I call BS! And I’m not ashamed to admit that from time to time I’ve had to accuse myself of BS. Too many men don’t act like men. This is not about judging. This is intimacy in its highest form. Let’s stop talking about what we’re not getting from our partner. We have no control over that. But what we do have control over is how we treat our partners. And how we treat them speaks to how we really feel about ourselves.
If you need all the conditions to be okay to treat your lady like a lady, you are not acting like a man. If you need to get your every need met before treating your wife or girlfriend like a lady, that’s not an act of intimacy. That is an act of doing business. A level playing field in a relationship isn’t based on what you’ve done for me lately. They are based on the fact that you are my love, my true north. And if I need to carry the relationship from time to time, I don’t think twice, and I certainly don’t keep track.
I already heard that some of you are ready to back off. I hear it all the time {from both sides} in my professional life. Forget what you don’t get from your relationship. Focus on what you are getting. I’m not talking about any form of abuse or infidelity, or anything else like that. I mean the basic courtesy that we tend to extend to strangers and not to our partner. This is you?
Some become complacent in terms of their relationship. Some stifle intimacy because they feel they are not being treated with respect. And while this is going on, how many of us are capable, let alone motivated enough, to ask ourselves if we are really giving our best to our partner? It’s much easier for us to use some form of blame shifting so we don’t have to confront ourselves. That if you’re not doing your best, it’s somehow okay that I’m not doing my best. So I say it again. BS!
There are so many ways we get off track. We get lazy. We keep score. We try to penalize them when we don’t get our way. We disconnect emotionally. We show a flagrant lack of respect. All of these are forms of self-sabotage. Lower the bar. It takes the relationship out of the love zone and into the liking zone. It sends a message that my energy is not worth investing in. When in reality, she talks about the fact that you’re not a closer. Looking at it from a business perspective. You may have landed the contract, but a bad job won’t renew it. Why did I use a business analogy? Because time and time again, I see overworked men trying to keep their job, who forget to do their job… which is to say, be a loving and supportive couple.
Our relationship should empower us. And if they don’t, we as men must see why they don’t. Shall we raise the bar? Does our partner partner with us? Do they complement us or our life? Are you proud to be our wife? Whereas it takes two to commit to forming a healthy relationship. It takes one, the one who is reading this to take the initiative. This is not about blame. It is about personal empowerment. Because as we level up, many times our partner will too.
So a relationship reboot begins. Download all that negativity and upload the positive. Bring your A game. Not just when the conditions are right. But all the time. You can’t control your partner, but you can control yourself. Why waste another day waiting for your partner to do more in the relationship, when they are most likely waiting for the same thing? Because it is most likely that, at times like these, we are thinking of leaving our relationship.
We don’t always need a new relationship. Sometimes all we need is to restart the relationship.