A young Australian woman has revealed the unexpected and positive side effect of being a single mom — becoming instantly more attractive.
Rachel Witteman, 26, is a real estate agent with one young son and has been single for 18 months.
After becoming a single mom, she revealed what happened to her life and quickly gained a fanbase on TikTok.
“Does it get easier? No, however, do you get hotter? Yes,” she said.
Witteman’s confession was applauded by other women who felt exactly the same after a break-up.
“This is a fantastic perspective,” one praised.
“The glow-up is real,” another confirmed.
“Same,” one single mom confirmed.
“Absolutely get hotter,” someone else said.
The 26-year-old finished her TikTok by pointing out that a “win is a win.”
Witteman told news.com.au that she noticed she was looking better after her break-up, often getting compliments from friends and strangers.
“People telling me that you look better. You’re glowing! Probably because you’ve lost a weight that has been on your shoulders,” she said.
She said she’s not surprised people have noticed she’s looking better because she thinks how you’re feeling can dictate how you look.
Witteman said that if “you’re not happy” that can lead to not looking your best, and the break-up has allowed her to rediscover her “self-identity.”
The real estate agent said that since her break-up, she’s had a complete lifestyle overhaul and has started investing in herself again.
“I’m going to the gym, catching up with friends more, being more social and eating better,” she said.
She also feels like a better mum these days because she’s feeling fulfilled within herself, which is affecting the rest of her life.
“You can’t pour from an empty cup,” she said.
Witteman’s assessment that she’s looking hotter now that she’s single isn’t completely out of pocket.
Interestingly, research shows that single women are a lot better off than those in relationships when it comes to health.
In 2019, Paul Dolan, a professor of behavioral science at The London School of Economics, spoke at Hay Festival and said being single was a better choice for women from a health perspective.
“If you’re a man, you should probably get married; if you’re a woman, don’t bother,” he advised.
Dolan’s advice stems from research he’d done for his book on happiness, “Happy Ever After,” which found that while men’s healthiness increased after getting married, women’s health was more likely to deteriorate.
Dolan said that when men marry, they typically “take less risks, earn more money at work, and live a little longer,” he argued.
Interestingly, women don’t reap the same benefits from marrying a man.
“She, on the other hand, has to put up with that, and dies sooner than if she never married,” he added.
“The healthiest and happiest population subgroup are women who never married or had children.”
Psychologist Carly Dober said that women are generally more likely to thrive when single.
“We do know that women tend to generally fair better than men after a relationship breakdown because women engage in help-seeking behaviors such as accessing therapy and social support from friends and loved ones and are less likely to engage in substance misuse to distract from the pain compared with men,” she told news.com.au.
“Anecdotally, women also tend to find much more cognitive space and time to invest in themselves which might mean that movement, fun, dressing however they want to dress, trying out new hairstyle that the ex never wanted them to try,” she said.
“Living life fully can mean that they feel hotter than they did when they were in a relationship that was not serving them.”
