We all know that a sound relationship, marriage, or union is made up of a variety of characteristics. The ability to listen properly, to think of your partner before yourself, self-development, etc, all have their link in the overall chain of a solid partnership with another human. What men might not realize is that the same combination of healthy relationship characteristics are the same things that create the foundation of enhanced intimacy, both in the bedroom and out.
Strategy, preparation, and process are necessary to understanding your partner’s needs and making life more harmonious for both of you. Living with someone is an art that should be handled the focus of shaping glass—we need to carefully sculpt our union with the bedrock of solid character traits, melt away our insecurities of what a man is, and express ourselves with effective communication so that we, and the union, solidify as a beautiful, elegant, and fragile piece of art.
(1) Communicate: Speak, inform, and ask.
Make sure to involve your partner in the discussion of how you feel and what is going on in your head. You aren’t wearing a sign saying how you feel so you need to pretend they have a blindfold on and you are leading them across a room. Be specific, explain yourself and don’t get mad when they don’t return the same specificity—just know that they heard you. Men will want to go over specific details and keep the discussion from being as abstract as possible, but forcing a woman into that kind of situation when they aren’t ready turns your partner off and makes them feel cornered.
(2) Listen without the intent to reply.
True listening is a real skill and that isn’t taught as well as it should. The deepest aspect of real listening is not having the next sentence in your head ready to go when there is a pause. Sometime, they are going to stop talking but that doesn’t mean you start. Just listen.
(3) Compliment your partner often.
This one is pretty simple but often fades when a relationship has lasted long enough. We tend to assume our partner knows how we think and feel. Wrong. Express your appreciation for your partner’s appearance. They may know already, but being silent about their beauty may be heard as you don’t find them attractive. Many people compare themselves to others, so make sure your partner knows they are number 1 in your eyes.
(4) Treat the relationship like glass.
Relationships should be kept fragile, like glass. Remember how everything was in the first few years? Before kids? Before that promotion? Remember when it was all rocky, still figuring yourselves out and having sex twice a day? Don’t lose that to familiarity. Don’t make the relationship like cement, make it like glass and you will hold it with more care, admiration, and respect.
(5) Care for your physical fitness and personal hygiene.
Make sure not to lose your habits of self-care. Staying in shape is going to impact your relationship in a major way. I always see relationship-worn couples that are out of shape. This goes for both people in the relationship but the article is for men. Get in shape, stay in shape and take care of yourself so you can also take care of your partner when needed.
(6) Do more than your share of house work.
Clean your room, wash the dishes, pick up your socks even if your partner doesn’t do the same. There’s nothing worse than one slob let alone two. A man should be a concrete frame of cleanliness, even when his partner doesn’t hold the same standard. They might relax their standards as soon as the relationship becomes familiar because that’s what they are supposed to do. A man who keeps his standards high for both of them remains the example and keeps his place as the right partner.
(7) Learn how to cook.
Cooking is a trade that can nourish the soul and more men need to know how to cook. Being the man who cooks not only can turn on your partner, but it gives them a chance to be served and nurtured, which is especially important if you’re in a relationship with a nurturer.
(8) Make dinner reservations.
This is so simple but often assumed it isn’t needed. Taking your partner out to dinner, dancing or to the movies helps maintain that liveliness you both once had. Remember, just because you have been together for a long time doesn’t mean the traditions you started with have to end. The more we live with someone, and the longer, the more details we have to pay attention to. Often times the death of a union is familiarity. If you think going out to dinner is about food outside of the house you would be wrong. You aren’t going out to dinner, you are making her feel special, cared about and placed before anyone else for the night. Without the extra efforts for her, you both just become really good roommates.
(9) Show affection.
Ask your partner for their consent to be affectionate. Offer to give your partner a scalp massage. Embrace your partner and give her a kiss whenever you can. Showing affection is a small detail that may seem like a mustard seed, but actually means the world. It means you’re looking, watching and paying attention.
(10) Maintain your self.
Being together constantly is great if the relationship is amazing, but that means some healthy distance is needed to keep that spark going. If you both work in the same space then try to go to a coffee shop and work, maintain friendship meetups and continue your sport or activity that makes you, you. In other words, maintain your life if it is supporting who you are, especially if you were that person when you both met. There’s nothing more attractive than a man with a plan, a process, and self-confidence.
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As men, we have ben socialized to be analytical thinkers and poor feelers. We need these techniques written out. I focus on the individual to self-improve so that if a relationship does come crashing down one of you still hold frame as a solid structure.
At some point in a relationship, either the self-maintenance goes down, dreams and visions fade into stressful mundane responsibilities and the work/home life balance gets demolished, or you grow to become a different person because you met your partner when you were still developing. The point is that these tools, if upheld by one of you, can drastically diminish the chances of your union going bad. A relationship is about work. I am asking men to roll up their sleeves and be the bearer of the discipline. I want to do what culture and tradition used to to, what fathers used to say and what wisemen of the tribe used to teach.
If all of these bases are covered, then the sex, love, emotional intimacy, the attraction, and the arousal will all fall into place.
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Have you read the original anthology that was the catalyst for The Good Men Project? Buy here: The Good Men Project: Real Stories from the Front Lines of Modern Manhood
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