Being single comes with a price tag, and not just financial ones.
There are many things that happily partnered adults enjoy on a daily basis that their single counterparts don’t get to experience.
In this article, I’m going to dive into the seven areas that 1) I hear about most often from my private clients, and 2) are all scientifically validated (so they’re not just purely anecdotal).
By naming the gaps explicitly, we’ll all be able to see the true, hidden costs of long-term singlehood more clearly.
The 7 Hidden Costs Of Being Single
1. Less physical touch
Even if physical touch isn’t one of someone’s top love languages, skin to skin contact is a fundamental biological need.
It lowers your heart rate, inflammation, and stress hormones… and boosts oxytocin, strengthens your immune system, and regulates your nervous system.
Over a long enough time horizon of being under-touched, single people are more likely to struggle with anxiety, depression, loneliness, and decreased self-worth.
Again, even people who don’t lead with physical touch or who say things like “I’m not a hugger” still benefit from touch, simply because they’re human.
Yes, single people can supplement their lack of physical contact by getting massages, haircuts, and going to dance class. But having the predictability of physical touch on a daily basis from a romantic partner provides the kind of optimal dose that single people will inevitably struggle to attain.
2. Shorter lifespan
Over the years you may have seen article headlines that read, “Married People Live Longer”.
I have dug into the data, and it is not as cut and dry as that. Many of those journalists took liberty with the research to make it sound more dramatic than it is in reality.
A closer to true statement would be: People in healthy, stable long-term relationships tend to live longer, on average, than people who are unmarried.
Some of the reasons for this are things like:
– Greater emotional support during stressful periods
– Earlier detection of health problems because there’s someone who knows you deeply who is able to notice changes
– Healthier daily habits (partners often encourage better eating, exercise, and socialization)
So, in short, being in a healthy, stable, long-term relationship is better for you than being single and feeling chronically alone.
As a downstream byproduct of a relatively more isolated life, both life span and health span (aka quality of life) can often be negatively impacted.
3. Harder time with stress recovery and emotional resilience
There is a sneaky tax of being single which I would summarize as feeling like everything is always only on you.
Yes, when things are tough you can call your friend or your sister or someone who cares about you. But having a partner… a true teammate who cares deeply about taking stress off of your plate is invaluable.
Life inevitably kicks us all in the face. If we are lucky enough to live for many decades, life will kick us in the face a good number of times.
Friends and family members die. We have health scares or sustained health crises. Wars and pandemics break out.
In the hardest times, people are much better off having a loving, supportive, caring, considerate partner in their corner.
And even in the daily minutiae of life, there’s value in having someone who can handle things like making sure there’s extra dish soap, toothpaste, or toilet paper stocked. The taxes are done. The voicemail was returned. The car’s oil was changed on or ahead of schedule.
Single life: having to do everything on your own and being less resilient to stress when the inevitable storms of life roll through.
Partnered life: having a teammate on your side who proactively takes tasks off of your plate and is there for you in the toughest seasons that we all must navigate.
4. Lower financial stability and optionality
Single people tend to have more limited freedom in life because of the inherently increased volatility of only depending on their income.
Yes, with a partner, there’s the option to have two incomes. But there’s also a reduced chance of making stupid financial decisions when there’s another brain in the room (who knows you and your values) who can help you slow down and pump the breaks when needed.
For men and women in relationships, there’s also the shared accountability of working towards financial goals together (and all humans benefit from social accountability when it comes to achieving things that take time to accomplish).
5. Less laughter
People are up to 30 times more likely to laugh when they are around other people (versus when they are alone).
Can you laugh while alone because you’re thinking of something funny that happened, or watching your favorite stand up comic? Yes, of course. It isn’t the case that single people have a life entirely devoid of joy and laughter. Not at all.
But people in healthy, long-term relationships are, as a default, surrounded by someone (their significant other) and are more likely to experience daily/regular laughter as a result.
Personally/Anecdotally, when I think about the times that I have laughed until I cried/laughed until my face hurt over the last decade, almost all of them have been with my wife. And I wouldn’t even say that laughter is the peak feature of our marriage (it would more be in the realm of kindness/tenderness/sweetness). Even so, the amount of laughing I do with my wife as an ongoing default drastically surpasses how much I laughed when I was single and lived alone.
6. The singles tax
On the financial side, there is something commonly referred to as ‘the singles tax’.
These are real-life, hard costs that single people consistently pay that their married/cohabited counterparts don’t have to shoulder alone.
On an annual basis, single people consistently pay more for things like housing, utilities, taxes, travel, insurance, and food.
7. Less growth
According to popular social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, one of the leading causes of personal fulfillment and overall life satisfaction is the number of constraints in one’s life. As in, it is beneficial to have constraints.
Some key constraints that tend to add to a life well lived? Long-term partnership. Having children. Doing challenging things that take a long time to come to fruition (like pursuing/growing a career, being in excellent shape, etc.).
While single people can travel endlessly and do ayahuasca in Peru at the drop of a hat without needing to check in with anyone, I believe that a deeper sense of personal fulfillment comes from tethering oneself fully to life – which, in part, means other people.
The positive multiplication effect of being in a healthy, committed, supportive relationship is incalculable. As one friend who has been married for 50 years recently said to me, “My marriage feels like a safety net underneath my entire life. It makes the highs higher, and the lows less low.”
A spouse or long-term relationship is so good for our growth because it is so wonderfully in the way. We can’t just do whatever our erratic, immature, at-times-impulsive lower self wants to do because when you’re in a relationship, your decisions and actions impact more than just yourself. The hemming-in effect of that daily constraint is beneficial to us over the long-term.
Great Relationships Are A Force Multiplier In Our Lives
There you have it! The seven hidden costs of being single long-term.
If you’re currently single, you might recognize yourself in some of the above points.
And if you find yourself craving a relationship and you’re interested in getting this area of your life handled, this is exactly the kind of work I spend my days helping people with.
Want to talk? You can apply to work with me through this page.
Dedicated to your success,
Jordan
Ps. Did you enjoy this piece? You’ll also love checking out:
– How To Know If You Are A Catch (A Quiz)
– How To Meet Your Husband In 30 Days
– 9 Reasons To Not Use Dating Apps (At All, Ever)
– 5 Mistakes I Made On The Path To Finding My Wife
