"I do love you, but I'm just not ready yet," said Emily Wu. She has lost track of the number of times she repeated the same sentence to her boyfriend over the last three months.
Wu and her boyfriend have been together for more than six years. They met while studying at a university in Beijing. In their friends' eyes, they are the perfect couple with a stable relationship since youth. Both of their families are happy with their choice for a life partner, so the natural next step should be marriage. But Wu can't seem to make herself say, "yes."
"Considering our age, we should get married. But the mere thought of marriage and living with someone for the rest of my life makes me feel scared and lost," Wu said.
A strong sense of fear and anxiety hit her every time she pictures herself as a wife or mother. As she gets older, she feels growing pressure from her boyfriend and family to tie the knot.
Wu is not alone. An increasing number of young Chinese aged 20 to early 30s are joining what is commonly called the "marriage-fear camp" in China.
A total of 22 percent of the respondents polled in a 2015 public survey conducted by Qilu Evening News, a provincial newspaper in Shandong Province, said they were afraid of marriage, while statistics published by China Youth Daily in 2016 show that more than 60 percent of young Chinese have marriage fears. It appears that marriage, once synonymous with everlasting love, is becoming unwanted by many young people, and experts predict that fear of marriage will continue to grow in China.
Should I or shouldn't I?
Wu and her boyfriend Peter Li met in a hiking community at university. She still remembers the first time she saw him on campus. She fell in love with him almost immediately.
"It was sunset, and he smiled at me with softness and warmth. I knew I would not say no if he asked me out," she said.
He did, and they become a couple. They have experienced many ups and downs together: graduation season, starting each other's career, and long-distance love for two years. She loves him deeply and never thought of marrying anyone but him. But now that it's time to get married, she falters.
She cannot help wondering whether she is choosing the right person and if she would ever get some alone time after marriage. "What if I find someone else that I love more years later?" she said.
Her fears are compounded when she thinks about their home life. The couple has been living together for six months, and some of his habits have begun to wear on her. For example, he plays online games a lot at home, which she thinks is a waste of time. Loving him yet unwilling to marry him, Wu finds herself stuck in a dilemma, so she tries everything she can to postpone her boyfriend's marriage plan.
Chen Qiong, a senior psychological therapist, said Wu's situation is common among young Chinese.
"The fear comes from your desire for marriage. The higher your expectation of marriage, the more anxious you become," Chen said.
In essence, the fear one experiences is caused by the individual's sense of uncertainty and lack of security.
"Young Chinese are still children inside, even though they are adults biologically," said Gao Heng, a Guangzhou-based senior psychological counselor.
Likening people who fear marriage to kids who are always uncertain about their choices and afraid of taking responsibility and accepting the consequences of their actions, Gao said immaturity is the main reason many young Chinese of marrying age fear marriage.
