Men: 5 Tips for the Perfect Relationship

What makes for a strong and positive relationship with the one you love? How do you both get what you want out of the relationship and still remain happy? Is it as simple as treating your partner the way you wish to be treated?

Perhaps. Yet, if we know this is the ‘magic pill’ for happiness and longevity in our relationships, why is it that human romantic bonds so often deteriorate and end in heartbreak?

To some degree, the blame is to be placed on our cultural values. What kind of partnerships/relationships do we see in our formative and subsequent adolescent years? What did you come to understand about power dynamics between people in romantic relationships?

Did you see positive interactions between romantically involved men and women (in your household or another)? If not, how do you know how to build a solid foundation for a long-term relationship with your partner?

#1 Understand Your Purpose As a Man
If you come from a single-parent household, you’ll most likely lack the understanding of power dynamics and role-playing in the home setting between a man and a woman.

To see two people interact peacefully day in and day out, resolving their conflicts sensibly and with words instead of violence, is a godsend for someone who has only experienced a one parent household perspective.

A single parent household doesn’t guarantee a poor or troubled upbringing. Plenty of single parents raise fine people with happy families and solid relationships. I’m a product of a single-parent household. My mother raised me for most of my life and I turned out just fine.

However, I fully admit that I was the ‘male’ in my household and did not get to witness an older more mature male interact with my mother in a model way. As a result, I didn’t understand the ultimate purpose for my life and I was unable to synthesize this with a woman’s desires.

This is the first point. Have purpose in your life so a woman can clearly see what the future may be like if she decides to stay with you. No one can plan the future, but we can have some sense of how we would like it to go.

As a man, it’s your responsibility to at the very least be in the process of figuring out what you want. Once you figure this out, then you have to learn how to take care of a woman. This is an art.

#2 No Direction. No Woman.
Knowing your current capabilities is akin to having a superpower. Women many times will pressure you in a certain direction if you seem unsure of what you are capable of achieving or where you want to go with your life. If you are in tune with your purpose, your girl will be a lot less likely to try and give you advice on what you should be doing with your time.

Coming up, I knew what a good mother figure was because mine was phenomenal. This role in my mind was crystal. By extension, I knew women were to be treated gently as they were the softer of the sexes. This was pretty much it. Be sweet to girls and smile.

I had no idea that women test men to see if we are the material they want. They want to know that there is an intelligent capable brain behind the handsome face they’re seeing. As I transitioned into my late teens and early 20s, I began to meet more girls.

Out of my mom’s house, I became more confident, though still, I always hid behind my smile and somewhat handsome face. Maybe all the grooming my mother had me do in childhood sub-consciously taught me to value my outer appearance. I relied heavily on this to attract the ladies and had a lot of success. Eventually, I realized that, once you had a girl, you had to keep her.

In my first few relationships, I never thought that women were ultimately looking for security and strong male direction. I thought we were both ‘just having fun’. Over time, I began to realize that women were looking for ferociousness in life from a man. I was in the jungle, and I wasn’t a lion. I was supposed to be though. I saw that I was in need of earnest self-development.

Women want leadership and direction from men, otherwise, they will reluctantly take it upon themselves, or leave. This is where most good-looking charming guys run into trouble if they didn’t have a knowledgeable and able male role model in their life to give them advice on what a woman wants and needs in a man.

Girls want to be in love with a guy with whom they can see the future. When their image of the future begins to distort with a man, they begin to dream of other scenarios to ensure their happiness.

#3 Set Ground Rules and Define Boundaries
If you want to build a long-term romantic bond with a woman, it’s a good idea for you to understand clearly what you and she bring to the table in terms of support. You have to know what she offers to the relationship and she needs to know what to expect from you.

Talk about values you both have. Write them down if need be and make sure to try and uphold those values for each other. Don’t violate one another’s boundaries once you know them. More often than not, at least in Western societies, we become sexually involved before we know what we want to offer our partners and what we want them to offer us.

Sex before getting to know someone doesn’t necessarily spell doom. If anything, there should now be an impetus to put emphasis on getting to know one another. Find out what makes her react in different situations and observe. You can save yourself a lot of heartache when you know what she likes and doesn’t like.

#4 Resolve Traumas From Your Past
What you witnessed during your upbringing determines much about how you view the world. If you were surrounded by abuse and ill-treatment, you may show apathetic, narcissistic, violent, manipulative, and/or aggressive, tendencies. These undesirable traits, if not rooted out, will cause many problems later in your life.

Very few people would be willing to deal with someone who has such a way of being. However, if you realize that you were traumatized as a child, you can begin to make changes. You want to behave in ways that contribute to a strong relationship with your girl.

As a man, you have to check yourself and figure out if you were abused or traumatized as a child. Are you hurting because of what was done to you years ago? Were you given the space to express yourself as a human being or were you discouraged from being your natural self?

Do you resent the men or women in your family because of how they treated you? These all need to be assessed in a quiet environment. You really have to go within and make sure that your heart is pure before you are fully capable of giving it over to a woman.

#5 Seek Counseling Or Join a Couples Therapy Group
It’s important to know the person you’re with or at least give some time and space for them to freely express all of their idiosyncrasies. This way, when something happens later, you’re not surprised by their actions. Because a typical relationship involves two people, there is, from the beginning, the potential for opposition towards one another.

In The Spirit of Intimacy, the beautiful African writer, Sobonfu Somé, dives into novel ideas for how two people should live with each other. She discusses how a couple can love each other dearly and resolve their interpersonal issues with the help of the entire village.

One of the key components of her idea is that a couple isn’t only in a relationship with themselves, but the entire village. For us in the west, this means that our immediate families and extended families are also apart of our ‘marriage’ or union and so we should at times involve them in our decisions and situations to get the best outcome.

Sobonfu points out that in the west, tradition encourages two people to move into a house together and live alone after marriage, sometimes before. In her eyes, this is relationship death.

Two people cannot possibly resolve every challenge that may come between them. The idea is that a village, full of mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, and elders can guide a young or struggling couple in the right direction.

We might call this couples counseling or family therapy in western countries. The point is that no couple is an island. We all require assistance from time to time to find the right solutions for life.

A third party with a non-biased perspective is often necessary to get to the heart of a matter between two people. Don’t shy away from getting help as a couple.

Final Thoughts
A man needs to understand his purpose, have direction, set ground rules, define boundaries, resolve past traumas, and seek out intelligent group counseling to ensure his relationship lasts and carries a jovial spark throughout its course.

Once you’ve accomplished the majority of the items on this list, you’ll at once be closer to success in dating and marriage.

If you found this article helpful, consider subscribing to my email list. You’ll receive regular writing on philosophy, love, wellness, global society, and music. Namaste.

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This post was previously published on Hello, Love.

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