I never expected to be single for this long. And it was not for lack of trying.

As a divorced single mother, I have done my fair share of online dating, particularly after discovering that waiting to encounter an eligible single man in the produce aisle of the local grocery store was proving remarkably fruitless.

Somewhere along the way, though, something unexpected happened: I got very good at navigating single motherhood. Not necessarily at liking it all the time. There is a difference.

I learned how to run our household around my children and their schedules. Eventually, it became easier to navigate our life on my own than to integrate another adult’s expectations, preferences and routines into a system my children and I had already learned to manage.

I also learned very early in adulthood not to rely on a man for money. After divorce, that lesson became less theoretical. I built my career, saved and invested around the assumption that I needed to be able to support myself and my children. Those years also taught me some of the wealth-building skills hidden in single motherhood . That has given me freedom. It has not made raising a family alone free.

The American household looks different from the one many financial assumptions were built around. In 2025, 39.7 million Americans lived alone, representing 29% of all U.S. households , according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

I do not live alone. I live with my children. But there is only one adult carrying the financial responsibility for our household and making the decisions that keep it running.

The mortgage does not become cheaper because one adult is paying it. Neither do insurance, home repairs or transportation. Housing and transportation together accounted for just over half of average U.S. household spending in 2024 , according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Two adults have the potential to divide fixed expenses and share resources in a way that one adult cannot. I think of this as the single-adult premium : the additional financial pressure created when one person carries the household’s fixed expenses, unpaid labor and financial risk.

It helps explain why a woman can earn a good income, budget responsibly and still wonder why her money does not stretch as far as she thinks it should. A woman can build wealth and still feel financially insecure , particularly when her financial life has been shaped by years of carrying responsibility alone. Sometimes she is simply funding with one adult income what another household may support with two.

For families with little financial margin, that premium can determine whether a childcare disruption, home repair or unexpected bill becomes a financial crisis.

The Most Expensive Thing May Be Time

Money is only part of the premium. Sometimes time is the scarcer resource.

There are afternoons when two children need to be in two places at nearly the same time while I am also supposed to be working. School functions, practices, appointments and sick days can seem quietly designed around an imaginary second adult.

Those conflicts do not end with the traditional workday. Urban Institute research has found that children in single-parent families are disproportionately likely to have parents working nontraditional hours , including early mornings, evenings and weekends, and that families working those schedules can face additional challenges finding childcare.

In a two-adult household, someone may say, “You take this one and I’ll take that one.” When there is one adult, I negotiate with the clock: Can I move the meeting? Can another parent drive? Can I pay someone? Which thing matters most today?

Sometimes I solve the problem with money. Other times, I pay with opportunity by rearranging work, declining something or simply absorbing the stress. And sometimes I am simply tired. There are evenings when the kids get out of the car and go into the house and I sit there for a few extra minutes, enjoying a quiet car where nobody needs me.

That does not mean I need someone to rescue me. It means sharing the weight sometimes sounds wonderful.

Being The Only Adult Changes Risk

Being the only adult also changes how I think about financial risk. In a household supported primarily by one adult income, illness, disability or job loss can threaten everything at once.

That matters in a country where only 63% of adults said they could cover a $400 emergency entirely with cash or its equivalent in 2025 , according to the Federal Reserve.

For a single parent, emergency savings may have to do some of the work that a second paycheck could do elsewhere. Cash reserves, disability insurance, life insurance and estate planning feel less like financial-planning checkboxes and more like household infrastructure. Being financially okay is about more than the size of an account balance . It is also about whether the financial foundation underneath it is stable, protected and capable of absorbing disruption.

I want a financial plan that works whether I marry again or not, and that has changed what partnership means to me.

When Partnership Becomes A Choice

Would my life be easier with a partner? In some ways, I imagine it would.

There is something appealing about having another adult to share the ordinary weight of life with: someone to talk through decisions with, laugh with at the end of a long day, notice when I am stretched too thin and sometimes take something off my plate. Maybe that means making or ordering dinner, picking up one child while I take the other somewhere else or handling a problem I would otherwise have to solve alone.

But years of running a household alone have also taught me that another adult does not automatically make life easier. A partner brings his own schedule, needs, habits, finances and expectations, not to mention children. The right person may share the weight. The wrong person can add to it.

That realization changed the question for me. It stopped being, “Would my life be easier if there were a man in the house?” The more important question became, “Would my life be better with this particular partner in it?”

My life already contains children I adore, work that matters to me, friendships, faith, ambitions and a home that feels like ours. Somewhere along the way, I stopped thinking of all of that as the opening act before my real life resumed with a partner.

Once you have built a peaceful, financially stable household on your own, partnership is no longer competing with loneliness. It is competing with a life that already works.

So, Can I Afford To Stay Single?

There is undeniably a cost to raising a family with one adult. I pay more of the fixed expenses myself. I sometimes have to buy time another household can divide between two people. I need greater financial protection because one primary adult income supports our daily life.

But asking whether I can “afford” to stay single subtly turns partnership into a financial strategy.

I do not want my retirement plan to depend on another income eventually arriving. I want enough savings to survive an emergency and plans designed around the family I have today. I also want enough margin that remaining single does not require me to operate perpetually at the edge of exhaustion.

Financial security should buy more than survival. Sometimes it should buy help, flexibility and the ability to rest without fearing that everything will fall apart.

I never planned to be single for this long, and there are still times when I grieve the life I thought I might have had. Sometimes I look at families with two adults sharing the ordinary work of life and feel envious of what seems easier from the outside. Sometimes I want someone beside me badly enough that independence feels less empowering than exhausting. I can admit all of that without concluding that the life my children and I have built is deficient.

Maybe I will marry again. I hope love is still part of my future. But I no longer think my family is sitting in a waiting room until a husband arrives and our real life begins.

If I choose a partner, I want him because I love him, because I enjoy him and because our lives are better together, not because I need his paycheck or another driver in the driveway.

There is a real financial cost to raising a family alone. I know because I pay it. But perhaps one of the greatest returns on building financial security is that it allows a woman to make one of life’s most consequential decisions without asking whether she can afford to say no.

I do not need partnership to have a complete life. I want enough security to choose it only when it makes that life better for all of us.