Thinking of Settling Down? 4 Signs to know you are just “Settling” for your Relationship

Dwania Duhaney-Millen

Have you ever been in a relationship where you found yourself tolerating the bare minimum? Have you noticed that some aspects of the relationship are okay, while other important areas continue to suffer, leaving you feeling unfulfilled? In the dating world, this is called “settling”. In the rush to find marital fulfillment, many people have found themselves in this situation.

Settling is the term used to describe a situation in which someone accepts a relationship which is below the standards and expectations of love, peace, fulfillment and joy that they had in mind. Settling connotes stagnation or being stuck. It is a relationship in which one tolerates what they are in although they are not happy or satisfied with what the relationship offers. This doesn’t just happen in relationships, but people can settle in life, their jobs and even in their spiritual life- mere acceptance of the status quo. 

We can learn a lot about settling from Terah, Abraham’s father. The account in Genesis 11: 31-32 can give us some insight. 

One day, Terah took his son Abram, his daughter-in-law Sarai (his son Abram’s wife) and his grandson Lot (his son Haran’s child) and moved away from Ur of the Chaldeans. He was headed for the land of Canaan, but they stopped at Haran and settled there. Terah lived for 205 years and died while still in Haran.  Gen. 11:31-32 (NLT) Like Terah, many people have chosen to just settle. Here is how you know you are choosing to “settle” in your relationship.

1. You have changed your initial intention for this relationship

The dating time is done in order to get to know someone better. People date so that they can have time together which would have given them sufficient information through observation, conversation and the development of the relationship with the person and even other friends and family. This will give you enough knowledge of the person, their choices and associates to help you to be absolutely sure that you want to spend the rest of your life with this person. Terah’s intention was to head to a certain destination which was Canaan, but he stopped a part of the way and changed his initial intention by pitching his tent in Haran, never getting to where he intended to go. You can know you have settled when you cut your journey short and fail to push through the pursuit. Some people make a rash decision to quit dating and to pitch their tent mid-way through the courtship phase instead of seeking godly counsel and taking adequate amounts of time to make it to certainty. This leads to settling in the end due to the fact that you did not give due diligence to the process, so you get married and simply have to “accept” whatever you have to live with in the end. 

2. You have reached a place of acceptance rather than joyful arrival. 

Terah stopped at Haran on the way to Canaan, and he died there. Haran was not Canaan, so whatever conditions Terah found in Haran, he made peace with it. He lived a long time in that place and decided not to move. He drank the water and made his best of this place. Whatever Terah’s reason, he seemed to have put Canaan out of his mind. This attitude is still present today in the mind of many people seeking a relationship. Many people set out hoping and praying for a godly marriage, but find themselves in a dating relationship which is satisfactory enough. There is some form of godliness and some amount of truth. There is some prayer and there is some Bible reading, and that seals the deal. The climate in Haran is lukewarm, but they make the best of it. Terah accepted Haran, but Canaan would have been his joyful arrival. You can know you have settled when you accept where you are, but there is no joyful arrival in your decision to marry or be in this relationship.

3. You exchange your purpose for short-term pleasure 

The scripture doesn’t make it clear why Terah stopped in Haran, but we know he had purposed in his heart to get to Canaan. On any journey however, it can get tiresome. The temptation will always be there to stop and rest, drink some water, or eat some food. Eventually though, people keep going. The problem is that Terah failed to continue to the destined place. Perhaps these simple pleasures of rest, shade and relaxation got the better of him. Terah decided it was worth stopping for. The pleasures of relationships today carry so much power to cut endurance short. James 1:4 encourages us: “But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” The pleasures of a relationship, sexual or material, can cause some people to cut the journey short and to settle down right away for the relationship before them. Do not be like Terah: Do not make a home out of a rest stop! 

4. You are in the relationship because you are tired or fearful.

Many times, the dating journey gets tiresome because people would have dated for years and would have met different people, some favorable and some not-so-favorable. After years of doing this, it can get exhausting. There are some people too who, not knowing what is ahead, develop a fear of the future. As a result, they settle down for what they have now thinking “Let me accept what I have now because I do not know if there is anybody else out there who will accept me like this, and Lord knows I don’t want to date anymore!” Terah did not know what Canaan would look like but he had purposed in his heart initially to head there. Whatever it was, he had decided that this was a place worth finding. Whether he was too tired to go on or had a fear of what was ahead, we do not know, but the lesson we can learn from this is that settling on the way to the destined place can rob you of the pleasures that are to come. Fear and exhaustion are never good reasons to accept a relationship. Whatever you accept now, you will have to tolerate later. Submit your cares and fears to the Lord. 

Let me encourage you to keep going. Do not settle! God has greater things in store for you. Click to purchase my book for Biblical insight into how to navigate dating as a single woman. Thank you for reading. Subscribe so you can get new posts straight to your inbox.