Answer

Am I Falling Behind If I’m Still Single?

When friends marry or start having children, it can be hard not to wonder whether you somehow got off schedule. Maybe you thought you would be married by now, and life looks very different from what you expected. That can be painful. It helps to separate God’s revealed purposes from a timetable you may have created years ago.

Eternal Truths

Your identity does not depend on whether you are married yet. The Family: A Proclamation to the World teaches that you are a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents with a divine nature and destiny. Marriage is part of God’s plan, but being unmarried does not make you less important to Him or less able to grow.

God’s promises are bigger than the part of your life you can see right now. Elder D. Todd Christofferson taught that although the ideal of marriage and family is not presently available to everyone, no faithful disciple is “predestined to receive less than all that the Father has for His children.” That is important when circumstances you did not choose have changed the timing of your life.

Jesus does not ask you to measure your life against someone else’s. After the Resurrection, Peter asked the Savior what would happen to another disciple. Jesus answered, “what is that to thee? follow thou me” (John 21:21–22). Peter still had his own relationship with Christ and his own work to do.

What Can Make This Confusing?

Most of us grow up with some idea of when marriage is supposed to happen. That expectation may come from family, friends, Church culture, or simply what we pictured when we were younger. When life turns out differently, it is easy to start treating “later than I expected” as “something has gone wrong.” Those are not the same thing.

What Research Shows

A BYU study surveyed 784 single students ages 18–30 about dating and marriage. Nearly all said temple marriage was very important to them, yet many were still unmarried and trying to figure out how and when marriage would happen. Researchers also found that fear of making a mistake was one of the most common reasons students hesitated about marriage. That is a helpful reminder: being single longer than you expected does not necessarily mean you care less about marriage, are doing something wrong, or have somehow fallen behind. Sometimes you can deeply want a good marriage and still need time, opportunity, and the right relationship for it to happen (BYU study).

Questions to Think About

• What age did I once assume I would be married by?
• Have I started using that expectation to judge my life now?
• What good things is Christ helping me build in this season?

What You Can Do

Write down one timeline you may need to hold more loosely. Then choose one meaningful goal you can work toward now without giving up your hope for marriage.

Jesus Christ can help you keep moving forward with faith, even when your life does not unfold on the schedule you once expected.