The Single Woman’s take on surviving Christmas
Ah, the smell of Christmas cakes baking in the oven, the sight of bright poinsettia in bloom! There’s a chill and the expectant feeling of magic in the air! This can mean only one thing: Christmas is here!
But it’s not always an eagerly anticipated time by everybody. Because of the family-oriented nature of the holiday, Christmas for the single woman can be an agonizing and terrifyingly depressing time. It provides an opportunity for her to focus on how lonely she is as this holiday is traditionally regarded as the time to express love and gratitude to the people who are the closest to us. There are single women who literally face the season with fear and trembling, their fondest wish being that the Christmas puddings will be quickly dispensed with, the tinsel and holly will be disposed of and life can return to normal.
There is, for instance this 32 year-old executive secretary who works at a bank in Kingston. She is a single mother with a ten year-old daughter. Her relationship with her daughter’s father disintegrated two years ago and this will be her second Christmas without a mate. “I wish I could sleep through the holidays,” she says wistfully. “It’s the second Christmas without W- and I don’t think I can face that loneliness again this year. My daughter is here with me. I’m glad that she is and that she’s healthy and everything but it’s not a substitute for having that romantic love in your life at Christmas.”
Then there’s the case of an attractive 42 year-old corporate lawyer, who has never been married and has been involved with a married man for the past 12 years. “I hate Christmas,” she confesses. “I know it might sound childish but I always feel jealous when I see my girlfriends, their husbands and families get together for the holiday. Even if they can’t stand each other the rest of the year, at least they make the effort to come together at Christmas.
I never get to see my boyfriend then because of course, he’s home with his wife and kids. Don’t get me wrong now. I like my relationship the way it is but I don’t know what it is about the holidays that makes me go to bed and cry over a situation that I’ve more or less come to peace with.”
The case of this petite 27 year-old social worker is somewhat different. She has an unmarried boyfriend who is the quintessential commitment-phobic. They’ve been together since their college days. “Every year at Christmas I get depressed,” she says. “We usually spend it together but every Christmas night a sinking feeling comes over me as I watch him there sleeping in the couch before the TV and I wonder if we’re never going to marry. I wonder if this will be our last year together. I wonder if he really loves me. I’m scared of waking up one day and finding out he’s gone off with some other woman and when I hear from the shout, they’ve gotten married. I think I would kill myself if that happened.”
For most of the year this divorced mother of two, who is in her late forties, plays it fast and loose with a variety of single, almost always younger men. She considers herself a liberated, 21st century type of woman who places a high premium on her independence and scoffs at the idea of marrying again. But at Christmas, she admits to a vague sadness that attempts to creep in and steal her live-and-let- live outlook.
“I don’t know what it is about this time of year,” she says wistfully, “but I can almost feel my resistance breaking and I hate to say this but I find myself wishing I was back in that morass of a marriage. I guess it has something to do with the togetherness.I would bake and my children would come into the kitchen and lick the bowl and my husband would be outside stringing up the lights. Call me crazy but as bad as the marriage was when I think about the good times now those are the times I remember.”
Each of these women has valid fears and it seems that Christmas is the ideal time to obsess on these insecurities. It however doesn’t have to be that way. Sure, the single woman is alone, with perhaps no mate, but Christmas can also be viewed as a gift that allows her to define and assess the other things that are truly important in her life.
But according to an article by Dr Bernard Sjoberg, the director of the Phobia Counselling Centre in San Jose, many single women have unattainable expectations about the holidays.
“People primarily become depressed because they have unrealistic expectations,” Sjoberg says in an article on the issue posted on the Internet. These expectations are often fuelled by the media, he explains, and this generates the notion that during the holidays families are loving and everything about the season is perfect. But women, the doctor feels, ought to stop putting pressure on themselves, realise they live in an imperfect world and have imperfect relationships with people all year round. For most people, familial bonds are not as strong as those portrayed by TV families, he says. A Christmas tree and Christmas carols won’t magically make things better.
However, local counselling psychologist, Yvonne Foster, whose practice at her home in Beverly Hills tends to expand during the Christmas season, disagrees with that point of view. Christmas for single women can be quite traumatic, she feels. “It’s a brutal time of year. Suicide rates go up during this time,” says Foster. But it is the time of year single women should draw on the love, comfort and support of family. “No matter how horrible the family situation,” she says, “traditionally it’s the time of year we want to go back to the original meaning of the word Christmas.family and love. it’s the time we want to be close to the people we love.”
Familial bonds are important coping mechanisms, Foster maintains, especially for single mothers who may be overwhelmed by feelings of failure for not being able to provide the preferred family structure for children or worse, the financial support needed especially for children’s demands for expensive toys etc at Christmas. Getting together with family members at Christmas helps to take some of the financial burden off the single parent as the costs for food and presents will be shared.
The important thing health care professionals will agree upon however for beating the blues is for women not to withdraw. Social support is key, says Foster. And Sjoberg concurs.
