Podcast 78: Success Doesn’t Have to Cost You Love

She got the degrees. She got the corner office. She built the life everyone applauded—but success still left her empty.

In this raw and prophetic episode, Michelle exposes the hidden emotional and spiritual cost of success for high-achieving Christian women—and why the love you were meant to experience keeps getting delayed.

She tells the story of her own “golden touch” career…and the private heartbreak that came with it. Then she offers a redemptive, biblically grounded path back to what you truly desire: a godly, masculine, high-caliber man to build legacy with.

If you've ever wondered "Did I wait too long?" or "Why does love keep eluding me?"—this episode will break something open.

At the end, Michelle shares a surprise announcement that could be the bridge from stuck to chosen—and invites you into something that may change your love life forever.

🎁 Want early access to the surprise? You just need to get on my email list.

Send a request to michelle@thechristiandatingcoach.com to be added to the list.

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👰‍♀️ It’s time, sis. Let’s get you married.

Transcript

Michelle Joiner (00:00)
Hey, hey, sis, I want to tell you a story about a woman who was excellent at everything she did. She played the piano so well, she won regional awards. She became the church pianist wherever she went. She was sharp, brilliant, a smart cookie. She got into some of the best engineering schools in the world.

MIT, Stanford, Caltech, Johns Hopkins. And then she worked at powerhouse companies like Northup Grumman, General Electric, Ford Motor Company. On paper, she had a golden touch. But every night she'd come home and cry in the shower. That woman was me.

But today's episode isn't about me, it's about you and what I've seen success take from so many women like you and me.

When you're single, especially as a Christian woman, you don't always feel like you have a choice. You don't have a partner to lean on. You don't have anyone to share the financial load. You're told to wait on the Lord, but the bills still need to be paid. So what do you do? You excel, you build, you achieve, you become

Her, the one with the corner office, the advanced degree, the curated life that looks so impressive from the outside. And truthfully, it's beautiful. You didn't fold, you didn't wait around, you built something solid. But sometimes in the process, you bury something sacred.

You became independent because you had to and that was wise. That was holy. But now that independence has become an armor. It served you, but it also started to separate you from what you really desire. And Sis I just want to say you're allowed to lay it down.

just for a little. So something else can be born, something new, something that's just about your heart.

What I am talking about didn't come into being in a vacuum. There are voices all around you, some from the culture, some from the church, some from people who love you, and they all say versions of this same thing. Focus on your career.

Don't depend on a man. Marriage will happen when you stop thinking about it. Just be content. Don't make an idol out of marriage. Stop trying to find the right person. Focus on just being the right person. this sounds wise

And it sounds spiritual at first, but by now it's starting to sound like something else. Powerlessness.

Because here's what those voices don't say. They don't say that you're allowed to want marriage. They don't say how you can move forward toward it with purpose. And they don't say that you have any control at all. It's just disempowering and paralyzing. And you feel the ache, you feel the desire, but you're told not to want it.

And even if you do, you're told there's nothing you can do about it. So what do you do?

You turn to your career because that's the one place you're allowed to be ambitious. That's the one place no one questions your hustle. And it's too bad because the truth is there is a lot you can do to find the person you're meant to spend the rest of your life with.

you're not too ambitious. You've just been pouring that ambition into every other area, but your love life. What would happen if you let yourself be ambitious about love?

I've worked with women who came to me saying, there's nothing but scammers and losers on the apps. And 14 sessions later, 10 sessions later, six sessions later, sometimes there was an amazing, godly man they never thought existed. Not because these men weren't there, but because they finally had the strategy to

call in the right one. There are hundreds of millions of people on dating apps. Statistically, it is impossible that there's no one good God has sons in that pool. You're just not speaking to them. They're scrolling right past you because they don't see themselves as the hero in your profile. You're not

calling them in with your energy, your language or your presence. But once you shift that, once you learn to flirt with confidence, use king language, present your value and filter quickly, the same app that felt like a graveyard becomes a garden. That's exactly what happened to me when I met Caleb. It's what happens to my clients.

And it can happen to you too.

We hire personal trainers when we want to lose weight. We hire tutors when we want to pass a class. We hire financial strategists to help us prepare for retirement. But the woman, a woman considers hiring a coach to help her find a godly husband, she pulls back. She falters. Something in her stops. Suddenly, it's not responsible.

Suddenly she believes she should be able to do this on her own. And even though it's the one thing she wants most, it's the one area she refuses to invest in. That has to change. Deciding to invest in love, that's not weakness. The women who came to me and found the love of their life so quickly, they didn't come to me because they were desperate. They just came to me because they were ready.

They were ready to stop doing it alone. They were ready to stop wasting years without the love that they truly desired. That's wisdom. That's leadership. It's choosing to build the life you actually want instead of the one you've settled for. Because love is sacred. Marriage is legacy and you are allowed to want both and act like it matters.

No more trading the love that you desire with the success that you've built. Pursue them both. Here's the part no one talks about. Success can become a numbing agent, a way to cope with loneliness, a way to prove to yourself and everyone else that you're fine. You're fine.

That being single this long is okay, that you don't need anything more. But then you go home to the silence and you celebrate holidays alone. You watch your friends raise kids, plan weddings, and build the very life you once thought you'd have by now. And in the quiet corners of your heart, the ache comes back.

That question you keep trying to shove down. Did I wait too long? Did I choose the wrong thing?

Did I go on the right path? And listen, not every successful woman is sacrificing love, but a lot are. They never made marriage urgent. They made it optional. And now they pay the price.

Success may have given you credibility, but it also may have cost you deeply. took from you the opportunity to build wealth with a kingdom husband. The reality is married people build more wealth, period. We can be as enlightened and progressive as we want, but there's a reason the government rewards marriage. It's because it's better for the country and better for the individual. Marriage is your

greatest wealth building tool and anyone telling you different doesn't understand economics. The truth is you can't even quantify what your life would be like if you had a supportive partner that adores you. There is no way to measure what you could have built by now if you had a godly man by your side. The success you have right now.

It gets amplified when your life is full of joy. There's a sparkle, a glow, a kind of common energy in a woman who is deeply loved. And it's not just romance, it's creative fire. Look at the art, the music, the masterpieces we treasure. So many are born from love stories. So I want you to imagine this. What kind of success?

creativity and peace would pour out of you if you were chosen, loved, cherished by a godly man you trust.

Maybe part of you is scared that if you fall in love, you'll lose yourself.

But sis, with the right man, the godly man, he doesn't dilute your power. He deepens it. He doesn't compete with your success. He protects it and multiplies it. But when we carry an unmet longing, it weighs us down. It's like running a marathon with a backpack full of bricks.

Yes, you are doing it. You are a powerhouse. You are succeeding, even carrying around this weight of longing. But how much easier would it be if you could just lay down the weight and replace it with joy, with fulfillment, romance, chemistry? For some women, success took away something else. It took away the window to have children. It's not true for everyone.

but for some delay costs you motherhood.

And I just want to say stop the bleeding, close the hole in the bag. Don't let the sand keep running out of the hourglass. Stop paying the single tax. You have one life to live. And yes, career success is incredible, but it doesn't hold your hand at night. It doesn't rub your back when you're tired. It doesn't bring you coffee.

or sit next to you at church with his arm around you.

Success doesn't do that. You know it. I know it. And deep down, you know that what you really want, the kind of partnership your soul craves, is worth going after. You're listening to this podcast because you don't want to be single anymore, so go after it.

So I've talked about what success took away from you. Here's how to get it back.

You take it back, not with hustle, not with striving, but with a decision. You honor everything you've built. You look yourself in the mirror and say, I'm proud of who I became. And now I'm giving myself permission to want more, to stop saying someday and to start saying now.

You prioritize love, not in your head, but in your calendar. You invest, not just in education, but in emotional healing, in strategy, in support of finding the love that you desire.

because attracting a godly man takes more than hope.

It takes intention. It takes mentorship. It takes time. It takes a strategy that you don't have right now, that the years of singleness have shown you is missing from your toolkit. But Sis you're worth investing in obtaining those tools and that strategy. Why? Because you follow what the women of the Bible did.

Ruth allowed herself to be guided, mentored, helped by an older woman of God. Titus tells us older women should train the younger women. We see that echo in Ruth's story with Naomi. Sarah had the knowledge and spiritual strength to call Abraham her master. And her gentle, quiet spirit is what the Lord prized.

and her husband adored.

The Shulamite woman in Song of Solomon knew how to speak to the king. She knew how to create desire, how to invite pursuits, how to hold feminine mystery with confidence. These women of the Bible, they weren't passive. They weren't confused. They were strategic.

and they were successful in love and their love stories have been told for thousands of years. You need that kind of leadership in your life. You need that kind of biblical mentorship. Another vacation, another big savings goal, buying a house, going back to school, purchasing a new car, renovating.

Those things aren't bad. But if you're honest, they're delaying the thing that would actually fulfill you. If you're someone who doesn't want a husband, that's fine. But if you are, and if you've wanted this for two years, five years, 10 years or more,

then it's time to do something different. If you could have found your Boaz without help, you would have done it by now. If you could have made modern day dating work, it would have worked. If the apps were enough, you'd be off of them already. If you want your Boaz, I'd like to submit to you that you need your Naomi.

And I have something I want to share with you on Monday. I'm opening up something special, something I've created for you. It's a bridge. It's a bridge that's from where you've been stuck to the love story. God still wants to write for you. If you've wanted to invest in coaching in the past, but finances were the block. I see you and I'm not going to let

money be the thing that keeps you from finding the love of your life. Not on my watch. So I want you to tune in on Monday to hear my surprise announcement or you can send me an email at michelle at the christiandatingcoach.com if you want early access to this and early access is important because there's only a few spots.

and it's time.

if this episode hit something deep in you good

That's your heart waking up. That's the part of you that still believes starting to be heard. And if you want help, I'll be here. You're not too late, but the longer you wait, the harder it gets. Let's build a new kind of success, the kind you get to come home to.

Sis, I'd love it if you subscribe to this podcast, forward this to a friend who needs to hear it. This was a special one. Don't let her miss this bridge either. Click on the link in the show notes or write me to join my email list if you're ready to stop delaying the love you actually want. I'm Michelle Joyner, the Christian dating coach, and I'll see you next time. Let's get you married, sis.