In the restful houses of women who live alone

Drawing a line between societal caricature and the peaceful reality

Photo by Slaapwijsheid.nl on Unsplash

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A few months ago, while visiting my mother in the Kent countryside, she told me the reason she wanted me to get remarried. “I want to die knowing there is someone to take care of you,” she said solemnly. I laughed. Shortly after, I drove home, turning her words over in my mind as fields and picket fences segued into the iron and tarmac landscape of the motorway, and kept laughing.

I laughed because in no relationship has anyone ever ‘taken care of me’. Not in the way she thinks. Sometimes, when I was married, there were jobs I devolved to my late husband such as sorting out the bins, dog poop collection, and anything to do with the car, but overall, there was one main person doing the taking care of, and that was me. And, while this is based on the limitations of my own social circle, I have yet to witness any hetero relationship where the woman is being ‘taken care of’ by the man.

Most women I know are goddesses, lionesses, multiple-armed jugglers, gift buyers, house organisers, emotional load-bearing pillars, the ones who take care of everything and their families would be bereft without them, foraging for berries in the woods, brushing their teeth with bark and wearing the same pair of pyjamas on repeat.

That doesn’t mean the men in their life don’t do anything. Oh, they’ll do anything they’re asked. But there still needs to be someone to do the asking. The noting of what needs to be done. They ‘help out’ even though that phrase is never used in relation to a woman.

In the years since my husband passed, though I loved him very much, when I felt ready, I went back to dating. Some of it has been great, some of it has involved heartbreak, and none of it has left me so cynical or bitter that I don’t see myself in a relationship again.

However, in light of a difficult marriage and subsequent unsuccessful relationships, I’ve found myself wondering what that future looks like. I’m lucky and privileged enough to be able to live on my own. And that has prompted the question: if I end up in a relationship again, do I want to share my home with someone again? And more importantly my bed, every night, snores and all? The answer is a resounding no.

The main reason is that this is probably the most peaceful my life has been for a significant period of time. My home is tiny, and I know if I lived with someone else, I’d be able to afford something bigger. But the extra square footage isn’t worth giving up what I have. It is a haven, a place I miss acutely when I am away no matter how much I love travelling.

It is the type of space I wanted so desperately when my life was chaotic and miserable and filled with uncertainty. My sister, when she comes to visit, calls it a little oasis, where she gets to sit on the sofa with a cup of tea and be still, surrounded by plants.

I know my home is tranquil, but recently I had an insight into realising it wasn’t a one-off. That although society makes jokes about women who live alone and our cat armies, and pities the aching void we must carry within us without the proximity of a man to light us up, the truth is the opposite.

I was visiting relatives in India, and feeling fairly frazzled about being surrounded by people all the time while staying in my parents’ holiday flat in Bangalore. For all the fun of seeing loved ones, it was impossible to not absorb their stress, their own worries.

While running some chores, I paid a visit to my aunt who lives by herself. This aunt is a favourite of mine because she’s funny and easy to be with, but I also love the boundaries she sets for herself. She goes home when she’s ready to go home, and if she wants to abstain from a social engagement, she does, while everyone else is mad with tiredness but on obligation auto-pilot.

What struck me from the moment I entered her home, was how calm it was. Call it energy, call it zen, call it the lack of noise and people, but the rolling, restful quiet reminded me so much of my own place, I felt positively homesick. It wasn’t so much misanthropic as settling on a way of living that I really loved, and missed.  

Many years ago, I didn’t fully understand how important a home is, and who you let into it, until it became a space that was fraught. We aren’t raised to question whether or not we want to co-habit with our partner – it’s a given. Women especially are raised to feel grateful to have a partner at all, let alone consider whether the person in question is evolved enough to take care of themselves so we don’t have to.

Although I was brought up – not just by my parents but by society and the Hollywood love peddlars – to believe co-habitation and partnership was the ultimate goal, I have always been drawn to a certain type of woman who lives alone. In fact, even though while growing up these women were always talked about with a pitying tone, they seemed to me, to be doing just fine. These were not the women who’d gossip or stress - they seemed serene and floating above it all.

Most of all, there was a sense of calmness they radiated, a centre of gravity they possessed, some immoveable sense of safety about them. That no matter what happens, they could handle it. And these are women who live alone but they aren’t alone. They have community, hobbies, friends, a sense of purpose, maybe a lover, maybe not.

It must be acknowledged that due to a number of factors including outliving men, loneliness is a problem especially among older women who live alone. But I also know that there are women who are not unhappy with it, and when presented with the choice especially after a challenging long-term relationship, may actively choose it for themselves.

It’s a demographic that also isn’t as defined or linear in age as it once was. According to a study by Morgan Stanley, more women than ever are “delaying marriage, choosing to stay single or divorcing in their 50s and 60s. Women are also delaying childbirth or having fewer children than in the past.”

Increasingly, the more I speak to women my age or older, if they are happy or neutral about being single, they express similar feelings about not wanting to share their home with a partner. Or rather, if a partner did arrive, they would have to meet certain expectations or offer something that improves their quality of life versus subtracting from it. And the bar is high when you can fill your home with furniture you like, close your fridge knowing your creamy Black Cherry yogurt will be waiting for you in the exact spot you left it.

In India, where I was just visiting friends and family, it was hard to explain what this was like to people. Most women I know over there are married with kids, and women who are single tend to live with family. When I was asked about what my life was like and if I lived alone, a friend said: “And you’re okay living on your own?” A relative said: “I couldn’t do it, I’m afraid of staying the night in my house without my husband.” For them, a woman without a partner is only half a person, and I couldn’t arrange the right words to show them my fullness.

And it is a life that is full. When I posted about this, and living alone on social media, a lady commented that I should be careful not to isolate myself too much. And I said that isolation is different to being alone. When I look at most of the women I know who live alone, it doesn’t mean they don’t feel loneliness. I think loneliness exists in some pocket of the soul even if you are lying next to your soul mate.

It means that despite what they might feel, they’re living their life in the closest approximation to what makes them happy, and are proactive in how they fill their time, and understand their desires. It doesn’t make it a superior way of living, simply that it isn’t an empty way of living as some might imagine. In fact, it can, and is, incredibly rich.