at exciting new options like banana walnut or black cherry. (Somehow, the free samples don’t make it easier to choose).

What’s the problem with this analogy?

Human beings are not ice cream flavors, menu items, or travel destinations. We are not receptacles for other people’s personal satisfaction.

We are not “experiences” to be had or bucket list boxes to be checked off.

We – you and I – are complex, unique, self-aware organisms who deserve to be seen, understood, and respected by others. The moment you start thinking of another human as a “goal” to achieve or an “experience” to be had, you risk compromising your own humanity.  

It’s easy to point fingers here at someone like Wilt Chamberlain³ or the serial novelist Georges Simone who on a given day had (almost) more sex than most of us use the toilet. But people can make this mistake in other ways.

I’m sure you’ve known that person who’s preoccupied with getting married but who doesn’t really think or care about what her future partner’s needs will be. Or that person who wants to leave his current partner because he’s “bored” and afraid of missing out on other opportunities.

There’s nothing wrong with having “being in a relationship” as a goal, per se. And not every relationship works out, either. But when your focus is on only what you want in a person, it’s much easier to fixate on how they don’t satisfy you – rather than being willing to adapt, sacrifice, and accept that person as they are.

After all, isn’t that what you want them to do for you?

Reason #3: You Want to Be Comfortable Every Moment

In a study⁴ on commitment and romantic attachment, researchers found that people who were in successful relationships had a very different mindset from people who weren’t.

Put simply, people don’t commit because they are happy in their relationships – they are happy because they commit. 

Instead of focusing on how “happy” they feel day by day, these people focus on the long term and take everything in stride. They don’t put pressure on every single interaction to be satisfying, and they don’t freak out when there’s a disagreement or a crummy day (in fact, they know it’s normal to have their fair share of those).

If every experience in your relationship makes you reevaluate and recalibrate how happy you are, you are guaranteed to make yourself unhappy. Put simply, people don’t commit because they are happy in their relationships – they are happy because they commit. 

Commitment means you’ve made a decision and there is no more bandwidth left to drive yourself insane with questioning, noticing, wondering, comparing, judging, and doubting.

In his provocative book The Paradox of Choice, psychology professor Barry Schwartz observes:

“Agonizing over whether your love is ‘the real thing’ or your sexual relationship above or below par, and wondering whether you could have done better is a prescription for misery. Knowing you’ve made a choice that you will not reverse allows you to pour your energy into improving the relationship that you have rather than constantly second-guessing it.”

It’s sound advice, but not what a lot of us want to hear. The more choices and “alternatives” we see around us, the easier it is to have FOMO.

Committing to a marriage or a long-term relationship requires doing a manual override of the way we think and behave when we’re single.

Reason #4: You Don’t Understand How Short “Forever” Really Is

Everything compounds over time.

Every choice, including the choice to do nothing.

After ten, twenty, or fifty years of staying married to the “right” person, you could potentially experience a huge personal transformation into a better, calmer, more fulfilled version of yourself. A more giving, unselfish, and easy-going person with an inventory of rich experiences and memories you’ve shared with your better half.

Of course, this works in the other direction: you could be with someone who makes you stunted and resentful, only to wake up realizing how much time you wasted.

Or you could go from relationship to relationship, experiencing novelty over and over again but also dealing with new and different problems and annoyances each time.

But being alone for the long term also brings its own compounding returns: the question for you is, are you okay with those returns? Are you okay with sacrificing companionship for possible loneliness, even if it means not having to make sacrifices or compromises?

Some would say without hesitating for a moment that they are; it’s a question only you can answer.

Forever is only a long time if you’re with the wrong person.

For the rest of us who are lucky and focused enough to find someone who is “right” (but not perfect), forever is not long at all.

***

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1. Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Ph.D. and others, Is There Something Unique about Marriage? The Relative Impact of Marital Status, Relationship Quality, and Network Social Support on Ambulatory Blood Pressure and Mental Health, Annals of Behavioral Medicine, Volume 35, Issue 2, April 2008, Pages 239–244,
2. Warren Buffet certainly thinks so
3. Even Chamberlain admitted near the end of his life: “With all of you men out there who think that having a thousand different ladies is pretty cool, I have learned in my life…that having one woman a thousand different times is much more satisfying.”
4. Stanley SM, Rhoades GK, Whitton SW. Commitment: Functions, Formation, and the Securing of Romantic Attachment. J Fam Theory Rev. 2010 Dec 1;2(4):243-257. doi: 10.1111/j.1756-2589.2010.00060.x. PMID: 21339829; PMCID: PMC3039217.