He’s not your match. He’s not your love of a lifetime. He’s really not even into you.

This list applies to men also. She’s not your match. She’s not your love of a lifetime. She’s really not even into you.

But you hang on. You believe. You contort yourself. You waste your time. You don’t listen to your team (if you have one, because you probably don’t).

How do I know? The people who love you know.

Get wise. Use your discerner. Your discerner is part-brain, part-instinct, part-Holy Spirit. Trust your people. Here’s that list to help you.

• At your first impression, there was a red light but you still ignored it. You can’t ignore it now because that red light is still there. You are not able to justify it away.

• Chaos is interfering with chemistry. There is the magic of chemistry. This is very much a part of a love for a lifetime. But chemistry can only carry a relationship so far. Chemistry is not enough to justify the chaos. 

• There were lies early in the relationship. But you ignored those “little lies” believing differently. You tried to justify them away. As you now wonder what is true and what continues to be a lie.

• Once is a mistake. Two or more times is a choice. Why are you justifying this red light (or maybe yellow light) as something else?

• He continues to make this choice, despite all of the heart-to-heart conversations you’ve had. You’ve given second chances (maybe 20 second chances). A second chance is not a repeat of the first chance. A second chance is a moving forward to something new. There must be something new and different in order to move forward rather than backward. If everything is the same after that 20^th second chance, you are repeating what already has been and there is no reason to think the outcome will be different.

• He’s a wonderful guy but… His home is a continual wreck. He has financial struggles. He doesn’t have long-term relationships. He just can’t seem to get it together. The chaos of his life has taken over the peace of your life.

• If you have lowered your standards. If you have changed your boundaries. If you have changed your expectations. Meanwhile he has not raised his standards. He has not changed his boundaries. He has not changed his expectations. You need to stop lowering your standards to accommodate him who won’t raise his.

• If he’s making you question your calling, your goals, your dreams.

• If you haven’t met his friends.

• If you have an uneven presence on each other social media accounts.

• If you are mostly in a text-only relationship.  

• If he guards his phone.

• If he’s a breadcrumber. Breadcrumbing defined is when he drops just enough breadcrumbs to keep you interested without actually being in meaningful communication. Maybe you now see him as a breadcrumber.

• If he says he’s not your boyfriend but you are giving him boyfriend privileges.

• If he finds or creates drama, but is never to blame for it.

• If you are fraught with hesitation and doubt and anxiety. If he’s making you feel crazy. Has he called you crazy?

• If he’s gaslighting you.

• If he’s turning you into a private detective trying to figure out what he’s doing, feeling, and not feeling. How much time have you wasted wondering and justifying his behaviors?

• If he gives different people different versions of the truth. No one ever gets the whole truth, not even you.

• If you don’t feel safe in the relationship.

• If he doesn’t give you both love and joy. You can’t have one without the other. Yet you’ve been using love as an excuse for his bad behavior. Try saying this to yourself instead, “I have so much joy with him, even though he just lied to me again.” Do you see the clue?

• If your team, your people, dislike or mistrust him.

• If he doesn’t inconvenience himself for you. Is he even meeting you halfway?

• If you’ve sacrificed yourself, your peace, your mental health, your friends, your confidence, your happiness, your family, your faith, your dignity, your self-esteem, your well-being.

• If you have said, “he’s perfect for me because he makes up what I feel is lacking in myself.” Okay, maybe you don’t say those exact words but you have thought them. You are drawn to his “opposite-ness” of you hoping he will help you in that area you are lacking. Nope. You need to grow you. You are a whole person. He’s not your other half.

• If his lack of attention causes you to be overwhelmed in your own thoughts wondering if you are too fat? Too insecure? Too needy? Too dumb? Too independent? Too much? Then yes, you are too much for that too little man. (Stole that with full credit from Mandy Hale. See below.)

Just a bit more from Mandy Hale:  “Other people’s shortcomings are not your fault. What if it wasn’t that you weren’t ‘enough?’ What if it was that you were too much? Too amazing? Too successful? Too confident? Too bold? Too smart? Too witty? Too incredible? So much so that the other person bailed because of their own inadequacies and not yours? Sometimes you just have to let people go; recognize that they are not capable of rising up to your level and let them go… You are exactly as you should be. Not perfect…but wonderfully, beautifully perfect enough.” —Don’t Believe the Swipe, Pp. 176-177

• If you are tired of paying his bills, tired of his excuses as to why he can’t pay his bills.

• If you are drawn to fixing him.

• If you took a codependency test and you are surprised that you are codependent. Too often people mistake the concept of codependence with oneness. But no. Codependence is the complete opposite. Codependence proclaims I’m desperate without you, whereas oneness affirms I’m better with you. Codependence is based on what you lack. Oneness is what you can give.

• If you fell in love because you are lonely. Loneliness lies to you, changes your brain, and causes you to distrust, so says the science. So you are trying to love this man but your brain is still stuck. No wonder things don’t feel like a match.

• If he says he never wants to be married, believe him.

• If he says he’s not enough for you, believe him. You don’t have the magic words to change this.

• If he says he’s not ready for a relationship, believe him. Don’t believe you can say something or do something to change this. You are not an option. You are worthy of being a match.

• If you are praying for a sign. Or if you asking every friend you have for advice. You keep asking every friend you have for advice because you aren’t liking the consistent advice you’ve been hearing.

• If you are fighting for this relationship but you are the only one who is fighting. Are you beginning to see that?

• If you are waiting to know if he loves you back. If you are waiting for him to “be ready.” If you are waiting for him to make his intentions and feelings clear. How long are you going to wait?

• Your flaws, inadequacies, imperfections, and anxieties are part of who you are, part of your growing self. But if these are used against you by him, run. He’s not helping you grow through them. He’s found his way to keep you small. Why would you love someone who wants you small?

• If he can’t see your magic. Some people are accustomed to mediocre so they run from magic. Let him run. Let him have his blah, boring, and beige.

You do need to work on any relationship for growth. It is brave decision to brave decision to brave decision. But you shouldn’t have to force the things to be the way you want. The work pulls you in a forward direction of growth. Forcing it is a battle not worth fighting.

Remember that a failed relationship does not define you. A failed date does not define you. He is just another story in your life, one that may be a funny story some day.

Do you now see, like we do, that this relationship is over? Stop trying to resurrect it. Stop arguing with God about why he’s “the one’ (he’s not.) Stop punishing yourself for what went wrong (a lot did go wrong, right?). Learn. Grow. Cry. Grieve. Appreciate your people who are with you. Give yourself time (as you’ve already wasted so much time). Time is a gift.

I read this sassy book from Mandy Hale. This is full of Brave Dating tips with her sassy writing I could never duplicate. I speak bold truths. I don’t seem to have the ability to be sassy as I do it. So I want to close with just one part of Mandy wrote for us.

“Sometimes power is staying and fighting for what and whom you love…and sometimes power is realizing that it’s time to stop fighting a losing battle and walk away from the battlefield with dignity and grace.

“Sometimes power doesn’t feel like power in the moment.

“Sometimes it feels like heartbreak.

“Sometimes it feels like defeat.

“Sometimes it feels like the loss of everything that matters.

“Settling for someone who’s not meant for you out of fear that no one else will come along is easy.

“Refusing to settle for anything less than the best and walking away is hard.

“But an unwillingness to settle is what separates the women from the girls.

“Loving yourself too much to stick around where you’re not loved enough or loved well is a mark of strength. And losing the love but refusing to lose the lesson? Well, that’s just downright superhero status.

“So even though right now you hurt and ache and can’t see past your heartbreak…someday you’ll thank God that the person you thought you wanted so bad, turned out to be the best thing you never had.” –Mandy Hale, Don’t Believe the Swipe, pp. 199-200