The Elephant In The Room: Your Timeline

The clock is ticking . . . tic toc tic toc tic toc. Can you hear it? Better yet, can you feel it? Which clock is it for you? The time to get married clock? The biological clock which controls the marital clock? “I must be married at the very, very latest at 35 so that I can have four children by the time I’m 40. That means I need to start dating my future husband at the very, very latest at 33. That way we can date for a year, get engaged and marry a year later. Or maybe it’s the “I need to get married because that’s what society says is the next step.” Yikes! That is a lot of pressure! It is pressure felt by both men and women and if we are not careful, it can cajole us into marrying the wrong person.

That timeline is the elephant in the room and it actually causes us to delay meeting the right person. It works against us. That elephant is telling you that life cannot start or continue until you get married. Maybe it is unconsciously telling you that you will not be whole or good enough until you get married. So, now you are walking around like an incomplete person in search of the person to complete them. You put other things in your life on hold (maybe happiness for some) and you don’t enjoy wonderful today in the present. Your focus (and for some, obsession) becomes finding someone to marry. It’s big and it’s overwhelming. It can induce panic. It may cause us to sign up for every dating site and date people whom we know from the outset (or shortly thereafter) we are not into. It can also cause us to freeze and not date anybody or it can cause us to stay longer in relationships we know we shouldn’t. The closer we get to midnight the more frantic we become. Dating becomes harder and more stressful. Without realizing it, we are looking past red flags. Maybe mom, dad and friends are telling us we are “too picky” (code for “you should settle”). We start looking past more red flags because . . . who has time? All of this causes us to move further away from our One. This timeline is the biggest elephant in the room when it comes to dating. Yet, it is rarely discussed.

The only way to get the elephant out of the room is to look at it, challenge it and see it accurately. The best place to start is to look at the “alleged” worst case scenario: you miss the deadline. What happens if the clock strikes 12? Will your coach turn back into a pumpkin? Will your beautiful ballgown turn back into rags? Is your life over? Will you be a shell of yourself? Does it mean you are unworthy? Of course not, but without realizing it the “marriage timeline” feeds these faulty beliefs. What happens if you blow past 30, 35, 40 and you haven’t found the one? What if you blow past 45, 50. What if I told you your One will come into your life when you are 51? How important is that to you? Would you rather marry someone else’s one to meet the deadline? It’s an important (and tough) question to ask yourself. Spend some time thinking about it because your answer will dictate how you date.

Now that I may have scared you, let’s bring it back in and change your perspective. Why is this timeline so bad? It is bad because it leads us to believe we have control over something we do not. You cannot control this timeline because you cannot control the outcome. Why, you ask? Because you cannot control another person. If you truly want to meet your One and regain control of your future, focus on what you can (and should) control: a timeline for you to get ready. Set a date by which you must be consistently operating from the best version of yourself. Create the fulfilling life that you want and learn to feel whole on your own. Operating from this state is like a magnet for your One. Get yourself ready so that when your One walks into your life, you recognize each other. It’s time to shove that elephant out the door and take back your personal power!!

Loari EdisonJanuary 15, 2020