In the past few months, I have had to face some hard truths about my ways of relating to people, and the sort of people I have tended to relate to in past years. I recently finished the book Safe People, by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend. This book confirmed in me a series of thoughts I'd been recently having.

A few months ago, as many of you know, I decided to stop pursuing marriage(not that I won't get married, I'm just not actively looking anymore). It had been the goal of my life until that point. I was raised with the idea that marriage is the norm, and that it is a great good (I still believe this). I always heard advice about "when you get married...", never "if you get married." Also, I had had some issues in the past (this is not the place to go into detail with any of this), and my response to these things ended up making me, in this area, what Dr. Cloud and Dr. Townsend call an unsafe person. And, to make it worse, I did not know that I was unsafe.

So, to make an already long point a bit shorter, reading Safe People confirmed to me that my decision was, in fact, a good one, and gave me the words to explain this decision to others:

Because I know that I am unsafe in this area, it is wrong to expect anyone to enter into a relationship in order for me to be "fixed." I therefore, of my own free will, choose to abstain in this area in order to become "safe" for others to be around.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy of me, a sinner.
Speak the word only and my soul shall be healed.