Why do we have different terms that essentially mean the same thing?
If you were married and now you’re not and your former spouse is still alive, you’re unmarried and “divorced.”
If you were married and your spouse has died, you are unmarried and a “widow” or “widower.”
If you have not been married, you are unmarried and “single.”
All those terms mean that you are not currently married. Why do we feel it’s important distinguish between “was married and isn’t anymore” because of divorce and “was married and isn’t anymore” because of death* and “isn’t married and hasn’t been”? This feels to me like some sort of throwback to a society that looked down on people who divorced. In my mind, while you are going through the process of getting a divorce, you are “divorcing.” At the end of that process, you are single. Why do you have to carry into the future a status that says you had a failed marriage?
I had to fill out some form recently that asked about my marital status (sorry, can’t remember specifically what form it was). The important thing was that my marital status in this case didn’t matter. It wasn’t a situation where I’d get a discount if a spouse and I both signed up nor did the company need information about who else might know where I was if I didn’t pay. I suspect it was a marketing/demographics thing, but that raised an additional question: Are divorced people, widowed people, and single people considered significantly different demographic segments?
Thoughts?
*I accept that some people whose spouses have passed still consider themselves married. I mean no disrespect.
That’s an interesting take on it, one I hadn’t thought about.
Can I ask: Were you happily married and didn’t want the divorce? I think some of this, for me, arises from not wanting anything to associate me with my last spouse. Saying I am divorced means admitting, even to myself, that I was once married that sh*tbag.
I feel like the person I am now bears very little resemblance to the person in that marriage, so saying I’m divorced is a little like saying I’m someone else.
I always say I am ‘happily divorced’ and I mean it. I got two kids out of it that I love more than anything in the world but marriage isn’t my thing at all as it turns out. There were 17 years worth of heartbreaking and fruitless effort there except for the kids. I am 41 now so saying ‘single’ is technically true but I would rather say ‘happily divorced’ because it isn’t like I am a virgin that lives with his parents. Quite to the contrary, I made a conscience decision that being married isn’t for me and my ex-wife seems to have done the same. I see no shame in the idea and will present it that way to anyone that cares to know.
One of the defects of “language” is that the number of words is always much smaller than the number of variations within the set. Languages can have very many or very few words for colors, for example, but always much fewer than the number of colors that the human eye can discriminate. Often, your language restricts your thinking that way.
In English, interpersonal and family relationship sometimes distinguish by gender (aunt, niece, sister), but not always (cousin). I can have two brothers-in-law, who don’t even know of each other’s existence. One is the brother of my wife, the other is the husband of my sister. Other languages are more or less precise than that, but all eventually fail to cover every nuance.
The same limitation impedes our ability to talk about marital status.
I think there’s almost a stigma in saying that you’re single once you’re over a certain age. It’s like, “what’s wrong with you”?
Saying “divorced” means at least someone married you once, as does being a widow or widower. It puts you’re being single into a context and demonstrates that at least for a while you were able to commit to a relationship. Saying that you are single provides no information.
Having said that, despite being divorced I refer to myself as happily single.
I think after mid 30ish or older “divorced” commands a higher level of respect than does “Single”. Even though your marriage failed, it at least shows you’ve made an attempt to be an adult and you’re not just some guy with Peter Pan syndrome that sees life as one long frat party.
I don’t personally agree with the above, but i think that’s pretty much society’s take on it.
So, if I’m applying for a loan, I’m divorced. If I’m at a party or a bar, I’m single.
But this case doesn’t make a good example for what you described. The language isn’t limited in this particular case. The OP isn’t asking for a new word. The issue here is that social mechanisms force people to use a term that is marked, when it really isn’t relevant.
It matters to some people. My mother is remarried, and she still wants me to somehow work into the conversation the fact that she was a widow when she married my stepfather, after I introduce him to people as my stepfather. I don’t know what else I’m supposed to call him. I love him dearly, but I was 35 when they got married, so he’s not my father (although, he is an excellent grandfather to my son, who was born after my father died). My mother seems to think there’s something about the word “stepfather” that sounds “divorce-ish” of something. I think introducing him as my mother’s husband sounds like I don’t like him, and I’m trying to distance myself from him. I suppose I could introduce him as “my son’s grandfather.”
But yeah, some people do get really weird and a little obsessive about this.
My mother describes herself as a married now, but she called herself a widow after my father died, before she remarried. Now, when people ask about her children, and she tells people they were by her first husband, I’m sure she manages to work the fact that she was widowed into the conversation.
I don’t really have a point other than yeah, this is important to some people. Maybe the people who design the sorts of forms that tend to contains questions like this feel that people who care about the distinctions care a lot more than the people who don’t care about them don’t care, if that makes sense.
Your mother comes from a time when being divorced was genuinely a source for gossip and shame. When I was growing up, I only knew one kid whose parents had divorced. So cut her some slack.
Oh, I do. My point was that the OP’s experience is not all people. The OP may feel that there’s no difference among “never married,” “divorced,” and “widowed,” but some people do, and apparently the people who put that question on surveys think that the people to whom it matters have stronger feelings about it than the people to whom it does not matter.
FWIW, since I was 11, I have been participating in a longitudinal study of Americans’ smoking habits; I filled out a questionnaire every three months or so when I was in high school, and now I fill one out about every two years. They started including Married or Single after high school, and then when I was about 25, Married/Divorced/Widowed/Never Married. Beginning around the year 2000, they began to include “Unmarried, but living with partner.” I think it was aimed at the number of gay people who were flummoxed by the question, but there were probably a lot of straight people who felt like none of the options described their situation either.
I speak about my ‘status’ only if questioned, and the answers will depend on the situation. If the conversation gets really personal I’ll say I was married but, fortunately, no kids were involved. Otherwise I’ll just say I’m not married or talk about my girlfriend - if there’s a current Ms JustinC. The first few years after my divorce were difficult, and I would ‘admit’ I was divorced with a resigned acceptance. I haven’t gone completely the other way, having divorce parties etc, but I’m quite happy I’m not still with that manipulating, violent, nasty bitch.
Why would be you be single if you just split with your partner of 25 years , but divorced just because you had a piece of paper bearing signatures that said you partnered up 4 years ago ?
Funnily enough I was asked this question today. I currently consider myself as single, having split up from my long term partner a couple of years ago. However, before that I was married to someone else and subsequently divorced so I answered that my legal status was divorced.
This question arose within a sort of legal framework, i.e. making a will so maybe my correct legal status in that situation is important.
In social situations I would describe myself as happily divorced.
But this problem identified by the OP is unique to speakers of the English language. Other languages compartmentalize phenomena with different linguistic boundaries, and no doubt there are languages in which there is a common, readily understood set of terms for the distinctions that the OP is bewailing. There just doesn’t happen to be one in English.
That seems funny to me. I would have thought (based on zero experience) that “widowed/widower” would be interpreted better than either “single” or “divorced”.
“Divorced” still carries a stigma that widowhood does not. A widow or widower made a commitment and kept it. Divorced people made the same commitment and didn’t. Maybe for perfectly good reasons, but maybe not. And I don’t see how “single” communicates anything. If you aren’t single, why are you on a dating website?
It’s probably for the best that I am not in the dating pool - I would assume “single” meant “divorced but not upfront about it” or “I can’t commit”.
