Making the Most of Your Single Years: An Interview with Chantel

In the following interview, Chantel (30) talks about meeting her husband, Jason, who was not what she expected! She’s discovered the joy of going on adventures and—contrary to what many people think—that choosing to wait for God doesn’t mean missing out.

BTO: How did you and Jason meet?

Chantel: We met online on a dating app. I almost blew him off a couple of times because I will admit I was dating many men at the time. I was trying to arrange other dating times, and I was also hanging out with my sister that particular weekend, so I almost pushed him off.

I was always a little bit into the “bad boy,” and Jason seemed like a nice guy. The only reason I swiped right on him was that he actually mentioned God in his profile. I had made an agreement with myself that anytime I saw any reference to that, I should at least swipe right and give them the benefit of the doubt.

BTO: What did God teach you while you were waiting?

Chantel: He taught me that I needed to put Him first and also that life wasn’t about men. I think I lived a lot of my younger life pretty obsessed about boys. In my mid-20s, I really learned how to LIVE. I traveled the world. I did all sorts of fun, exciting things. God taught me how to do that and how to pour into Him. I did a lot of volunteering. There were seasons when I had less financially, and this gave me time to focus on my career and really establish myself.

I think there are a lot of times when Christian women are taught, “You’re just waiting to get married. And you’re going to get a house when you get married, and you’re going to get kids when you get married.” That’s a lie. Not that it isn’t true for some people, obviously, but that life was not for me, and I think it’s not for a lot of women now in general.

So I needed to learn how to put God first and to trust that there would still be what I wanted. Waiting for Jason and finding Jason—a never-been-kissed 28-year-old? Talk about a unicorn! I was his first kiss. This taught me that you can wait, and you can still have good things. A lot of people think you have to rush to get something good, but that’s not necessarily true.

BTO: What fears did you struggle with at the beginning of your relationship with Jason, and how did you conquer these fears?

Chantel: I had been in a lot of short-term relationships. In fact, I’d recently been in one where I’d thought he was “the one,” and then it didn’t work out. I thought I’d heard from the Lord. I think I did hear that I needed to be in that relationship, but I heard it in the wrong way in terms of how long I was supposed to stay. I think that relationship was supposed to teach me, “You don’t want what you think you want! You want something different, and you need something different.”

There is a difference between what you want in a relationship and what you need. Sometimes you think you want the same thing, exactly, as yourself and trust me—you don’t! Sometimes you think you need the exact opposite. The truth is probably somewhere closer to the middle.

So I had a lot of fear of being left. Fear of having it all end. Or that Jason was going to take too long. That seems like a silly thing to be afraid of, but it can be scary when you’re in a relationship and you want to get married, and they’re clearly not on that track, but you don’t discover this until about fifteen months in—that’s just not fun.

There’s the fear that it isn’t going to work out. I don’t like to invest in something unless I know it’s for the long haul. I’d invested my heart into other situations and been wrong. More recently than I cared to admit. I invested myself, and it hurt, and then I met Jason. My heart wasn’t quite as ready as it should have been with Jason, but it all worked out in the end.

BTO: What would you tell somebody who’s single and waiting for their person?

Chantel: Go live. I was 25ish and starting to look around and realizing, “Huh. I’m not living.” You have to ask yourself what’s so stressful about not getting married. What is the fear there? For me, it was that I might never get married. I might never get to have kids. That was my bigger fear—not having a family and not having kids.

I needed to be better about finances in that time of my life anyway, so I set up a short-term investment and committed to putting away $100 a month until the maturity date. I said, “This will be for adoption if I’m in my 30s and still single. I can make that decision then—it might be that I want something else.” That took the pressure off dating for me, so I didn’t have to think about it as much.

Then I focused on other goals. “Every year until I get married, I’m getting a passport stamp.” So I did. I got a passport stamp every year until I got married. Thanks to COVID, I didn’t get a stamp the first year I was married.

Invest in friendships. Sometimes we put all the emphasis on one person fulfilling our every need, but that isn’t one person’s job. You’re going to need more than one person to help build your marriage.

Check out a few of our other dating and marriage interviews with people just like you:

For more information on sex, marriage, and finding the person who is right for you, get a copy of Becoming the One by Salomé Roat. Click here to learn more. The book is also available in Spanish.

Becoming the OneJanuary 14, 2021Comment