Settling for a Person at Any Age Deteriorates Your Soul

Millions of people can explain to us why settling is bad. Settling is not in your best interest, trust me. Even deep down inside yourself, you know. There is too long of a list to list here about the things that will keep you from being yourself and will keep you from your dreams. What are some things that settling will take from you?

Progression

When we settle, we fail ourselves. We say in our hearts, “This is what I deserve,” “This is all there is,” and “I can’t let anyone know.” This will stump your developmental growth.

Satisfaction

Why is satisfaction important? Because it is linked with all other areas of your life, including your family. Indirectly, you tell your family that satisfaction takes second place to future counseling. Taking care of yourself is where satisfaction comes from. Satisfaction is not about being selfish, it’s about standing tall and shouting loudly, “This is my family! This is the one I choose every time.”

I think most people reading this can relate to being unsatisfied with something. When something catches our attention and makes us regret the decisions that have placed us where we are. We go down the list of things that are unsatisfactory in our lives, and that directly gives us our own self-reflection, “I suck.” When you walk around and see a couple and say, “They are so lucky, I will forever have a lesser life chained to me.”

Family Life

If you are unhappy with your current situation, how can you teach your children to walk the road you know nothing of? You may love your children, but if you do not love their mother or father, then a division in your heart will seep out and into your children’s relationships. Why and how? Because your love for your spouse in public and in the home is makeshift in your heart. Your heart is elsewhere. Your heart is dragging you into a place of even mild to severe depression.

Spiritual Life

This is the same concept. In your spiritual life, you will climb life’s mountain to the level of your settling.

How Do I Get My Life Back?

If you are currently in a marriage that you regret, I recommend more than my next breath that you seek consultation with a counselor accredited by the American Counseling Association and with your state’s licensure (I live in North Carolina, and counselors in NC are called Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselors (LCMHC) or professionals accredited by the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC), which are called National Certified Counselors (NCC)).

If you are not in a marriage, you can have that talk at any time.

Prevention

Many of you are starting over with relationships or have not had any luck with them. This is the perfect place to be. Millions of people dream of being at the starting line again.

Here is where you set your boundaries and expectations.

Let me share with you some of my boundaries for myself:

She must WANT to live an exciting life as a lifestyle, always showing up for herself;
She must WANT to be very lively in her femininity (for many people, this many others on this list may require counseling in order to open themselves to the great world again);
She must WANT to grow spiritually.
She must WANT to raise humble champions;
She must LOVE to communicate with me;
She must WANT to be quick to be open and honest, even with the hard things;
She must LOVE to encourage/exhort my development in healthy masculinity;
She must WANT make me feel like she is my home;
She must WANT to be someone that attracts me;
She must WANT to keep herself safe in the community (honor and respect her dignity and when that is threatened, unleash the hellhounds);
She must WANT to be in love;
She must WANT me closer than any coworker;
She must WANT to not humor men in the grocery store, “Hi. I’m having the hardest time finding this awesome Asian sauce for this stir-fry. I know you’re busy, but I’ve looked for about 20 minutes, and I’m at a loss. I get overwhelmed in stores, if I can be honest. I’m Jody Dirtbag Dipsh*t, by the way.”
She must WANT to respect the male brain when it comes to attraction (whether on vacation or not); and
She must be a lifelong learner with her goals.

She must actually love me, essentially. Also known as a healthy relationship.

Notice that I never once said she needed to change her values. Rather, her values line up with my non-negotiables for myself. I would be shooting myself in the foot (while being chased by a bear), so to speak, if I let even one of those slip. No, I want her to want those things.

If a woman did not want those things, I would still be single. But I’m married now, after 7 years of being single. I have found someone who wants all those things. I’ve done the settling thing before and paid a high price! I lost almost all my firsts with someone. These firsts are VERY important for women.

I don’t consider mini-dates to be in a relationship. A relationship is based on the closest and most intimate of friendships and is the foundation for marriage. Marriage is both people getting out of their cars and entering the same car on life’s journey, it is an exclusive spirit-resonating connection. Dating is merely seeing if we are capable.

Imagine if you were someone who loved communication, but when your significant other came home each day from work, they texted friends and family and gave you nothing you craved. My point.

I’m at a place in my life where I can run with someone who is running at the same speed as me, metaphorically. She and I are each other’s pit crew. The moment something is off, we pull off and talk about it, and she helps get me back in working order and sees me off. I do the same for her. We quickly help each other back on. We have a daughter now, so it is even more important that we are in the same car going to the same mountain home.

I think we all also have experience with being let down hard by our significant other because we were not in the same car as them. An example would be your significant other putting a friend of your gender over you, and when an issue arises, they run to their call on your date night. You say, “Woah, what is this? I have been put in second place by a friend, and we did not even talk about this before they made the decision?”

Right, that is right. They are in a relationship with that other person more than you, because that is what they were supposed to do for you. In a relationship, the significant other comes first now. You are in the same car, and life is now dependent on who is in the car. In our scenario above, that is you and them being in different cars and you having to turn around just to find them, then you find them at a bar and you say, “We had a plan.” They say, “Yeah, but I just stopped here for a drink. It’s what I do.”

It’s okay if that’s what you do. But that communication belonged in the conversation when the trip was planned. Called maturity.

I put my wife first and she puts me first, so we can have the right driver for this time of the trip. Then we take care of those behind us (children) when the driver is in good driving shape. Then we help others, outside the car, when we can and to the best of our ability and humility!

It’s totally fine if that’s not how you operate, but you have to find out how you operate through life successfully. My checklist is how I do it.

If you settle for someone who doesn’t have what you crave, you are also setting yourself up for future disaster.

Conclusion

Do not give up on yourself! You are worth it! You deserve to live life unstoppably!

Feel free to use my checklist if that works for you. Remember, outward appearances can be deceiving, but it is also important to have, as well, in addition to a great and developed heart. Men and women have brain chemicals that need tending, like flowers. Do not neglect your brain. That will just create more division.

Thank you for positive comments! Thank you for reading! Thank you for following!

Subscribe:

Get an email whenever Jessica Lyon & Joshua J. Lyon, BSQP, CNP (J & J) publishes.
Get an email whenever Jessica Lyon & Joshua J. Lyon, BSQP, CNP (J & J) publishes. By signing up, you will create a…
medium.com

—

This post was previously published on medium.com.

***