by robertsloan2

Created on: July 18, 2009   Last Updated: July 19, 2009

The risks of remaining single are isolation, financial risk, health risks and shortened lifespan. Depression, lack of stimulation, insecurity and anxiety can all deepen over time in a single person's life. The longer someone's single, the easier it is to stay single and keep to the habits that seem to work. The risks of relationships look worse in imagination and maybe memory, if they came out of a bad relationship, while the rewards of intimacy, shared tasks and finances, better health and emotional support are easy to forget.

Isolation isn't healthy for any human being. Humans are social creatures. We need approval, we need it in some physical, tangible ways as well as a smile or a greeting from someone at work. If you feel unloved, that hurts.

There's nothing to counter a feeling of being unloved if you're alone at home. There's no one there to give a reality check if you start getting into a circular self-defeating mindset. Depressive thinking is a vicious cycle of self criticism, pain, then more self criticism blaming yourself for being too apathetic and depressed to do something about the problem.

What gets worse though is what happens the first time someone who's single gets sick or injured, or loses a job. Many people don't have help from their families and will wind up in an apartment without any food in it when they're too sick to go out and shop. It won't get cleaned up by itself. No one will take care of you if anything goes wrong, and no one else's income is going to pick up the minimum rent and bills if you lose your job.

In a couple, there's a better chance at least one partner still has an income when the company downsizes or the industry moves. Most people take at least a few months to find a new job after job loss. It's not something unusual any more - for years now I've seen some of the most prosperous, successful people I know wind up suddenly caught short with large amounts of debt and a lifestyle that could only be sustained by the high end jobs they had before. If they were married, most often they cut back sharply on luxuries and made it through the rough patch while the unemployed partner found a new job.

If single, it was a lot more likely they wound up losing everything, became bankrupt or even homeless.

If you're a parent, being single can be an insane amount of work and the chance of meeting a new partner is much lower. The relationship with your children is real and satisfies many of your emotional needs, but you're left

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