Women Spend Their Entire Lives Trying To Be Chosen

What if the most important relationship you will ever have is the one you have been neglecting your entire life? We grow up hearing the same promise: till death do you part. It’s romantic, reassuring, a lifelong commitment to another person and a belief that happiness lies in choosing someone else.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: We are willing to promise forever to someone else...yet rarely promise to love ourselves for all the days of our lives. We are the one person guaranteed to be with us until our final breath, have you ever thought about that?

For most of my life, I believed connection required effort, my effort. I showed up, supported, adapted. I wanted to be a good friend, a good partner, a good person. I gave freely, often without question, rarely asking for anything in return, and It never occurred to me to ask: was I doing the same for myself?

The answer was a big, fat no. Like many women, I had learned that my worth was tied to my relationship status, to being agreeable, and to being as accommodating as possible. As a result, I became a professional giver, and still, I was deeply unhappy.

In my early thirties, I was trying to force myself into a life that was never meant for me. The familiar script: find someone, settle down, get married, and have children. No matter how much I tried to ignore those expectations, they sat quietly in the background, shaping what success was supposed to look like.

I tried to comply with society’s “norms.” I really did. I took steps toward those goals but somehow always “messed” them up. Inevitably, I would find myself single and worrying that I would be left “on the shelf.” I forced myself to want those things. To fit in. To become the version of myself that would make a man want me and make it all work out.

But when you force yourself into a life that does not fit, you start making compromised choices, you settle. You ignore your instincts and tell yourself, “It will be okay.” Except it isn’t, and it never will be.

Slowly, without even noticing, you lose yourself in your own web of deception, that loss did not stay quiet for me, far from it. In my bestselling book, Life is a Cycle, I write about this chapter of my life, how I spiraled out of control, numbing myself with alcohol while somehow continuing to go through the motions and hold everything together so my life looked acceptable on the outside while feeling completely wrong on the inside.

Eventually, it caught up with me, I hit rock bottom and ended up in a psychiatric ward “for my own safety.” There was nowhere left to hide, I could not fake life any longer or avoid the truth anymore, not even from myself. When everything is stripped away, you are left with one thing: yourself.

And I realized something both simple and devastating: I was going to spend the rest of my life with myself… and I didn’t even like who I was. That was the moment everything changed, not overnight, not perfectly.

I had to commit to myself, for better or worse. Till death do I part with myself.

That commitment meant getting brutally honest, questioning everything I thought I “should” want, accepting that maybe I was not meant for the conventional path, not because it is not valid, but because it was not mine to walk, and that’s important.

There is nothing wrong with marriage and family, It’s a beautiful life for many people, but it is also okay if your life looks different. I did not need someone to complete me, I needed myself, I had to learn how to build self-worth, to develop self-respect. To become my own friend and travel companion, I needed to become someone I actually wanted to live with.

That meant listening to my thoughts instead of avoiding them, trusting my instincts, accepting that being different can feel uncomfortable, and sometimes lonely, but it is also where opportunity, fulfilment, joy, and purpose live. I knew I had to walk away from the life I knew, step back, and truly listen to myself to understand what I actually wanted. The funny thing is, when I stopped trying to fit into the wrong life, I started finding people who did not conform either.

Solo travel changed how I felt about myself, I traveled far and wide, cycled some of the most gruelling climbs in the world, and explored new cities and places. But best of all, I met incredible people living life on their own terms, not waiting, nor asking for permission.

Just living, It felt like I had finally walked into a room where I belonged and no longer had to perform. I realized this: You do not find your people by shrinking yourself, You find them by fully being yourself, accepting yourself, and loving yourself.

Here’s the part most people do not talk about: Choosing yourself will cost you, and that’s okay.

Some people will fall away.

Some will misunderstand you.

Some will call you “too much.”

Let them. The right people will never require you to become less. True independence is not about needing no one, it is about not abandoning yourself. I live by this phrase: you cannot set yourself on fire to keep others warm. Choose relationships that add to your life, not ones you have to contort yourself to fit into.

When you commit to being your own best friend and protector of your happiness, everything changes.

You stop over-giving.

You stop chasing.

You stop explaining yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you.

And what remains is different.

Quieter. Smaller, sometimes.

But far more real.

Looking back now, I can see that my lowest point was not the end of something, it was the beginning of my relationship with myself, one that I now protect fiercely.

So here is the question: If you are the one person you are guaranteed to spend your entire life with, are you someone you actually want to live with? Maybe it is time we rewrote the promise, not as something reserved for weddings, but as something we carry within, a commitment to protect our peace by being ourselves.

To live a life that feels right, even if it looks wrong to others, to stand by ourselves, even when it is uncomfortable. So, if you are making the promise: For better or worse, till death do you part…

Make sure it is to yourself.

Sinéad Kennedy is an Irish writer, speaker, and regular media contributor with a deep passion for life and living it fully. She is the author of Life is a Cycle and founder of Zen & Tonic Wellness Activity Holidays and Events. Through her work, she inspires others to choose themselves, embrace independence, and “say yes to life!”