Settling For Less In A Relationship Quotes

Living with integrity means: Not settling for less than what you know you deserve in your relationships. Asking for what you want and need from others. Speaking your truth, even though it might create conflict or tension. Behaving in ways that are in harmony with your personal values. Making choices based on what you believe, and not what others believe.

Once you embrace your value, talents and strengths, it neutralizes when others think less of you.

Many, many readers have written asking me wistfully about the nature of Sam and Grace's relationship, and I can assure you, that sort is absolutely real. Mutual, respectful, enduring love is completely attainable as long as you swear you won't settle for less.

The ones who are not soul-mated – the ones who have settled – are even more dismissive of my singleness: It’s not that hard to find someone to marry, they say. No relationship is perfect, they say – they, who make do with dutiful sex and gassy bedtime rituals, who settle for TV as conversation, who believe that husbandly capitulation – yes, honey, okay, honey – is the same as concord. He’s doing what you tell him to do because he doesn’t care enough to argue, I think. Your petty demands simply make him feel superior, or resentful, and someday he will fuck his pretty, young coworker who asks nothing of him, and you will actually be shocked. Give me a man with a little fight in him, a man who calls me on my bullshit. (But who also kind of likes my bullshit.) And yet: Don’t land me in one of those relationships where we’re always pecking at each other, disguising insults as jokes, rolling our eyes and ‘playfully’ scrapping in front of our friends, hoping to lure them to our side of an argument they could not care less about. Those awful if only relationships: This marriage would be great if only… and you sense the if only list is a lot longer than either of them realizes. So I know I am right not to settle, but it doesn’t make me feel better as my friends pair off and I stay home on Friday night with a bottle of wine and make myself an extravagant meal and tell myself, This is perfect, as if I’m the one dating me. As I go to endless rounds of parties and bar nights, perfumed and sprayed and hopeful, rotating myself around the room like some dubious dessert. I go on dates with men who are nice and good-looking and smart – perfect-on-paper men who make me feel like I’m in a foreign land, trying to explain myself, trying to make myself known. Because isn’t that the point of every relationship: to be known by someone else, to be understood? He gets me. She gets me. Isn’t that the simple magic phrase? So you suffer through the night with the perfect-on-paper man – the stutter of jokes misunderstood, the witty remarks lobbed and missed. Or maybe he understands that you’ve made a witty remark but, unsure of what to do with it, he holds it in his hand like some bit of conversational phlegm he will wipe away later. You spend another hour trying to find each other, to recognise each other, and you drink a little too much and try a little too hard. And you go home to a cold bed and think, That was fine. And your life is a long line of fine.

Believing you are worthy of love means that you believe I deserve to be treated well - with respect and dignity. I deserve to be cherished and adored by someone. I am worthy of an intimate and fulfilling relationship. I won't settle for less than I deserve. I will do whatever it takes to create that for myself.

Relationships: If you put up with it, you’re going to end up with it. Set the standard you want and don’t settle for less.

If they keep coming back to you, it isn't love. It is because you made yourself and easy option. The moment the thing they truly want becomes less difficult to obtain is when you will realize that your worth was on sale.

I dislike interaction. The less I say the better I feel. I was naturally a loner. I didn’t want conversation, or to goanywhere. I didn’t understand other people who wanted to share their emotions. Parties sickened me. I was drawn to all the wrong things: I was lazy , I didn’t have a god, politics, ideas, ideals. I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non - being, and I accepted it. I didn’t make for an interesting person. I didn’t want to be interesting, it was too hard. What I really wanted was only a soft, hazy space to live in, and to be left alone. Relationships never worked with me. I alwayslost interest. I simply disliked people, crowds, anywhere, except at my readings.

...Sometimes I suspect that what had really happened was that we became more resigned, more cynical, raised our pain thresholds as we lowered our expectations. All in all, settled for less.

Too many people spend their life in fear of making a mistake. However, here is the truth: Fear is the mistake. If you block out all the doubts and listen only to what you feel in your heart, then follow that course, you waste less time in indecision and spend more time being authentic. Life is too short to settle for parttime happiness.

Everything's going to be fine. Sooner or later you're going to find someone who knocks you right off your feet. Someone who makes you feel alive. Someone who kisses you and makes your knees weak. Relationships are complicated enough as it is. It's not worth settling for anything less.

Why do women always feel they have to settle for less?

The changes we make in life often happen when we have a degree of certainty. However, the pain of our past failures and the fears of our peers often fuel our uncertainty. This inability to predict the future is why people find themselves stuck and unable to move forward. They don't want to feel the emotions of failure. They prefer to talk themselves into settling for an "okay" life, rather than the life they really want. However, failure is a matter of perspective! Is it not failure when you don't take a chance on the one thing you need? There is no happiness in regret, staying safe or settling for anything less than what you can have through action.

A deep woman is a universe to explore, she is very challenging; but she is life.

Don't settle… The worst thing will be to find the man or woman that truly deserves you after you've married one who doesn't.

We habitually settle for less than our best; at work, in school, in our relationships, and on the playing field or race course.

The ones who are not soul-mated – the ones who have settled – are even more dismissive of my singleness: It’s not that hard to find someone to marry, they say. No relationship is perfect, they say – they, who make do with dutiful sex and gassy bedtime rituals, who settle for TV as conversation, who believe that husbandly capitulation – yes, honey, okay, honey – is the same as concord. He’s doing what you tell him to do because he doesn’t care enough to argue, I think. Your petty demands simply make him feel superior, or resentful, and someday he will fuck his pretty, young coworker who asks nothing of him, and you will actually be shocked. Give me a man with a little fight in him, a man who calls me on my bullshit. (But who also kind of likes my bullshit.) And yet: Don’t land me in one of those relationships where we’re always pecking at each other, disguising insults as jokes, rolling our eyes and ‘playfully’ scrapping in front of our friends, hoping to lure them to our side of an argument they could not care less about. Those awful if only relationships: This marriage would be great if only… and you sense the if only list is a lot longer than either of them realizes.

The greatest problem of human life is fear. It is fear that robs us of happiness. It is fear that causes us to settle for far less than we are capable of. It is fear that is the root cause of negative emotions, unhappiness and problems in human relationships.

Don't let the fear of being alone or the fear of not finding someone make you settle for less than what you deserve.

There are parts of a woman’s heart that are reserved for certain types of love. Experiencing the love of a father figure in an appropriate way is essential in paving the way for the love of a man to be experienced in the right way. The love of a father is vital in ensuring that a woman’s heart is kept open in this area. If this area is not kept open, it produces problems later on in a woman’s life, for that area is also reserved for the romantic love that comes in the form of a marriage relationship. This is an extremely sensitive area of the heart for a woman, and has plenty of opportunity to be easily bruised. When that does occur, she will put up a protective barrier to try and avoid any such pain occurring again. If this barrier isn’t dismantled fairly soon, a woman’s heart becomes accustomed to its protective barrier, and the heart shielded inside gradually becomes hardened. As women, we may be able to function like this for awhile. But there will come a time in your life where God will begin to peel away those hard layers surrounding your heart, and you probably won’t like that sensation. But you have to fight your natural instinct to run away. This is where many Christian women may get stuck. They view every man through the lens of what their father was to them, or what he was not. Their perception of men is shaded, and often damaged, by the very people who should have been modeling the world of adult relationships to their daughters. As a result, their judgement is often clouded, and women find themselves settling for less than what they truly deserve. Many marriages, even Christian marriages, have been damaged and even terminated because one or both partners refused to sit down and deal with their past issues.

So it’s all right for him to rule out a serious relationship, but it’s wrong if I’m not ready to settle for less?

But I would never again be alone in a relationship and pretend that was love. I would never again settle for a relationship or life less beautiful than the one I’d want for my child.

Call me a 'hopeless romantic'? I’m a romantic, but I’m not hopeless. I know there are good people out there; and that at least one of them is right for me. I won’t let you convince me to settle for less.

Honestly, the word "settling" makes my blood boil. It's an absolute insult! It introduces the degeneration of the soul and totally undermines our sensuality. It also dilutes the whole notion of what it means to be in love, in my opinion.

Never settle. One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever received was to never settle in relationships, friendships, your career, or your dreams. Never accept less than what you think you deserve, and aim for bigger and better (because you will probably get it!). You never want to look back and think, ‘I could have done more.’ You can do more…right now. Stop saying ‘someday.’ Start saying ‘today.

A ship in a harbour is a safe ship, but that's not what ships are built for. In the same way, a woman in a good relationship feels safe. But truth is, she innately knows she was not built for unnecessary safety, but rather for ultimate passion.

There is such a deep level of communication that unless you and your partner are really in touch with your own sensuality can’t reach. This has always been my biggest struggle in my previous relationships. My exes have always accused me of being deep, like it was a bad thing. I kind of felt weird and bad about it at times though, because I did not know how NOT to be deep. I tried so hard to have petty conversations about frivolous things with them, but I would always end up taking our conversation to the next level. The best way to put it is, I ALWAYS SEARCHED FOR “SOUL” OR ATTEMPTED TO BRING IT INTO EVERY CONVERSATION WE HAD. But I could still be a clown

A soulmate relationship is supposed to be a nurturing, safe space. Never settle for anything less.

Rather than experiencing the richness of a dynamic, intimate relationship with the righteous One, you put God in a little box that you can check off your to-do list each week. By settling for rules and religion and feeling pretty good about how much you’re doing for the church and those less fortunate, you become blinded to legalism and self-righteousness.

To settle is to choose what is safe over what is highly necessary for your growth. Don't settle!

Love is old security. Sensuality is new security.

We all make tradeoffs, compromises and we settle for less than we might need or want or even deserve when it comes to relationships.

Never stop falling in love with your significant other. Don't lose your desire to have sex with your significant other. It can ruin your relationship no matter how much you love them. If you can see your life without them, they are not The One. Be happy with what you have because you probably have a lot more then most people will ever get, but that doesn't mean settle for something less.

It’s rare that I have a boyfriend- that only happens if I fall in love. I’ve noticed that people who are never in a relationship just to be in a relationship keep their childlike spark because they don’t end up settling for things that make them unhappy, and they never feel as if they took less than what was out there for them. So for me, being single is what I do, and falling in love is the exception.

They’re baffled by my singleness. A smart, pretty, nice girl like me, a girl with so many interests and enthusiasms, a cool job, a loving family. And let’s say it: money. They knit their eyebrows and pretend to think of men they can set me up with, but we all know there’s no one left, no one good left, and I know that they secretly think there’s something wrong with me, something hidden away that makes me unsatisfiable, unsatisfying. The ones who are not soul-mated – the ones who have settled – are even more dismissive of my singleness: It’s not that hard to find someone to marry, they say. No relationship is perfect, they say – they, who make do with dutiful sex and gassy bedtime rituals, who settle for TV as conversation, who believe that husbandly capitulation – yes, honey, okay, honey – is the same as concord. He’s doing what you tell him to do because he doesn’t care enough to argue, I think. Your petty demands simply make him feel superior, or resentful, and someday he will fuck his pretty, young coworker who asks nothing of him, and you will actually be shocked. Give me a man with a little fight in him, a man who calls me on my bullshit. (But who also kind of likes my bullshit.) And yet: Don’t land me in one of those relationships where we’re always pecking at each other, disguising insults as jokes, rolling our eyes and ‘playfully’ scrapping in front of our friends, hoping to lure them to our side of an argument they could not care less about. Those awful if only relationships: This marriage would be great if only … and you sense the if only list is a lot longer than either of them realizes.

A well-fathered daughter will seek in her partnerships men who mirror the devoted father of childhood, avoiding partnerships that denigrate or compromise her. Having experienced the real thing when she was very young- having been taught self-reliance, she settles for no less when she is an adult.

Whenever I feel we are being less than we could be, we talk about it. It’s not always a long conversation. Sometimes it’s simply a reminder that we could settle for mediocrity or we could create something truly exceptional. Our relationship is wonderful because it’s a decision we make over and over.

By focusing less on your own worries and more on the potential happiness of others you actually create more headspace for yourself. Not only that, but the mind becomes softer, more malleable, easier to work with. It tends to be quicker to settle on the object of meditation, less easily distracted by passing thoughts. It also tends to be clearer, more stable and less reactive to volatile emotions. So giving your practice an altruistic edge is about so much more than simply doing the right thing. It should come as no surprise that the impact this simple skill can have on your relationships with others is quite profound. In becoming more aware of everything and everyone, you inevitably become more aware of others. You start to notice how sometimes you might unintentionally (or even intentionally) push their buttons, or notice what causes them to push yours. You start to listen to what they’re actually saying, rather than thinking about what you’d like them to say or what you’re going to say next. And when these things begin to happen you’ll notice that your relationships with others really start to change. But so long as we’re immersed in our own thoughts the whole time, it’s very difficult to truly find time for others.

Things I've Learned in 18 Years of Life   1) True love is not something found, rather [sic] something encountered. You can’t go out and look for it. The person you marry and the person you love could easily be two different people. So have a beautiful life while waiting for God to bring along your once-in-a-lifetime love. Don't allow yourself to settle for anything less than them. Stop worrying about who you're going to marry because God's already on the front porch watching your grandchildren play.   2) God WILL give you more than you can handle, so you can learn to lean on him in times of need. He won't tempt you more than you can handle, though. So don't lose hope. Hope anchors the soul.   3) Remember who you are and where you came from. Remember that you are not from this earth. You are a child of heaven, you're invaluable, you are beautiful. Carry yourself that way.   4) Don't put your faith in humanity, humanity is inherently flawed. We are all imperfect people created and loved by a perfect God. Perfect. So put your faith in Him.   5) I fail daily, and that is why I succeed.   6) Time passes, and nothing and everything changes. Don't live life half asleep. Don't drag your soul through the days. Feel everything you do. Be there physically and mentally. Do things that make you feel this way as well.   7) Live for beauty. We all need beauty, get it where you can find it. Clothing, paintings, sculptures, music, tattoos, nature, literature, makeup. It's all art and it's what makes us human. Same as feeling the things we do. Stay human.   8) If someone makes you think, keep them. If someone makes you feel, keep them.   9) There is nothing the human brain cannot do. You can change anything about yourself that you want to. Fight for it. It's all a mental game.   10) God didn’t break our chains for us to be bound again. Alcohol, drugs, depression, addiction, toxic relationships, monotony and repetition, they bind us. Break those chains. Destroy your past and give yourself new life like God has given you.   11) This is your life. Your struggle, your happiness, your sorrow, and your success. You do not need to justify yourself to anyone. You owe no one an explanation for the choices that you make and the position you are in. In the same vein, respect yourself by not comparing your journey to anyone else's.   12) There is no wrong way to feel.   13) Knowledge is everywhere, keep your eyes open. Look at how diverse and wonderful this world is. Are you going to miss out on beautiful people, places, experiences, and ideas because you are close-minded? I sure hope not.   14) Selfless actions always benefit you more than the recipient.   15) There is really no room for regret in this life. Everything happens for a reason. If you can't find that reason, accept there is one and move on.   16) There is room, however, for guilt. Resolve everything when it first comes up. That's not only having integrity, but also taking care of your emotional well-being.   17) If the question is ‘Am I strong enough for this?’ The answer is always, ‘Yes, but not on your own.’   18) Mental health and sanity above all.   19) We love because He first loved us. The capacity to love is the ultimate gift, the ultimate passion, euphoria, and satisfaction. We have all of that because He first loved us. If you think about it in those terms, it is easy to love Him. Just by thinking of how much He loves us.   20) From destruction comes creation. Beauty will rise from the ashes.   21) Many things can cause depression. Such as knowing you aren't becoming the person you have the potential to become. Choose happiness and change. The sooner the better, and the easier.   22) Half of happiness is as simple as eating right and exercising. You are one big chemical reaction. So are your emotions. Give your body the right reactants to work with and you'll be satisfied with the products.

I liked being the best at what I did, I valued this innate desire to prove myself, to be valuable in all situations and with all people. I liked being of service, doing the grunt work, and taking pride in myself, my ethics, and my standards. I liked that I refused to settle for less in a relationship when I knew I deserved more,

Faced with the daunting prospect of moving forward, of embracing a life of greater flourishing, we find ourselves losing hope. The sex addict returns to his favorite pornographic sites. The workaholic returns to his busy schedule, knowing that his schedule kills any chance of intimacy with his wife or connection with his children. The angry wife defaults to her husband’s defensiveness, squelching his spirit. The abused woman returns to a relationship where she knows she’ll be used rather than loved. The religious addict defaults to her legalistic ways, judging others rather than embracing the love God has for her even in her failures. Over and over again, we choose to return to Egypt instead of daring to enter the promised land. We settle for less than the life for which God made us.

It is possible in a city street neighborhood to know all kinds of people without unwelcome entanglements, without boredom, necessity for excuses, explanations, fears of giving offense, embarrassments respecting impositions or commitments, and all such paraphernalia of obligations which can accompany less limited relationships. It is possible to be on excellent sidewalk terms with people who are very different from oneself, and even, as time passes, on familiar public terms with them. Such relationships can, and do, endure for many years, for decades; they could never have formed without that line, much less endured. The form precisely because they are by-the-way to people’s normal public sorties. ‘Togetherness’ is a fittingly nauseating name for an old ideal in planning theory. This ideal is that if anything is shared among people, much should be shared. ‘Togetherness,’ apparently a spiritual resource of the new suburbs, works destructively in cities. The requirement that much shall be shared drives city people apart. When an area of a city lacks a sidewalk life, the people of the place must enlarge their private lives is they are to have anything approaching equivalent contact with their neighbors. They must settle for some form of ‘togetherness,’ in which more is shared with one another than in the life of the sidewalks, or else they must settle for lack of contact. Inevitably the outcome is one or the other; it has to be, and either has distressing results. In the case of the first outcome, where people do share much, they become exceedingly choosy as to who their neighbors are, or with whom they associate at all. They have to become so.

You shouldn’t settle for comfortable, Molloy. You shouldn’t settle for anything less than being in love to the point of madness. The only person that you should be settling for is the person who unsettles you the most. The person who drives you to the brink of suicide because he or she makes you feel so fucking much that you can’t catch your breath or remotely function without them. “And what’s more is you won’t want to. You won’t want to breathe, or feel, or fucking function without them. That’s how you’ll know that it’s a real relationship, Molloy. Only when you’re feeling the most discomfort you’ve ever felt in your entire life should you even consider settling. Because that’s when you’ll know you’re in love, which sounds to me like a hell of a lot nicer way to live than settling for someone you have nothing in common with because it’s comfortable.

I’d quit using my children as an excuse to not be brave and start seeing them as my reason to be brave. I would leave their father and I would claim friendship-and-fire love, or I would be alone. But I would never again be alone in a relationship and pretend that was love. I would never again settle for a relationship or life less beautiful than the one I’d want for my child. I’d divorce Craig. Because I am a mother. And I have responsibilities.

Look ahead It’s tempting to go through life looking in the rearview mirror. When you are always looking back, you become focused on what didn’t work out, on who hurt you, and on the mistakes you’ve made, such as: “If only I would have finished college.” “If only I’d spent more time with my children.” “If only I’d been raised in a better environment.” As long as you’re living in regret, focused on the negative things of the past, you won’t move ahead to the bright future God has in store. You need to let go of what didn’t work out. Let go of your hurts and pains. Let go of your mistakes and failures. You can’t do anything about the past, but you can do something about right now. Whether it happened twenty minutes ago or twenty years ago, let go of the hurts and failures and move forward. If you keep bringing the negative baggage from yesterday into today, your future will be poisoned. You can’t change what’s happened to you. You may have had an unfair past, but you don’t have to have an unfair future. You may have had a rough start, but it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish. Don’t let a hurtful relationship sour your life. Don’t let a bad break, a betrayal, a divorce, or a bad childhood cause you to settle for less in life. Move forward and God will pay you back. Move forward and God will vindicate you. Move forward and you’ll come into a new beginning. Nothing that’s happened to you is a surprise to God. The loss of a loved one didn’t catch God off guard. God’s plan for your life did not end just because your business didn’t make it, or a relationship failed, or you had a difficult child. Here’s the question: Will you become stuck and bitter, fall into self-pity, blame others, and let the past poison your future? Or will you shake it off and move forward, knowing your best days are still ahead? The next time you are in your car, notice that there’s a big windshield in the front and a very small rearview mirror. The reason the front windshield is so big and the rearview mirror is so small is that what’s happened in the past is not nearly as important as what is in your future. Where you’re going is a lot more important than where you’ve been.

To set the record straight, love has everything to do with it. Love for ourselves. Love that demands to be reciprocated because we know we are willing to give everything and we want everything in return. Love that is willing to speak up and say, “I need more attention. I deserve respect and deep affection. I’m not going to settle for anything less.” The sweet old fashioned notion demands to be rewritten as one that doesn’t set itself up as a repeatedly broken heart that stems from an insecure woman with a fancy notion of what love is supposed to look and feel like.

To narrow natural rights to such neat slogans as "liberty, equality, fraternity" or "life, liberty, property," . . . was to ignore the complexity of public affairs and to leave out of consideration most moral relationships. . . . Burke appealed back beyond Locke to an idea of community far warmer and richer than Locke's or Hobbes's aggregation of individuals. The true compact of society, Burke told his countrymen, is eternal: it joins the dead, the living, and the unborn. We all participate in this spiritual and social partnership, because it is ordained of God. In defense of social harmony, Burke appealed to what Locke had ignored: the love of neighbor and the sense of duty. By the time of the French Revolution, Locke's argument in the Second Treatise already had become insufficient to sustain a social order. . . . The Constitution is not a theoretical document at all, and the influence of Locke upon it is negligible, although Locke's phrases, at least, crept into the Declaration of Independence, despite Jefferson's awkwardness about confessing the source of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." If we turn to the books read and quoted by American leaders near the end of the eighteenth century, we discover that Locke was but one philosopher and political advocate among the many writers whose influence they acknowledged. . . . Even Jefferson, though he had read Locke, cites in his Commonplace Book such juridical authorities as Coke and Kames much more frequently. As Gilbert Chinard puts it, "The Jeffersonian philosophy was born under the sign of Hengist and Horsa, not of the Goddess Reason"--that is, Jefferson was more strongly influenced by his understanding of British history, the Anglo-Saxon age particularly, than by the eighteenth-century rationalism of which Locke was a principal forerunner. . . . Adams treats Locke merely as one of several commendable English friends to liberty. . . . At bottom, the thinking Americans of the last quarter of the eighteenth century found their principles of order in no single political philosopher, but rather in their religion. When schooled Americans of that era approved a writer, commonly it was because his books confirmed their American experience and justified convictions they held already. So far as Locke served their needs, they employed Locke. But other men of ideas served them more immediately. At the Constitutional Convention, no man was quoted more frequently than Montesquieu. Montesquieu rejects Hobbes's compact formed out of fear; but also, if less explicitly, he rejects Locke's version of the social contract. . . . It is Montesquieu's conviction that . . . laws grow slowly out of people's experiences with one another, out of social customs and habits. "When a people have pure and regular manners, their laws become simple and natural," Montesquieu says. It was from Montesquieu, rather than from Locke, that the Framers obtained a theory of checks and balances and of the division of powers. . . . What Madison and other Americans found convincing in Hume was his freedom from mystification, vulgar error, and fanatic conviction: Hume's powerful practical intellect, which settled for politics as the art of the possible. . . . [I]n the Federalist, there occurs no mention of the name of John Locke. In Madison's Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention there is to be found but one reference to Locke, and that incidental. Do not these omissions seem significant to zealots for a "Lockean interpretation" of the Constitution? . . . John Locke did not make the Glorious Revolution of 1688 or foreordain the Constitution of the United States. . . . And the Constitution of the United States would have been framed by the same sort of men with the same sort of result, and defended by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay, had Locke in 1689 lost the manuscripts of his Two Treatises of Civil Government while crossing the narrow seas with the Princess Mary.

You shouldn't settle for anything less than being in love to the point of madness. The only person that you should be settling for is the person who unsettles you the most. The person who drives you to the brink of suicide because he or she makes you feel so fucking much that you can't catch your breath or remotely function without them. And what's more is you won't want to. You won't want to breathe, or feel, or fucking function without them. That's how you'll know that it's a real relationship Molloy. Only when you're feeling the most discomfort you've ever felt in your entire life, should you even consider settling. Because that's when you'll know you're in love, which, sounds to me, like a hell of a lot nicer way to live than settling for someone you have nothing in common with because it's comfortable.

Emmanuel Frimpong at work in Toms Creek, June 2020. Ecologists who study relationships among species have traditionally focused on competition and predation—because of their established importance to evolution, and because they are often more obvious and easier to document than cooperation. Researchers have paid relatively less attention to mutually beneficial relationships, called mutualisms, and reports of them have sometimes been met with the same kind of skepticism that greeted Elinor Ostrom’s work on human cooperation. On and around the bluehead chub nests of Toms Creek, however, Frimpong and his students found that while fish of different species often challenge one another on first encounter, they quickly settle into a détente, joining a collective that serves at least ten of the creek’s fish species.

Relationships weren’t easy for me, and for the first few years my abandonment issues were in full force, but with each one I learned. When I started to see my relationships as learning experiences, and inventoried them when they were over, they helped me to understand what still needed attention in my life. Along the way I decided what would have once been unthinkable: that I would rather be alone than accept the unacceptable from anyone. Never again would I give up all that I am for a relationship . I was not willing to be ignored, called names, or remain low on the priority list. I was not willing to accept unacceptable behavior just to keep someone around. For years I had been afraid that no one would love me. Now I was sure that I would get what I settled for, so I would not settle for less than I deserved. I was slowly coming to believe that I deserved the best.

The worst thing that you can do when you are new in recovery is to get involved in a relationship. You have to think that you are in the process of learning to love yourself all over again, and that your emotions are raw, no longer drowned out by using drugs or drinking. You have to learn how to live sober. I have seen far too many people relapse early in recovery because they didn't take time to discover their true selves. Take time for yourself, take time to rebuild you and focus on building a strong foundation. Work to become responsible, independent, and learn to love yourself first. I can't stress this enough, get your life in order before attempting a new relationship. Also remember that once you become the person who God intended you to be, the person who you find attractive, will be a lot better quality of an individual because you have discovered your worth, and you won't settle for less!

Mme Verdurin truly loved her regulars, the faithful members of the little set, she wanted them to belong wholly to their Patronne. She had to settle for less, like those jealous men who let themselves be deceived, but only under their own roof and even under their eyes, that is, where they are not deceived; she would allow the men to have a mistress, or a lover, provided the relationship had no social ramifications outside her house; it must have begun and had all its existence under the umbrella of her Wednesdays. Every suppressed laugh from Odette as she sat next to Swann had formerly gnawed at her heart, as had, recently, every private conversation between Morel and the Baron; she could find only one consolation for her pain, which was to destroy the happiness of others. She could never have tolerated the Baron’s for much longer. But now his own rashness was bringing on the catastrophe by seeming to restrict the power of the Patronne within her own little clan. Already she could see Morel going into society without her, under the protection of the Baron.

breaking things off, convinced that our partner’s psychological issues are making things impossible, or that we’re not as compatible as we’d believed. Either of these might conceivably be true in certain cases; people are sometimes guilty of spectacularly bad choices in love, and in other domains as well. But more often, the real problem is just that the other person is one other person. In other words, the cause of your difficulties isn’t that your partner is especially flawed, or that the two of you are especially incompatible, but that you’re finally noticing all the ways in which your partner is (inevitably) finite, and thus deeply disappointing by comparison with the world of your fantasy, where the limiting rules of reality don’t apply. The point that Bergson made about the future—that it’s more appealing than the present because you get to indulge in all your hopes for it, even if they contradict each other—is no less true of fantasy romantic partners, who can easily exhibit a range of characteristics that simply couldn’t coexist in one person in the real world. It’s common, for example, to enter a relationship unconsciously hoping that your partner will provide both an unlimited sense of stability and an unlimited sense of excitement—and then, when that’s not what transpires, to assume that the problem is your partner and that these qualities might coexist in someone else, whom you should therefore set off to find. The reality is that the demands are contradictory. The qualities that make someone a dependable source of excitement are generally the opposite of those that make him or her a dependable source of stability. Seeking both in one real human isn’t much less absurd than dreaming of a partner who’s both six and five feet tall. And not only should you settle; ideally, you should settle in a way that makes it harder to back out, such as moving in together, or getting married, or having a child. The great irony of all our efforts to avoid facing finitude—to carry on believing that it might be possible not to have to choose between mutually exclusive options—is that when people finally do choose, in a relatively irreversible way, they’re usually much happier as a result.

Our language for nature is now such that the things around us do not talk back to us in ways that they might. As we have enhanced our power to determine nature, so we have rendered it less able to converse with us. We find it hard to imagine nature outside a use-value framework. We have become experts in analysing what nature can do for us, but lack a language to evoke what it can do to us. The former is important; the latter is vital. Martin Heidegger identified a version of this trend in 1954, observing that the rise of technology and the technological imagination had converted what he called ‘the whole universe of beings’ into an undifferentiated ‘standing reserve’ (Bestand) of energy, available for any use to which humans choose to put it. The rise of ‘standing reserve’ as a concept has bequeathed to us an inadequate and unsatisfying relationship with the natural world, and with ourselves too, because we have to encounter ourselves and our thoughts as mysteries before we encounter them as service providers. We require things to have their own lives if they are to enrich ours. But allegory as a mode has settled inside us, and thrived: fungibility has replaced particularity.

As we mature we progressively narrow the scope and variety of our lives. Of all the interests we might pursue, we settle on a few. Of all the people with whom we might associate, we select a small number. We become caught in a web of fixed relationships. We develop set ways of doing things. "As the years go by we view our familiar surroundings with less and less freshness of perception. We no longer look with a wakeful, perceiving eye at the faces of people we see every day, nor at any other features of our everyday world. "It is not unusual to find that the major changes in life-a marriage, a move to a new city, a change of jobs, or a national emergency-break the patterns of our lives and reveal to us quite suddenly how much we had been imprisoned by the comfortable web we had woven around ourselves. "One of the reasons why mature people are apt to learn less than young people is that they are willing to risk less. Learning is a risky business, and they do not like failure. In infancy, when the child is learning at a truly phenomenal rate-a rate he or she will never again achieve-he or she is also experiencing a shattering number of failures. Watch him or her. See the innumerable things he or she tries and fails. And see how little the failures discourage him or her. "With each year that passes he or she will be less blithe about failure. By adolescence the willingness of young people to risk failure has diminished greatly. And all too often parents push them further along that road by instilling fear, by punishing failure, or by making success seem too precious.

Reflection A child needs the affirmation of their father. But many times that affirmation is not there. The father may be absent or it may be that their father never told them how proud he was of them. He was quick to criticize, but slow to affirm. When that child grows older, they will continue to search for the blessing of their father. They may become a work-a-holic, believing that through accomplishment they can finally find the fulfillment they are looking for. But they continue to live with a void. In another scenario, it might happen that feelings of unworthiness and self-doubt would be so pervasive that they never pursue God’s calling on their life and settle for less. Maybe you can relate. You desire love, respect, acceptance, or approval. But you don’t feel worthy. You believe you are not accomplished enough. You believe you are not beautiful enough. You believe you are not able enough. You believe you are not __________ (You fill in the blank). But these are lies that come straight out of the pit of hell. You are worthy enough because Jesus died for you. He accomplished everything that needed to be accomplished. He makes you beautiful. His Holy Spirit gives you the ability to accomplish all things (see Philippians 4:13). Before Jesus began his ministry, he was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. And when Jesus was baptized, the voice of the Heavenly Father spoke from heaven: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Matthew 5:17 ESV The ministry of Jesus had yet to begin. He had not yet healed anyone. He had not yet preached any sermons of note. He had not accomplished anything worthy to be recorded in the Scriptures. But still the Father expresses his approval. Why? It was because of the relationship of the Father to the Son. The Father’s love and approval of the Son was not based on accomplishment. He loved the Son for no other reason than the fact that he was his son. You are so important to your Heavenly Father that he sent Jesus for you. The Heavenly Father made you and created you. He gave you your life and your being. He loved you so much that he sent Jesus to die on the cross for you. It is not about anything you have accomplished. You need to know that you are the most beautiful, the most precious, and the most prized part of his creation. Your Heavenly Father is proud of you. More than you realize! You are worthy because you are his precious child, redeemed by the blood of Jesus.

Remember why this is called a sensual lifestyle. It is the highest standard of living, which means it requires your highest level of commitment or A game.

Stop thinking of love as a security. Sensuality is the new security.

Then I saw an answer staring me in the face. I knew he wouldn’t come on The Kelly File, but I was preparing for my Fox Broadcasting Special, which was by its nature a more casual, less aggressive venue. Trump would be a natural lead interview—he had already done Barbara Walters’s 10 Most Fascinating People series three times. (“A record!” he once told me.) Talking to him face-to-face could reestablish a sane relationship. If

We need to be exposed to healthy relationships and treated with love and respect to break destructive patterns of thoughts and behavior passed on from our upbringing and environment. In this way, they aren’t passed on to future generations.

I don't know how Jen and I became strangers in our own marriage, how we let something that should have brought us closer derail us like a couple of amateurs. We were two reasonably smart people in love with each other, and then, one day we were less so, and maybe we were headed here anyway, maybe she just got there first, because she felt the loss of our baby more acutely. For a moment, a feeling circles me, something approaching clarity, maybe even acceptance, but it fails to settle and ultimately dissipates.

Men are preoccupied with a woman's youth. Men want wives who are pretty, attractive, beautiful, gorgeous, comely, lovely, ravishing, and glamorous. Men seek attractive women as mates not simply for their reproductive value but also as signals of status to same sex competitors and to other potential mates. Although most men place a premium on beauty, it is clear that not all men succeed in satisfying their desires. Men who lack the status and resources that women want, for example, generally have the most difficult time attracting good looking young women and must settle for less than their ideal. Indeed, a man's occupational status seems to be the best predictor of the attractiveness of the woman he marries. Men who are in a position to get what they want often partners up with a young, attractive woman.

We habitually settle for less than our best; at work, in school, in our relationships, and on the playing field or race course. We settle as individuals, and we teach our children to settle for less than their best, and all of that ripples out, merges, and multiplies within our communities and society as a whole.

Psychologists have shown, for example, that priming people with settling down in a city vs. visiting it briefly immediately evokes different preferences: settling down causes people to facultatively value loyal friends, while shorter visits spark more egalitarian motivations. Meanwhile, research also points to developmental effects: young adults who moved geographically as children make less of a distinction between friends and strangers. Overall, greater residential mobility and more relational freedom (i.e., fewer constraints on new relationships) lead individuals to form larger social networks, favor new experiences, prefer novelty, and perhaps even think more creatively (see Appendix C).23

No one ever said that conflict would be fun! But the Christian life is not always fun. That is not the most important thing to God. He is committed to something much bigger. His kingdom plan involves a total restoration of what he has made. He will settle for nothing less in his creation than to see that all things ultimately bring him glory.

It’s better to be single with high standards than in a relationship settling for less.

When we are out of alignment with Christ we forget that we are children of God with divine destinies. We think with shriveled minds and operate with shriveled spirits. We settle for less than God wants to give us. We take a job that feels wrong. We enter a relationship that doesn’t’ feel right. We get stressed and anxious when reality doesn’t match the images we have of the way things are supposed to be. We see failure as dead-ends instead of turn-around roads. There is no ease, no anointing as we move from one uneasy choice to another. That’s when it’s time to stop, breathe, and trust that our Highest Power is willing and able to set us right again. No matter what that voice inside your head says, you can always, always start again.

No relationship is perfect, they say – they, who make do with dutiful sex and gassy bedtime rituals, who settle for TV as conversation, who believe that husbandly capitulation – yes, honey, okay, honey – is the same as concord. He’s doing what you tell him to do because he doesn’t care enough to argue, I think. Your petty demands simply make him feel superior, or resentful, and someday he will fuck his pretty, young coworker who asks nothing of him, and you will actually be shocked. Give me a man with a little fight in him, a man who calls me on my bullshit. (But who also kind of likes my bullshit.) And yet: Don’t land me in one of those relationships where we’re always pecking at each other, disguising insults as jokes, rolling our eyes and ‘playfully’ scrapping in front of our friends, hoping to lure them to our side of an argument they could not care less about. Those awful if only relationships: This marriage would be great if only … and you sense the if only list is a lot longer than either of them realizes.

Peace, Archer,” Fire said again. Archer’s eyes settled on Fire’s face. “All right,” he said reluctantly, taking her hand. “Peace, because war is unbearable.” Roen snorted. “You two have the strangest relationship in the Dells.” Archer smiled slightly. “She won’t consent to make it a marriage.” “I can’t imagine what’s stopping her. I don’t suppose you’ve considered being less munificent with your love?” “Would you marry me, Fire, if I slept in no one’s bed but yours?” He knew the answer to that, but it didn’t hurt to remind him. “No, and I should find my bed quite cramped.

Success is your birthright. Don’t settle for less.

When someone is attacked, we call it assault. As horrible as that is, what is even worse is torment. Torment is when you’re assaulted and you cannot escape, like prisoners of war and those who are held captive in slavery. For some women, their version of slavery and captivity in torment is called marriage. Tragically, some women settle for this kind of life. Or perhaps even worse, they tell their church leadership, only to be told that when Paul said our bodies belongs to our spouses, it means the wife is basically a piece of property. Some tragic studies report that an assaulted wife who goes to her church instead of the police or a licensed counselor will be less likely to get ongoing emotional help and legal protection, but rather will return to the abuse in the name of submission—as if the abuse is what God had in mind for her. Anytime a husband or church leader demands the wife obey the Bible without doing the same for the husband, he is sanctioning abuse. Any professing Christian man who assaults his wife is a heretic preaching a false gospel with his life. A man is to love his wife as Christ loves the church. Jesus’ relationship with the church is not one of rape, violence, abuse, and degradation. There is no place for any assault—including sexual assault—in any marriage.

now the time to reckon with that question? We may begin to feel tendrils of doubt, the upwelling of inconvenient longings and needs, an uneasy sense that suppression or chronic discord will not be sustainable. We may encounter dread, fear, and a desire to escape through work, or screens, or drink. We’re dimly aware we may have to lose in order to gain, that painful upheavals may be the cost of emotional growth or inner peace. Oscillating between what is and what could be, between reality and possibility, between embracing and relinquishing, we feel disoriented and confused. When things feel bad, two options may loom up in our minds: endure (for the children, the shared history, the finances, the stability, the vow) or strive (for something more, another chance, a better relationship). Surrender or escape. Give in or start over. Depressive resignation or manic flight. These occur to us largely because it’s not at all clear where else to go. But the thought that soon follows is that we want to be honest, and we ask ourselves, what is the line between seizing vitality and manically defending against decline? What’s the difference between “settling” and acceptance? How might the effort to have more in our lives unwittingly result in less? When does accepting limits help us to make the most of what we have, and when does it signal premature resignation? Our dawning awareness of life’s limits means we know that we’ve reached the point where dismantling what we have and starting something new does not come cheaply. We know there’s really no such thing as “starting over,” only starting something different and trailing the inevitable complications in our wake. The acting out we see around us, which till now we’ve casually dismissed, begins to looks like one way that people try to combat the stasis of depression with the action of escape, attempting to transcend (at least temporarily) the “hitting a wall” feeling that this life stage can induce.

Evidence suggests that people with irritable bowels have bodies that are more physically reactive to stress. I recently came across an article in the medical journal Gut that explained the circular relationship between cognition (your conscious thought) and physiological correlates (what your body does in response to that thought): people who are less anxious tend to have minds that don’t overreact to stress and bodies that don’t overreact to stress when their minds experience it, while clinically anxious people tend to have sensitive minds in sensitive bodies—small amounts of stress set them to worrying, and small amounts of worrying set their bodies to malfunctioning. People with nervous stomachs are also more likely than people with settled stomachs to complain of headaches, palpitations, shortness of breath, and general fatigue. Some evidence suggests that people with irritable bowel syndrome have greater sensitivity to pain, are more likely to complain about minor ailments like colds, and are more likely to consider themselves sick than other people.

Ah, but knowing our worth, knowing our true value—that’s not always easy. There are many reasons why we as women cannot properly gauge our worth. Whether we’ve been raised by parents or a parent who simply didn’t know how to nurture and raise an emotionally healthy child, whether we have allowed society, men or a man in our past (or present) to define who we are instead of what God says about us, or whether we have endured cheating, physical abuse or emotional abuse at the hands of a man we thought would always protect us, there are numerous reasons why women enter relationships with the wrong men. The bottom line is we begin to believe the lie that we’re really not worth that much, and we end up being attracted to men who can never truly love us the way we long and deserve to be loved. The Bible says, “As [a man or woman] thinketh in his [her] heart, so is he [she]” (Prov. 23:7, KJV).

when we’re afraid of being single, we’re more likely to settle for less satisfying relationships

Although a lot of times I wished I could have a “normal” relationship. My soul just wouldn’t let me settle for anything that would require taking a linear path instead of a sensual path to be sustainable or “successful.

Along the way I decided what would have once been unthinkable: that I would rather be alone than accept the unacceptable from anyone. Never again would I give up all that I am for a relationship . I was not willing to be ignored, called names, or remain low on the priority list. I was not willing to accept unacceptable behavior just to keep someone around. For years I had been afraid that no one would love me. Now I was sure that I would get what I settled for, so I would not settle for less than I deserved. I was slowly coming to believe that I deserved the best.

I’d quit using my children as an excuse to not be brave and start seeing them as my reason to be brave. I would leave their father and I would claim friendship-and-fire love, or I would be alone. But I would never again be alone in a relationship and pretend that was love. I would never again settle for a relationship or life less beautiful than the one I’d want for my child.

Intimacy, respect, passion, communication... and endless laughter. You and me on our personal journeys... while also entwined in the "us". That's a life and soul-nourishing relationship. The rest is empty nonsense I've already had. When one of those is missing, drama takes its place. I'm not settling for less... Never again.

Then I had an exhilarating thought: I could design the kind of relationship I wanted! I could think up what I wanted, and if my commitment was strong enough, it would come into being. I quickly sketched out my desires on a piece of paper. I wanted someone who was honest and loving, someone for whom taking responsibility was no struggle. I wanted a woman who would be willing and able to join me in a relationship where both of us expressed our full creativity. I didn’t have any requirements as to size, shape, or age: All I was really interested in was the quality of our ongoing interactions. If there was honesty, if there was responsibility, if there was a mutual commitment to creativity and spiritual growth, I would be happy. I really wanted a spiritual partner for the journey, someone for whom relationship itself could be integral to our unfolding evolution. It took me less than ten minutes to clarify what I wanted. Then I added a radical clause: If it was not in the cosmic plan for me to have this high-quality relationship, I would gladly be alone. I vowed never to settle for anything less than what I really wanted, (...). I figured I would be better off by myself than I would be replaying these old dramas for the next fifty years. I vowed this deep in my soul. It was a done deal.

I don’t need to convince a guy that he should be with me. He should want me out of his own free will because I am his next breath. As cynical as I am about relationships, when I do fall, I want the whole love affair. I don’t want to settle for less.

It took time for me to trust Al-Anon, but eventually I understood that I was attending meetings for me. I got to know myself, improved my self-esteem, developed friendships, discovered new activities, and became more assertive. I found the courage to leave that relationship and my profession and to become a marriage and family therapist—a livelihood more suited to my true self. Yet even after that relationship ended, my experiences with men continued to belie my conscious belief that my self-worth was now intact and that I deserved love. Although I wasn’t being abused, I rationalized settling for less than I needed. I discovered that I lacked kindness toward myself and that I never really felt lovable, even as a child. I had found the enemy—and it was me. Shame, along with fears of rejection and abandonment, had ruled me. They caused me to be defensive and to hide, doubt, and judge myself, rather than honor what I truly wanted. Most damaging was that shame had caused me to make poor decisions that had traumatic consequences. In addition, a series of rejections, losses, and health problems revealed the depth of my shame and challenged my will to live.

I would never again be alone in a relationship and pretend that was love. I would never again settle for a relationship or life less beautiful than the one I’d want for my child.

I meet with women daily for consultation who want to increase their self worth because they are tired of settling for less than they know they deserve (in relationships and life) and are ready to start attracting things at a higher level, my heart is constantly filled with joy and excitement.

More desirable women have more bargaining power on the mating market, and they can elevate their standards. They want higher levels of resources, education, and intelligence; higher social status; good parenting skills; and raft of other traits. American men with resources are more likely to marry physically attractive women. Most men can obtain a much more desirable mate if they are willing to commit to a long-term relationship because women typically desire lasting commitment, and highly desirable women are in the best position to get what they want. Men are preoccupied with a woman's youth. Men want wives who are pretty, attractive, beautiful, gorgeous, comely, lovely, ravishing, and glamorous. Men seek attractive women as mates not simply for their reproductive value but also as signals of status to same sex competitors and to other potential mates. Although most men place a premium on beauty, it is clear that not all men success in satisfying their desires. Men who lack the status and resources that women want, for example, generally have the most difficult time attracting good looking young women and must settle for less than their ideal. Indeed, a man's occupational status seems to be the best predictor of the attractiveness of the woman he marries. Men who are in a position to get what they want often partners up with a young, attractive woman. As a man's income goes up, he seeks younger partners.

An alpha female is beautiful, confident, successful, takes care of herself and is use to leading in all areas of her personal and professional life. She is not going to tolerate half-ass effort, weakness, shy or timid men. She knows her worth, wants a true equal and will not settle for less than she knows she deserves. She has her choice with men and wants a man who has choice with women. The only way to attract an alpha female is to be at the top of your game in all areas of your personal and professional life. Not being intimidated by her beauty and sex appeal, confidence and to continually pass her tests of your strength to demonstrate through your example, that you are worthy. Only then will you exude the vibe and certainty that will make her feel safe and comfortable enough to willingly submit to your leadership of the relationship.

Don't hold on to people who have let you go.

But she wasn’t in love with him yet. She fell in love with her husband because of the way they disagreed with each other. “When everything’s great, it’s easy to fall in love,” she said. “But when you disagree—how you come to a consensus is very telling. My husband both met and exceeded my expectations. I have never once thought that I could have found someone better.” How different that was from our culture’s view of love, where having disagreements in the beginning of a relationship seems like the death knell. The beginning of a relationship is supposed to be like a honeymoon. A couple is supposed to feel totally in synch. Any deviation from that is a sign that you’re not compatible. But Madathil is saying it’s not whether you argue—its how you get through the arguments. And the more practice you have getting through those arguments gracefully, she told me, the less you’ll argue later.

We have two options. We can settle for a boring, uninspiring, tepid relationship with God, in which we come to church, sing a few songs, and go about the rest of our lives. Or we can pursue God in all his grandeur, glory, and captivating beauty. To choose the first option is a travesty. God is GOD! To settle for anything less than a true, glorious, exalted vision of God is utterly stupid and utterly sinful.

Be patient, the right one is coming. There’s a difference between, “The right one and the one right now.” Don’t get in such a hurry, that you settle for less, than God’s best for your life.

Why wait for the real thing when I can settle for a fake one that looks similar? This is also how many of our minds work when it comes to love and relationships, even unknowingly. Why do we so often settle for a knockoff version of real love? Is it because it’s easier? Because it doesn’t cost as much? Because we can obtain it faster? We settle for a less-than version of what we could have because maybe we are tired of being alone, we are tired of waiting, or we fear we might not find anything better. But you don’t need more of what you’ve been settling for; you need something that will last.