Posted January 22, Reviewed by Devon Frye. One of the questions I am often asked when I talk about my book, Single at Heart: The Power, Freedom, and Heart-Filling Joy of Single Life , with people who have not yet read it, is: Can you be single at heart meaning that single life is your best life and married or in a committed coupled relationship?
I thought I knew the answer before many people shared their life stories with me and tens of thousands answered a survey, but I was only half right. I expected to find married people who got married because it was what they thought they should do, and then discovered that, no matter how much they loved their spouse, they yearned to be single again. They stay married to honor their commitment to their partner. This really does happen. He wished he could be single again and stay single.
But he still cared about his wife, maybe even loved her, and she had done nothing wrong. He stayed married because he thought it was the right thing to do, even though what he really wanted was to be single.
Since then, I have heard other stories like his. What I did not anticipate was the other category of people who are married or in a committed romantic relationship yet still consider themselves single at heart. These people want to stay in their romantic relationship. They love their partner and do not fantasize about being single again. They typically have key characteristics of people who are single at heart, and they insist that they are single at heart.
What I learned from those who shared their stories in some detail is that their romantic relationships were unconventional in important ways. For example, people who are single at heart love having time and space to themselves. They typically have a lot of space in their relationship, both physical and emotional. Others share a home, but they have separate spaces within that home, such as separate floors.
