When Should You Settle Down?

 

After 6 months of marriage, I found out my wife had been stealing money from me to buy opiates. I was talking to a lawyer within a week and divorced within the year. While I could have blamed her for being deceitful and untrustworthy, I blamed myself for not bettering myself and allowing myself to settle down too early. This was my wake-up call.

I wasn’t interested in her flaws, since I couldn’t change her. I was interested in what flaws I had that allowed me to marry a girl who had more red flags than an Alabama football game. Society, my family, almost every woman in my life had been harassing me for years about settling down. “When are you gonna start a family?” and “When will you get married and have kids?” Sound familiar?

Don’t Let Others Tell You When to Settle Down

Ignore people who say this to you; they don’t have to deal with the consequences. YOU have to deal with the consequences of YOUR actions.

I’ll admit after hearing this nonsense for years, it started to get to me. I began to worry that I was getting too old and missing out on the best opportunity to meet a “nice girl.” So, I settled into a relationship that I should never have been in for more than one awkward night.

Don’t let the fear of being old and lonely force you into a loveless marriage. You’ll grow fat and boring in a complacent marriage because you aren’t happy with your life. Millions of men let this become their future. But at least you aren’t alone right?

I’m blown away by how many people have this fear of ending up old and alone. I held this fear through much of my twenties. I even worried about not meeting the right girl while I was in college. Recently I was hanging out with a friend’s son and he said he had this same fear. He was 18 when he told me he felt like he was running out of time. Like many others, I was sold the lie that all the good girls get picked up before graduation.

Society sells a lot of lies, but this one might be the biggest and most egregious.

You’re not going to end up old and alone if you take care of yourself and focus on your mission. That’s the secret that the average person hasn’t figured out. If you’re young, maybe you haven’t figured this out either.

Your youth is a tumultuous time. It’s also a time of great opportunity if you don’t ruin in your chances. If you can focus on self-improvement and building skillsets, then you are setting yourself up for success. Men age like whiskey, right? Think about this. As you get older, you can build upon your fitness, grow your career and save up money for a badass house.

What’s more attractive to the typical woman?

1.      A 22-year-old man who’s doughy from boozing through college, has a shitload of debt, a small apartment and a mediocre car.

2.      A 32-year-old man who established a career making 6 figures, has honed his body to his pique physique and now has a significant down payment available for a house.

So instead of desperately searching for your better half that will put up with you, focus on improving yourself. I talk about this extensively in my book, Reclaim Your Manhood. I wrote the book so men who are desperately searching for meaning and “the perfect woman” can better learn how to focus their energy.

Because at the end of the day, you can go out to the bars and complain that there are no good women left. Or you can take my advice and hit the gym, learn to dress better and focus on your life’s work. By following the advice in my book, emails and tweets you can better learn to attract positive things into your life. This will attract the right woman to you, instead of the next woman.

Now, men have been sold another lie and that lie is that time is not on their side. That the best days of your life are high school and college. This is a massive misconception. Here’s why.

For many people, those are the best days of their lives because that’s when they slowly began to give up. I almost went down that path. How many people do you know who peaked in High School and then found a mediocre job that they tolerate, a wife who hates them or cheats on them and a substance problem?

The amount of men who are slowly killing themselves with poor diets and alcohol is stunning. These people aren’t happy. They’re unfulfilled. They settled for a less than ideal woman. Or maybe a drug addicted junkie. It happens. I did that with my first wife.

Now, I’m 31 and I’ve got a lot of good things going. More importantly, I haven’t peaked yet. I’ll let you know when I’m “Too old to settle down.”

Don’t let this be you. Don’t settle. Don’t give up because you fear nothing better will come your way.

How You Can Better Your Situation

Focus on your self-improvement and keep working to improve your skillsets. I’m 31 today and honestly feel I am a better package than when I was younger. I keep improving because I keep hustling.

So how do you do this? You keep working out. You keep dressing to impress. You keep working hard at your job or side hustle or all the above.

You gotta outlast the basterds and most people will give up too early. Never give into to the false promises of nihilism. You’ll hear alpha bros talk about “Not caring too much.”  This gets mixed up all the time.

There’s stoicism where you focus on what you can affect, and don’t sweat anything that is out of your control. Then there’s nihilism where you get defeated by life and stop caring about anything. These apathetic people are likely depressed, and nihilism is a black hole that will suck you in deeper and deeper.

This is why the “cheap platitudes” that sound lame are actually really important. It could change someone’s life! It does all the time. The movie Yes Man changed my life. It sounds silly, but it was a message I needed to hear. I followed the “Say Yes to Life” bullshit and after applying it, believed it. Platitudes do work.  

It’s truly not bullshit. It’s magic. And if you think I’m selling you a bridge, then give it a shot. Say yes to life. Quit fussing over your life not going 100% according to plan. Roll with the changes. Start saying yes to opportunities. Even if they scare you or intimidate you. And the more you do this, the more interesting you’ll become, and this will also attract the right woman to you.

If you create an interesting life, women will naturally be drawn to you. Women love success, confidence and excitement. A man who focuses on his own goals and makes his mission his priority will have way more success with women than the man whose sole purpose is to chase girls.

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Path To Manlinessrelationships, settle down, break up2 Comments