All this time, we’ve been talking about attracting women and dating them. The most obvious and immediate is to start a relationship, but what happens after you find yourself in one?
That’s where the importance of upkeep comes in. You shouldn’t just get the ball rolling – keeping it in perpetual motion is the other part of the game.
If you’re interested in keeping your ideal girl, there are a couple of important things you need to do:
#1: Be Pro-Active
What does this mean really? Being on top of the major changes in your relationship is a huge priority because it keeps things from spiraling out of control.
For instance, when you start having differences in opinion along the way (and you will), you’ll need to properly manage this before too many negative feelings accumulate. Disagreements will come along at some point, and chances are you might feel bad in some way when you won’t see eye to eye on something.
In cases like these, it’s dangerous to sweep the fact under the rug that you were bothered for some reason. If you make this into a habit, pretty soon all those unresolved conflicts will drive a wedge between you two.
So, don’t keep your silence and let your woman know that you were rubbed the wrong way when she said or did something.
She might not be happy to hear it at first, but in the long run, she will appreciate that you were forward enough to speak up. In fact, she’ll respect you all the more because of it.
However, that doesn’t mean you should just blurt out the first thing that pops in your head. Even if she did something that upset you, it’s not cool to accuse her or blame it on some perceived “character flaw”.
What’s needed here is to be upfront in a focused, constructive way that attacks the issue and NOT her. To do this, try pointing out what you felt rather than using labels like insensitive or selfish.
Understandably, getting things out in the open as soon as possible isn’t the most comfortable thing to do. But you still have to go through with it anyway since keeping your silence is like putting duct tape on a wound: it may be under wraps for now, but it’s going to fester somewhere down the road.
You can’t hide it forever. Pretty soon, you’re going to act out about it and do more damage than you would have if you had spoken up about it earlier.
And believe me, it’s going to rattle your relationship in more ways than one.
#2: Keep It Real
While it’s true when people say that a relationship changes you for the better, there’s also a flip side to this.
It’s great when being with someone you’re totally into helps with your personal growth, but you also need to be wary of changing in negative ways.
To be specific, a lot of guys don’t realize that they’re slowly compromising themselves just to appease their partner. To give you a little insight into this, here’s a good example.
Let’s say Steve, our hypothetical dude, is in a great relationship with his girlfriend Rita. Now Rita, a headstrong woman (which is what Steve likes about her) suggests that Steve should upgrade his straightforward wardrobe (consisting mostly of Khakis, clean cut shirts and loafers) with something a little more “fun”.
To Rita, Steve needs to throw in something like jeans, sneakers or hoodies so he won’t seem so boring.
What’s more, Rita thinks he shouldn’t spend so much time with his guy friends like he did before now that they’re going steady. She also wants Steve to prioritize the relationship more by cutting back on his other interests like his weekend biking sessions or drumming classes.
If you were Steve, would you passively agree with Rita and turn your whole life upside down just to accommodate her preferences?
Or would you take the higher road and make Rita understand that you can’t simply drop everything just because you’re in a relationship with her?
Wouldn’t it be healthier if you retained your individuality instead of turning into her “ideal guy”?
Essentially, this “ideal guy” is someone that you’re actually not. If you go along with changing in this way now, pretty soon you’ll be compromising her respect for you.
Why, you ask? That’s because you’re telling her that you’re ok with turning into this whole other person just to maintain the relationship. Sure, you may please her now, but eventually you’ll come off as a phony which will drive any woman AWAY from you.
Is that the guy you want to be? Or aren’t you better off being the guy that attracted her in the first place?
If you’re going to mix up your wardrobe, hang out less with the guys or change your regular schedule because you TRULY want to, then that’s fine. Just make sure you’re doing because you really believe it’s for your own good – and not just to suit her own preferences.
Otherwise, you’re only fooling yourself since no sane guy will be able to keep up the illusion forever.
If you really want to sustain a healthy, long-term relationship you need to put your foot down when it comes to these things. In the long run, a woman respects a guy who isn’t scared to stand up for his personal identity – even if that means not being her dream guy.
She may be disappointed for a while, but your relationship is going to be a lot healthier when it’s made up of two distinct individuals instead of clones of each other.