I'm 26. Why doesn't the Lord give me a husband?
Reader question
I:
What do i do? I don’t know how to pray anymore? I am 26 years old. I've never dated a guy, I've never had a relationship. I don't understand anything about this. I know that I am not beautiful enough, not rich, but everyone says that I am kind and sympathetic. I just pray to God every day. I have been praying to the Lord for 9 years (I read a prayer for marriage), an akathist to the Most Holy Theotokos “Unfading Flower”, an akathist to my saint, I go to Processions of the Cross, I go to the Temple, but nothing.
Last year, a work colleague noticed me. He is, as they say now, “actively searching” for his soul mate. I was so happy, I set up castles in the air, but in vain, nothing worked out for us. I was very worried. She asked for forgiveness, although she did not understand what she was guilty of, but he simply became rude and rude.
My greatest desire is to make my husband happy. Why then is the Lord not merciful to me? Why? Why doesn't He answer my prayer?
Anna
Archpriest Andrey EFANOV
Archpriest Andrei Efanov answers:
Good afternoon
Dear Anna, I do not know the ways of God’s Providence, so I cannot answer your questions. Talk to the Lord, quietly, calmly, from the heart, ask Him to give you an answer. And when the answer comes, perhaps through one of the people, be ready to accept it and act in accordance with the answer.
26 years is a very young age today and not at all the time to panic about not being married. Nowadays people study for a long time, decide about work and then get married. So let’s leave the problem of age right away: it’s irrelevant today.
But as for everything else, I can only say general words, but in general it is necessary to speak here personally, because the situation is so multidimensional that you need to ask some questions, think about everything in order to correctly analyze what is happening (and not happens). A psychologist can also help with this: a competent specialist will quickly identify the root of the problem and tell you where to go to solve it.
As for general considerations, from a specific point of view I can say that it is a very bad symptom when a girl, especially one who already has an education, a working person, that is, an adult, creates illusions in a relationship. This absolutely cannot be done. You need to calmly look at the person, communicate and see whether the relationship is developing at all, whether there is sympathy, whether it is moving towards something more, for example, to friendship for starters, or not, in general, along the way you and the young man, and him with you , or not. There is no need to immediately “rush” into a relationship: it is very obvious when a girl, a woman wants a relationship and is ready to literally rush into it, immediately plan a wedding and the birth of children. This is not how it is done and nothing good will come of it.
We have a text about this - “Formula of Love: To whom and when to entrust your heart?” and another material about choosing a spouse - “How to choose a husband?”
Continuing the thought of a personal conversation with a priest and a psychologist, I can advise you to pay attention to yourself. It’s not even about how you look (although this is important, you want to marry a handsome, pleasant person, right?), how much you earn (this is also important, but not very much), but about who you are as a person, what goals do you have in life, how do you build relationships with yourself and with other people, how do you live. This is much more important for a real, lifelong family union. Because jobs change, beauty is a relative thing (sports, the ability to dress beautifully and suitably are normal skills of our time, you can master all of this without any problems, if not yet, that’s beauty, attractiveness, grooming), but what’s important is what a person is like inside, what motivates him, do you want to share his life with him and share yours, can you trust him, do you want to go through life with him as a couple.
And that’s why I wrote that it’s bad to jump into a relationship right away. A man can court beautifully and win a woman for a long time, but if he immediately proposes marriage, then it looks quite strange and suspicious (except for the rarest cases of great love at first sight). In the same way, a girl who is eager to get into a relationship looks at least immature, because it is clear that we need to take a closer look at each other, communicate, and see if there is any basis for a relationship at all. And if a girl is childish, then she is like a child, and they don’t marry children. This is only one aspect of your situation, which is why I say that a personal conversation is needed.
You write: “My greatest desire is to make my spouse happy.” But are you happy yourself? If not, if some problem is constantly gnawing at you (for example, that you are not married), and gnawing at you so much that your whole life becomes a problem and pain, then how can you make someone else happy without knowing what happiness is? If a person sees that another person is sad and sad, I think he is unlikely to approve of the idea of that person making him happy, he simply will not accept this message, just as you are unlikely to accept the offer to teach you some kind of craft from a person who does not know this craft or has only read about it and knows it by hearsay. You need to become yourself, not immediately look at another, but first at yourself, understand yourself, calm down, find balance and peace within, and then you will understand how to deal with another person. While there is some chaos inside you, it is unlikely that you will be able to see a person - a living person, with all the shortcomings and oddities. I’m afraid there is a danger in your situation of trying to integrate a person into a picture of an ideal and desired marriage union that has long been thought out in your head. It won't work that way. A person is alive, he is not part of a puzzle or mosaic in another person’s head.
What can be done? Conduct a self-assessment, look at yourself from the outside and tell yourself, if there was a man, an exact copy of you in your habits (starting with everyday ones), attitude towards life (how you meet joy, grief, experience successes and failures, how dependent you are on the opinions of colleagues , friends and those around you in general), to health (do you watch your diet, do sports, etc.), to leisure (what do you do in your free time, on vacation) and so on. And if you feel comfortable with such a person, then well, you need to pray, live, enjoy life, improve in your profession and wait.
But if you honestly understand that you don’t like this and that (you can write directly in text about what this man is like - inside and out), then think and formulate what needs to be changed, and do it. I think that the matter will largely be in your internal state and mood, when you deal with it, the situation should somehow become clearer.
Maybe there are some other problems that interfere with marriage. For example, you write a lot about church life, but do you have a wide circle of contacts? Do you connect with people easily enough? Do you know how to communicate well and interestingly, or do you try to distance yourself from people or, moving in the other direction, become too intrusive? And if so, what is the reason for this? How is your life structured, how active are you in terms of expanding communication? These are also questions worth thinking about and talking about.
In addition to working on yourself, of course, you need to look for places to communicate with young people, again, start with simple communication, conversations, some trips to the cinema, to exhibitions, and joint trips. You ask God for help, but there must be your specific steps!
Relationships do not always arise immediately, you need to be able to communicate and watch. You are not the only one asking such questions, we already have a text about where to find a normal Orthodox man.
So I really wish you to seriously begin to understand yourself, with the life strategies that you are building. As soon as you figure it out, something in your life will change!
Who says loneliness is bad?
We must remember that not a single person who is happy and who is doing well in his life will blame and humiliate others. Those who try to humiliate a single woman, trying to bait her with questions when she has already found someone, suffer themselves, and very much. For those who are concerned about such a question addressed to others, it is better to give a hug and the phone number of a psychotherapist. It is important to consider that, having learned to live with himself, a person gains maturity, he moves forward, much further than himself, who clutches other people like straw.
At the same time, loneliness is not the ultimate dream, and that’s normal. Most people still want to be in a couple. This is normal. But the unhealthy will chaotically ask why God does not give a husband, strive to avoid the slightest chance of being without a partner, feel shame for this, or condemn those who live alone.
Magical reasons
If God does not give a woman a husband for a long time, she begins to think about damage or the evil eye. But really, it’s so easy to remove the problem from yourself and blame it on others. But do spells for failure in your personal life really exist? Damage is when a person’s energy protection is broken through, and a certain negative message is inserted into the hole. If a woman is physically and psychologically healthy, then she has high energy, so it is very difficult to break her with the evil eye on the street or an envious woman at work.
But if this happens, you need to find a psychic who “sees” the subtle bodies, who, after diagnosis, will determine whether there are holes in the energy body or not. If damage or the evil eye is at the level of the chakra responsible for sexuality, then there was a “black” message of loneliness, which can be removed either by spells or independently, strengthening one’s energy. And what do experts think about this - psychics and parapsychologists - erase in the video:
Condemnation of society
It is important to build harmony in your relationship with yourself first. As soon as a desire arises in the style of “how great it would be to go to a restaurant with a man now,” you need to take yourself there. Enjoy the evening, arrange romance.
Sometimes it may seem that if you appear somewhere in such a place alone, everyone will start thinking something bad and condemning you. But this is an exaggeration. Let them think what they want. Everything people say about another person is actually about themselves. There is no point in taking this personally.
Single women sometimes have everyday issues that require a man's help. To deliver something, to fix something, to deliver something. Don't avoid asking for help if you need it. From relatives, husbands of friends, store employees. In order not to feel that you are now “obliged” and “begging”, it makes sense to directly ask how to thank them - with homemade cookies, advice on some issue.
Karmic reasons
Fatal bad luck with men makes many girls think about why God does not give them happiness in their personal lives. It is believed that loneliness is influenced by karma, so in this incarnation we work off the karmic debts of the previous incarnation. For example, in a past life, someone rudely rejected attempts at a normal relationship, and someone raised the bar of requirements for a future husband high, thereby stopping all efforts to get married successfully.
In this incarnation, fate gives you a chance to correct the mistakes of the past by changing your behavior, and if a woman continues to behave this way, she will be lonely. Failures in personal life are sent by God so that a person dives deeper into self-knowledge and analyzes his life. And also to try to change himself, directing his evolution on the path to Infinity in the right direction.
Some esotericists believe that only a woman who scans the karma of her family can answer the question of why God does not give a husband for a long time. It is believed that a person’s success is affected by ancestral karma, and if it is unfavorable, then the entire family has to pay for it, overcoming misfortunes and loneliness. But many experts do not agree with this opinion, because from the same family can come successful and unsuccessful, potential murderers, lawbreakers and priests, happy in family life and pathological loners. Most likely, loneliness is:
- internal subconscious need of a person;
- internal psychological conflicts;
- negative attitudes of parents or society.
Is it really bad to be alone?
It is also necessary to take into account that sometimes a woman may want to be alone.
She enjoys life, her work, and communication. But usually the absence of a man in her life begins to strain members of society, who suggest that something is wrong with her. If a person hears the same thing many times, he begins to believe it. It's important to remember that people in relationships are often unhappy. In marriage, women often feel bad and worse than one
This is easy to verify if you look closely at those around you. Even just scroll through messages on online forums where people anonymously share their problems, asking for advice. Hiding the troubles of their relationship in society, trying to seem like a happy couple and family, here they reveal what they do not admit to anyone. Indifference, continuing a relationship only for the sake of children with a spouse whom you have not loved for a long time - all this occurs much more often than it seems at first glance. And it turns out that there are practically no women happy in relationships. It is very rare to have a happy relationship. But in society it is common to play and pretend that everything is fine. This is why the illusion arises that everyone around is happy in couples.
Practice shows that happy people are in a couple who do not need each other. And together they want it for now. But they can be separately. Only by experiencing pleasure alone can you experience it in long-term relationships with people. Where the need for a person arises, there is no longer love, there is only selfishness.
Unpreparedness
There is such a feature in the female psyche as the need to refuse and look for shortcomings in men. And sometimes a woman will be able to understand with her head that she wants to communicate with the opposite sex, but on an unconscious level she will strive to do everything possible to avoid this. Wondering about the reasons why God does not give a husband, she will arrange situations in such a way that if she comes across men, they will be “the wrong ones.”
Why is this happening? Often her heart is still immersed in a past situation, when something did not happen the way she wanted. And the resentment remained. Now in every man she will look for potential traits that will lead to the same outcome. After being treated badly, she will be able, wondering why God doesn't send a good guy, to subconsciously look for similar men. And reject those who do not meet the strict criteria. Despite the fact that the rejected ones could have made a good match for her.
Often people are very afraid of loneliness
Their world revolves around the need to belong to someone, to give care, to experience feelings of love, to receive attention. A large percentage of people jump from relationship to relationship just to avoid being alone for a long time
Many endure what is completely forbidden to endure, only out of fear of being left without a mate. Trying to escape from loneliness, people try to fall in love with anyone, the first one they come across.
In this case, there is no question of any harmony - it is impossible to “shut up” loneliness with another person, it is forbidden to fill the internal emptiness and anxiety at the expense of someone else. There is no happiness in depending on another and in holding on to him as if he were a saving straw. This approach dooms you to an eternally nervous life in which there is no place for love.
I can't meet my love. What to do?
So, the most important question for a person who wants to get married is: are you ready to get married? Note: you don't want
, but
ready
... What's the difference? A person who does not have any clear idea of what marriage or family is and what role he (she) will need to fulfill in it can also want to. To be ready means to be able to build a relationship that “never fails”, to have a clear understanding of what marriage is and what responsibilities you will have to bear in it.
The first thing you should pay attention to is how we approach the choice of a wife or husband. If you judge by external data, by how much money a person has, or by how cheerful and interesting a person is in company, believe me, you will be disappointed in your family
Why? Yes, because what is good for friendship and communication may be absolutely useless for family. For a long time, one of my sister’s friends liked bright, charming guys who could speak beautifully and intelligently in public. But bad luck, they just as beautifully and cleverly told her how to love her wife, but at the same time they could easily offend or forget this promise. Until she met a brother who did not know how to speak so beautifully, but who surrounded her with care and attention and thanks to whom she experienced the happiness of a sincere and loving relationship.
Therefore, remember, God will work on the image of your future wife (husband) created by you. His task is to teach you to see! So that when you meet a worthy person prepared for you by God, you will be able to recognize him. This is why all other relationships can be unsuccessful. Failure is an experience of how it shouldn't be...
Psychological reasons
A girl often does not have a husband, not because God does not give him one, but because of her own psychological attitudes towards loneliness. Let's look at these internal settings:
- There is no need for a husband. This is a certain form of self-sufficiency when a person feels great even without the so-called other half. This is either a conscious or subconscious attitude, when a woman is essentially an introvert, and it is difficult for her to share her comfortable inner world with another person.
- Finding the ideal husband. In this situation, there is no point in being offended by God, because the girl sees only shortcomings in every man who comes her way. Often this is the attitude of overly loving parents, who claimed that “he is not a match for you” or “he is not worthy of you.” So the woman waits for her prince until retirement, every year making more and more demands on the opposite sex.
- I need a husband-sponsor. A certain category of girls considers only rich men as their future husbands, but, as a rule, they themselves do not reach the level of successful people either in terms of level or education. So such a beauty only dates the rich once, and her status as a wife does not suit them. There are two ways out: either find a husband from your circle, or become successful yourself so that your partner is on the same level.
- Bad experience. Loneliness in marriage is also present, so it is not necessary that if God gives a husband, then the marriage will be successful. Often, after one or two divorces, women simply become disillusioned with relationships, setting themselves up to spend the rest of their lives in quiet solitude.
- I’m not ready to give my husband love. Not every woman is ready to give love to a man, despite God and his commandments, and the stronger half avoids it, subconsciously feeling coldness. And God has nothing to do with it. You need to learn to love, give warmth, only then a miracle will happen: the chosen one will feel it and appear on the horizon.
Give up pity
Let's be pragmatists and start by stopping allowing ourselves the luxury of subjunctive moods in the style of “but in the years that I’ve been living, I could have become a mother more than once.”
Such constructions, in my opinion, are very harmful and destructive, because, modeling our life in our imagination, the only thing they do is put pressure on pity - our pity for ourselves. They cherish it, warm it up, squeeze out tears in a completely artificial and meaningless way.
The construction “I could become a mother” makes sense only in one case - when a woman really could become a mother, but did not become one of her own free will, that is, she had an abortion. And then it is permissible not to feel sorry for oneself, but to mourn one’s sin before God and the murdered child, that is, to bring repentance.
If you again become fixated on yourself and your bitter fate, then such a retrospective will be useless. One way or another, this is not your case - you, fortunately, did not have an abortion. Therefore, for you, such appeals to non-existent happiness are pure masochism and self-pity, which you need to immediately abandon, forbidding this thought from entering your heart. You need to give up the bitter pleasure that this thought brings.
It’s a paradox, but giving up the enjoyment of pain is not much easier than giving up the enjoyment of pleasure and happiness. This may be the reason why we constantly return to this thought. We feel sorry for ourselves because we love ourselves too much, we think too much about ourselves, we pay too much attention to ourselves, we spin too lovingly around our own axis and our “unhappy” self. We, our ego, which consists, among other things, of our desires , is our favorite stumbling block that we stumble over all the time.
The construction “I could already become a mother” (a millionaire, a great actress, etc.) is also quite blatant. Listen, those girls or boys who were born disabled and are bedridden or wheelchair-bound could also become good mothers and fathers, but bad luck - the illness got in the way.
And those who died in childhood or adolescence from illness or accident could also. And my fiancé, with whom our relationship did not work out, also, perhaps, could have already been a father by now, but it so happened that he was killed and he did not become a father. People suffering from infertility, who have lost their reproductive health due to certain operations, could also...
Do you understand the absurdity of such constructions?
We ourselves don’t know how long we will live, and what will happen tomorrow. We seem to be living a church life, but we only remember the extent to which our life is not a church life, but in general is fragmentary, only in days of difficult trials, when there is a danger of actually losing it. On other days, we prefer to grieve about unfulfilled happiness.
