It’s now December.  Does that make you happy or is the last month of the year a downer?

If you are single, without a regular partner, you may be churning up to get miserable.  The Christmas and then shhh .. new years eve can be a very depressing time of year.  But why?  Just because there’s no wedding band on your finger? 

Lots of people don’t like this time of year for a number of reasons – it’s too commercial, memories of bad Christmas’ past, grief over loved ones who won’t share this holiday.  You are entitled to feel however you choose about this season, but please don’t use being single as the reason.  That’s not fair to you!

The infamous “they” will have won if you shy away. Can’t go to parties, can’t go to family events because some one will say something about your being single.  Or,if no one says anything, you know what they are thinking; some version of “poor you.”

Well, the choice is yours.  If you allow yourself to feel like “poor me,” then they have won. It may be true that you wish you were married or at least partnered.  And, you are entitled to feel sad, even depressed about not having a loving man in your life.  But, just because you are sad that shouldn’t stop you from going on you’re your life.

In my research on single women (With or Without A Man: Single WomenTaking Control of Their Lives) I heard so many reasons why women pull back over the holidays.  But, if you were most honest with yourself – is it really that you are embarrassed to be without a man or is it a societal expectation that you should have a man? Society also says married women should have children but lots of women choose not to or are unable to; they don’t have to hide because they have disappointed the societal mandate!

Stand up taller this holiday.  In advance, prepare non-defensive comments when someone is rude enough to say anything about your being single.  Then, change the subject and talk about something of much more interest to you than that person’s reactions to your being without a man.