single or married

As more of us are avoiding marriage, divorcing or choosing to live alone, Viv Groskop asks whether one state is really better than the other

Ever since the Bridget Jones phenomenon catapulted single life into the British mainstream, the single vs couple debate has raged. Numerous surveys and reports have been carried out to prove that singles are happier, or that couples have a longer life expectancy. And now that uncovering the secrets of human happiness has become one of the key agendas for psychologists and governments, research budgets are increasing.

But, according to Brett Kahr, a psychotherapist at the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships, researchers are missing the point when they focus on your significant other as the source of happiness and mental well-being. In fact, he argues, it wouldn't matter if it was a number of significant others – what we need to be happy is that sense of security. 'We all have an inherent need for attachment,' he explains. 'We need people to take an interest in us, to look after us and to keep us in mind.' We need to feel we are the most important person to at least one other person. And what research is now hoping to uncover, he says, is whether single people can get the same level of attachment from a close friend, or group of friends, as a couple can get from each other.

For Kahr, what is important is not your outer state – married or single – but 'the kind of images, role models and internal figures you have in your head'. If these are positive and well-balanced representations of relationships, friendships and the other people in your life, you are more likely to be a happy person, regardless of whether you are married or not. If you carry contradictory, self-deprecating messages in your head – 'My parents divorced, therefore all marriages fail' or 'My partner gives me security, but I can't live without him' – then you are more likely to be unhappy.

The important thing is not whether you actually possess what psychologists call a 'central relationship', but how healthily you relate to that person, or to being single, in your own mind. Kahr argues that it is possible to feel alone in a marriage, and fulfilled when single: neither the state of togetherness or that of solitude guarantees happiness. How you interpret the situation is key. Susannah, a 36-year-old jeweller, says her friends would call her 'happily married', but admits that she doesn't always feel that way. 'When my husband is around I feel like we're a contented, secure couple. But he goes away on business for weeks on end, leaving me feeling frustrated and lonely. Sometimes I wonder whether the good times outweigh the bad.'

Janet Reibstein, psychologist and author of 'The Best Kept Secret: Men and Women's Stories of Lasting Love' (£12.99, Bloomsbury), says the positive thing about relationships is that they tend to give us a safe base from which to explore the rest of the world. Single people usually don't have this, she argues. When they do – by cultivating a select network of friends – it is a real fight for them to

maintain the secure structure that automatically exists in a stable couple: 'I think single people can create substitute situations, but they have to work at it constantly.'

This does not mean, however, that all people in relationships are by definition happier than singles. 'We don't want to get down to a simplistic equation where we are saying that being in a couple is better than not being in one,' says Reibstein. 'Because being in the wrong couple can destroy your sense of security, especially if you're in a frustrating relationship where you are always seeking and not getting.'

This is where we come down to the happiness hierarchy: asking whether we're better off in a couple or single is a bit like asking whether a mother is the best person to look after a child, says Reibstein. Of course the optimum carer for a child is its mother (just as relationships are the optimum state for humans). But this doesn't mean that the child wouldn't be equally well looked after by other carers (singles have just as many chances at happiness, providing they create strong networks of support that imitate partnership).

If we are going to play good, better, best: a happy partnership (and, in fact, the socially recognised form of marriage) is statistically best, but happy singledom can be equally fulfilling. Next comes miserable singledom. But the worst condition, it seems, is an unhappy relationship.

Ultimately, the experts agree, mental well-being comes down to your attitude to life, which may be influenced by your marital status (or lack thereof), but is not exclusively defined by it. If you tend to assume that the grass is always greener – if you're married and envy your single friends, for example, then you're less likely to be satisfied. 'If you are settled, you do not have anxieties about your own deficiencies, as you might if you were unhappily single, or as you might about someone else's deficiencies, in an unhappy relationship,' says Reibstein.

A key psychological definition of happiness is a willingness to explore life, to maintain curiosity and be alive to new experiences. While single life allows greater freedom to do this, a long-term, doubt-free relationship gives many people a level of confidence and openness to life they may otherwise lack. Each state has its unique benefits, so perhaps even asking the question of who is happier – therefore dwelling on what lies on the other side of the fence – makes us less happy. Perhaps we should focus not on what we lack, but on what we can gain from the situation we find ourselves in.