Dear Tita, Thanks for Your Concern. Here Are All the Reasons I'm Not Married

(SPOT.ph) My parents were 24 and 27 when they got married. Now, nearly 40 years later, here I am at 27 years old, mentally prepping to field questions from pesky elders at upcoming holiday celebrations. By the time my mom was 27, she had two kids with a third on the way. Meanwhile, I'm practicing my tight-lipped smile and "Ay, hindi pa po, tita!" in the mirror.

It's a question singles and partnered-but-not-officially always get asked, "Hindi ka pa kasal?". From the slew of unsolicited remarks and other questions about weight, partner (or lack of), career, hair choice, style choice, really any choice you've made, typically received at family get-togethers, this is the one I dread the most.

I get how it looks to them. They followed a path growing up: graduate college, get a job, marry, quit job, raise a family (in a house you own). By old-timey standards, I'm already an old maid, destined for a life of destitution. Still, it's hard to think that their questions come with good intentions—especially if it's said the way judgy titas tend to ask you things, looking down at you with an upturned nose—when there seems to be an unwillingness to understand where I'm coming from myself. So here's a kodigo of sorts, for every elder out there with a strange interest in my love life, to explain why I'm not yet married.

There are two main reasons behind my unwillingness to get married. The first is feasibility, and the second is well, just because.

Also read: I'm "Single" and Married

Marriage? In this economy?

My parents spent around P20,000 for their wedding reception in 1983 in the old Jusmag area, long before it became known as BGC. To compare, a colleague spent P250,000 just to book a place in Makati in 2022; granted that was her dream spot and the price was consumable, but the difference is stark. Another friend and her fiancée are spending more than a million for a Tagaytay wedding next year. 

So, tita, unless you're willing sponsor a major chunk of the event—or even more far off, not be hurt if you don't get an invite because we decided to go the intimate wedding route, or be scandalized by a civil ceremony—please don't expect a wedding any time soon.

Beyond the ceremony, the title of "homeowner" is a distant dream from most of my generation and beyond. Come 1898, barely in their 30s, my parents were able to buy 1,000 square meters of land in their hometown of Puerto Princesa at P30 per. The next year, they bought 2,000 more, only this time, the price was raised to a gobsmacking P60 per. Come 1992, they had already built a house from the ground up. Now, I've also looked into buying right next to our family home in the province. The price currently? P5,000. What a difference 30 years can make.

Still, that P5,000 in the province is absolute peanuts next to property in Metro Manila, which is where my partner and I work and have made roots. Renting seems to be the only option for my generation if we want to stay in an urban area. Compare that P5,000 per square meter to little matchbox condominiums in CBD's like Makati, Ortigas, or god forbid, BGC; P150,000 per square meter is nothing in those places. A friend of mine technically has property in the city: her parents put their condo's parking lot in her name, and the monthly payment leaves quite a mark, despite her already being a marketing lead for an international company. The salaries cannot keep up. Plain and simple.

And after the wedding and finding out where to live comes the next major costly step: having children. Hospital bills for my birth reached just around P300 in 1995 because the doctors were family friends, fast forward to 2017 and my sister and her husband ended up paying P300,000 for an emergency C-section. I didn't know what my brother-in-law was more anxious about, my sister and the baby, or the bill. Those three additional zeroes, coming up in the span of just about two decades, are more than enough to remind me that "financially stable enough to start a family" is still a goal at this point. Then there's diapers, milk, check-ups, then school, clothes, allowance, and all these things piling up one bill after the other.

All of these examples, tita, are to say one thing: My wallet cannot handle. I can barely handle myself, and I already still live at my parents, what more a family? Sure, my partner and I can pool income, cut costs, and compromise in one way or another—or we can wait to get married when we actually can. 

Also read:
How to Survive Christmas Reunions When Your Weight and Marital Status are on the Menu
'Tumaba Ka': Are Filipinos the Worst Body-Shamers?

I Don't Want To, Not Yet

Now that you understand why I can't get married money-wise, there is also the simple matter of me not wanting to. I'm not saying never, I'm saying not right now.

To be frank, marriage is a scary lifelong commitment. How many of my friends even believe in marriage nowadays? How many of my friends have parents who are still together in old age, in a happy and healthy way (with non-traumatized children to boot)? The truth is, I can count couples that I know of who've aged gracefully together with the fingers on one hand. Perhaps it was because they married too young or for the wrong reasons, but at the very least, we're learning from your mistakes, tita. If there was a choice between being solitary but content or partnered up with someone you've simply learned to tolerate, well, we can choose the former now.

There was a time marriage was an economic proposition, as Amy said in Greta Gerwig's version of Little Women. Now, women are more than capable of making it on their own. We can pick and choose among the brood who we'd actually like to get old with, and if there's none, then that's fine, too. Marriage and family are no longer women's sole purpose in society—and with that comes the ability to simply choose to stay not-married. Look, tita, I can see that vein in your head popping, but simply said, not having a husband makes us no less of a woman.

Right now, I'm simply making sure that I become a person worth forever: financially stable, emotionally mature, willing to choose love every day, and all that.

Romantics aside, today's world is simply not the one you grew up in, tita. We're aging differently now, going through the stages at a different pace, making choices you might not have been able to make—all for the better. After all, isn't that what you want for us? 

Mia Rodriguez is an associate editor of SPOT.ph. When she isn't spiralling thinking about inflation, she leads the news and entertainment sections of the site.