New Bride at 42 Writes Open Letter to Single Women Everywhere: 'F--- the Way it's Supposed to Happen' (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Photo:MCW PHOTOCINEMA

MCW PHOTOCINEMA

When influencer Aly Teich fell in love and got engaged in 2022, after years of always being considered “the single one,” she wasn’t sure how to tell her friends and social media followers about the happy milestone without making some of them feel, well,less than.

“For years, I felt like I was left behind as all my friends got married or had children,” says Teich, 42, who started the fitness lifestyle brand The Sweat Life and now works in creative planning for Nike in Los Angeles.

The experience of doing neither left her feeling lonely and like she was somehow failing. And living in the era of social media didn’t make things any easier.

“Always seeing my friends on vacations and with their families and popping out babies and having weddings and getting engaged and it all looks so happy in the years when I was really feeling lonely and left behind…it certainly factors into the game of comparison. And really, how can you not compare when you are just being fed content of other people’s lives at all times?” she says.

After she met and fell in love with her now-husband Jason Edwards when she was 40, she was hesitant about sharing the experience on her social media in case she made someone feel bad. So a week before her late October destination wedding, she wrote a letter titled"An Open Letter to All Single People From a Recently Single 42-Year-Old Soon-to-be-Bride."

“Before I flood you with a deluge of wedding content, I felt compelled to address all of the single people out there, with the intention of helping you feel a little more seen in your very real experiences and to hopefully offer you some, well, hope,” she wrote on her Instagram.

Jay and Aly’s wedding in Cabo.MCW PHOTOCINEMA

“While I just wanted to feel happy for these people (and I was!) I was also left feeling generally lesser about myself and would cycle through the same questions of self-doubt: ‘What am I doing wrong? What is wrong with me? Am I going to die alone?”

Teich goes on to explain how she felt like she was in a different class than married friends, and while she wanted her letter to validate single life, she also wrote about finally finding real love later in life — and says it looked nothing like what she was expecting when she was younger.

She said she had the life experience to look for a love rooted in much deeper values - and that’s what she found.

She says getting to this place, where she was able to meet and recognize someone worth marrying, came through years of hard work, going to therapy, breaking bad habits, and generational cycles.

“This dedication to myself led me to be in a different place with myself, to look for and value different and deeper qualities in a partner. And most importantly, be ready to be the partner I would want in someone else,” she wrote.

Jay and Aly celebrate their wedding in Cabo.MCW PHOTOCINEMA

She says the idea of “He’s still out there’ is true.

“But you have to be ready to recognize and choose the good ones, if they don’t come in the exact package you were originally looking for or expecting,” she says.

Teich tells PEOPLE that the positive response she’s received from the post has been overwhelming.

Aly Teich walking down the aisle with her father.MCW PHOTOCINEMA

“I almost felt like it was my duty, in a way, to address these topics that we don’t talk about enough and help people feel seen and validated in their very real struggles of being single,” she says. “And that I knew the feelings from seeing that kind of content online.”

“I’m so grateful that I got to do it at this age,' says Teich, who wore Liz Martinez dress bought at En Blanc in L.A. She paired the look with Valentino shoes and K Kane Jewelry.

“I think we’re at an age when our parents are either gone or older, when the friends we have in our lives are really meaningful friendships, and we are able to recognize that having them all together with our families in one place is rare and fleeting. So it felt like we were able to appreciate how special it all was on a deeper level than we might have when we were younger.”

While she’s looking forward to newlywed life, she says she’ll never lose sight of who she was when she was single, and is just thrilled that her message resonated with so many women.

“F— the way it’s “supposed to happen according to society, your family, your married friends, or anyone else except for YOU,” she wrote in her letter.

She tells PEOPLE, “All of us are conditioned in some way, shape, or form to think life should go or should look a certain way at certain points, and I just want to hand everyone a permission slip to remember that there are a lot fewer shoulds in this life than we think there are.”

Aly Teich and her new husband Jay celebrate their wedding.MCW PHOTOCINEMA

“And I think once we start to let go of those ‘shoulds’ and really lean into the way wewant to do, it is truer to ourselves, and there’s a lot of joy to derive from that. Because otherwise, you can punish yourself if you’re not living up to those ‘shoulds,’ and that creates a lot of unhappiness.”

Plus, she does believe that even though modern dating is rough, there are good guys out there. “I want people to know what I went through to get here, and maybe have some hope from it.”

source: people.com