#274 - Should I stay or should I go?

When emotions take hold of you, they can hijack your brain! All common sense can go right out the window. Today, I want to share some thoughts on stepping away from infatuation, raging hormones, and even great chemistry to start thinking logically.

Love struggles for your heart and mind.
Have you ever met someone, or even dated them and on paper it just wasn’t a good fit?

They may have so many of the things you’re looking for in a relationship, but there’s a laundry list of things that you deem important that aren’t there.

Yet there is something that keeps drawing you in. Something that’s enchanting, enticing, and almost magical about this person.

No matter how much you try to rationalize that this is the wrong relationship, you’re drawn back in by an incredible force of nature.

Maybe it’s God trying to convince you to let your earthly desires fade and see what He’s presenting you.

Maybe it’s Satan screwing with your mind!

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The struggle is real.
Some of you will know exactly what I’m talking about while others are sitting there reading or watching this with your head cocked thinking Rick has lost his mind.

LOL I assure you I haven’t lost my mind so bear with me. I’m actually sharing an unusual experience and I rarely share something this personal.

There’s something incredible that happens when you meet someone that gets you. Have you ever experienced that?

Conversation just flows. You can talk about anything and everything under the sun. You share common morals and values. You just get each other.

You don’t need a lot of deep explanation about things you have done, although it makes for great conversation.

This is a connection far beyond infatuation. You just seem to feel each other’s pain and each other’s joy. It’s an amazingly deep and intoxicating connection.

This is the magic sauce that we all desire in a relationship.
We all want that feeling of connection. We all want to feel understood down to the deepest levels of our soul.

This is that connection that causes us to feel deep unconditional love and desire for someone. It’s also the emotional connection that can keep us bound to the wrong relationship if we’re not careful.

This feeling, this desire is so strong that it will literally blind you to the realities of your relationship. It will cause you to think that you can live with all the red flags of a relationship you don’t want.

It will cause you to bargain with yourself to try to justify staying in a potential unhealthy relationship.

Should I stay or should I go?
That’s the million-dollar question. For a significant period of time I was following my heart. It’s so easy to just go with your emotions and desire to be with someone.

I was letting my heart lead my decision-making process which is extremely easy to do when you have really great chemistry with someone.

I was violating some of my personal boundaries and forgoing some of my wants and needs in a relationship.

But you see, chemistry isn’t everything. There also has to be the intellectual, spiritual, emotional, and physical connections. You should be speaking similar love languages. Finally, you should share common morals and values, common interests, and even common goals.

If any of these components aren’t there, you’re giving up something that you truly desire in a relationship. You’re settling.

This is what makes the decision to walk away from someone so fantastic even more difficult.

The allure of having such a great connection with someone is incredibly intoxicating. This is where you have to have the tools to step back and look at the relationship for what it is.

This is why having you Must Have and Deal Breaker list is so important. They allow you the opportunity to step back from all the emotion to make sure you are making the best decision for you.

In spite of all the emotion that you get wrapped up in, your best decisions are made by thinking through your situation logically.

This isn’t fun and is incredibly hard to do when you have such an incredible connection. I know because I’ve been there and had to do it.

When you learn to use logic instead of emotion to make your relationship decisions you’ll do two things. You’ll start to improve the quality of people you date and the quality of your relationships.

I hope I’ve given you some insights to help you make healthy relationship decisions for yourself. Take this as a personal challenge to take one small step at a time to keep your dating life moving forward.

For more information on creating your Must Have and Deal Breaker lists plus tips on identifying and avoiding toxic relationships, order a copy of my book Dating Backward at RickSoetebier.com/resources.

Please share your successes and your missteps to help others see that you can get better one step at a time. Leave a comment below or drop me an email at [email protected].