I know the single life is really tough. I still remember. I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t do everything well when I was single. I fell into some traps that lead to heartbreak and mistakes. Many times, falling into a trap was caused by me deciding to settle.
There are many ways that you can settle. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like settling in the moment, but you realize it afterwards. Below are a few ways that you might be tempted to settle and some reasons to help you resist the temptation.
Don’t Settle for Blaming Yourself
If you’re single and would rather not be, it’s easy to blame yourself. If only you were [insert insecurity here] you would probably be in a relationship. The truth is, that’s probably not the truth or at least not the whole truth. Yes, you should strive to be your best self. However, your single status is probably not entirely your fault.
Relationships are a gift of God’s grace, given not earned. God doesn’t wait for you to reach a certain level of maturity, physical fitness, or achievement before he sends you a spouse. Look at the world around you. There are some pretty immature, out of shape, losers who are married. Clearly, perfection is not a prerequisite for a relationship. Don’t settle for beating yourself up when it’s not really your fault. (For more on this, check out this post)
Don’t Settle for Blaming Anything Else
If it’s not entirely your fault that your single, it’s also not entirely the fault of your parents, friends, college choice, life path, career path, or men in general. Again, a relationship is a gift of grace. While a thousand things factor into your relationship status (or lack thereof), there is no one factor at fault. I guess technically you can blame God, because he’s in ultimate control, but he also gives people free will so that gets a little messy. Don’t settle for blame at all. It doesn’t help anything and it only makes you feel helpless.
Don’t Settle for Friends with Benefits
If someone doesn’t want to date you, they shouldn’t get to kiss you, hold your hand, touch you in provocative ways, or have sex with you. Don’t let a “friend” talk you into it because it would be “safe” and you could “experiment” or “try things out” or “help each other.” Physical expressions of intimacy were designed by God to accompany emotional intimacy. If you start doing one form of intimacy, the other will follow, at least for one of you, whether you want it to or not.
If you’ve not been in a relationship for a long time (or ever), friends with benefits is tempting. It seems like you can get your physical needs met without the emotional pieces, and that should be better than getting no needs met. But it’s not. In the end, it only makes you feel more lonely. When someone wants your body but not your soul, the soul slowly dies and your heart becomes hardened. Don’t settle for it.
Don’t Settle for a Loser
A loser comes in many forms and shapes, but the basic premise is, someone who doesn’t make you a better, healthier person. Someone who doesn’t have the same faith as you is probably going to be a loser. They’re not going to help you in your faith journey. Someone who stresses you out, puts you down, or continually hurts you in anyway is definitely a loser.
There’s also something to having a job and some kind of ambition. If a guy is living in his mother’s basement, doesn’t have a job, and has no plans to improve himself, he’s a loser. If a guy isn’t motivated enough to provide for himself, there’s no way he’s going to be motivated enough to provide for another person. This is going to lead to a life of insecurity and anxiety on your part. He doesn’t have to be or dream of being a CEO, but he should have some plans and dreams for his life and his work and how he wants to make the world a better place. Don’t settle for a loser that just wants to stay chilling in the basement.
Don’t Settle for Living Together
Is there a little girl out there who dreams of living with a guy, doing all the things a wife does, with a guy who won’t man up and actually commit to her? No, I don’t think so. Living together is settling. When you’re living together, a man gets all the benefits of having a wife, without having to commit, without having to combine his finances in any real way, and without having to give up the benefits of being single. He’s not married, after all. (I’m not the only one saying this, check out this book for more info)
Statistics show that living together is not the ideal (again, this book is helpful). Living together is life on a man’s terms. He gets his needs met. The girl is left hoping he’ll eventually propose. It’s not a step towards marriage, though sometimes it’s followed by marriage. It’s a compromise where the woman loses because the desire of her heart is not met. Marriages that follow living together are statistically less healthy and less satisfying than those where the couple did not live together beforehand.
So don’t settle. If he wants to live together, he needs to commit to you first. Living together doesn’t mean that your relationship won’t work out. It doesn’t mean you’re doomed to fail. It does mean that you will experience more stress and anxiety than you need to. If you love Jesus, your soul will suffer. You can’t help but feel off when you’re doing something that goes against how God designed things to work.
My friend, whatever it looks like for you, please don’t settle. God has promised to give you life and give it to the full. Life to the full is not a life of settling. Life to the full is living the way God designed you to live. It’s viewing yourself the way God views you, and you’re worth more than settling.
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash