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IS THERE LITTLE COMMUNICATIN IN YOUR ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP?

Does your partner listen attentively to what you say? Does he/she remember important issues you discussed the day after? Do they ask pertinent questions about your issues? Do they ask how they can be of help or if they should keep a distance? If you say you want input, do you get it or a shrug and waning attention. It’s important to watch and see if your partner tends to say no to every request you make without seeming to mull it over or ask more questions about it.

How about this important issue — does he/she do their domestic tasks without nagging to get them done? If you don’t live together and you make dinner does your romantic interest help with cleanup? Is that person watching sports or favorite TV programs more than talking to you? If more time is spent with buddies or girlfriends as a regular habit rather than with you, you might want to deal with that. If you complain  do you get called a nag or too controlling and seething anger?

It’s important to introduce your partner, after a reasonable amount of time, to your family. Are they reluctant or do it grudgingly? If family is important to you it’s possibly a deep conflicting situation. When you are out with your your lover’s friends and it’s all comfortable that’s fine, but if out with your friends and tensions rise, then ask why. If your answer is there’s no common ground or some other issue and no compromise in sight, look very carefully at these red flags. Does your partner demand that you fit into a traditional gender role without any leeway for an equal exchange and it disturbs you – time to question the relationship.

A good way to avoid a lot of misconceptions is that once you feel committed to a person try to set up, verbally or written, with both parties, what  likes and dislikes you have. If that person is unwilling and it’s important to you it might spell trouble ahead. It’s very important to know upfront how each of you functions, feels, thinks and behaves. Know what you can negotiate and what you can’t. Listen carefully to your partner and expect the same.

And if you decide to keep all problems under wraps until you get married, thinking you can make changes then? Think again. Good chance you will not change that person and it is unfair to spring it on them after signing that certificate when you have tolerated annoying habits during the courtship. Use your brain as well as your heart to clear a path to a great relationship

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When Women Become Insecure About Male/Female Roles.

A single woman I knew who is in her late thirties asked me if she should allow a man to carry her packages to appear more helpless. She had read a book on how to get a man, and that was one of the suggestions – appear to need him.

Another woman I know who is highly intelligent recently told me that men have to be manipulated in order to “catch” and keep them happy. Men have to feel adored and be the smarter ones even if they aren’t. She insisted that it’s up to the woman to create the illusion of male superiority even if the females are stronger. They must give the impression they weaker. In other words, play the game, otherwise prepare to never find a mate.

I responded by giving her my theory on the inherent problems this type of behavior produces. Here it is. At some point, it is more than likely a woman will tire of game playing and lose respect for the man she is manipulating. In order to hold on to the attraction she initially felt, she might begin to feel tremendous pressure to intensify the game. Although she started the relationship in this way, she might have hoped to bring him up to a level of maturity where she’d be able to back off somewhat. That usually doesn’t happen. A kind of mother/son relationship is likely to occur and, under these circumstances, she has become his mother.

She represses her own needs in order to cajole and give him unconditional love. Resentment can set in because she is doing all the work in order to make him feel superior. She might ultimately see the man she is manipulating as hopeless, lame and incapable of a stable relationship. Then she starts repeatedly try to meet him on a level playing field. Even though he might go along with the program, it’s not uncommon for him to see her behavior as nagging. She acted one way to get him now she’s changing the rules Although he might complain to his friends, he won’t stop it because he is the center of her world and her efforts are focused on him. It can develop into love/hate relationship that has no happy ending.