Advice and Answers for Single Men Who Want to Have Better Relationships

That's kind of like asking if forest fires are caused by arson or by lightening strikes. The fact is that having a great relationship is hard because it takes focused time and effort to build. It also hard to have a bad relationship because the people in them often wish they were not. The easiest kind of relationship to have is an average one. Unfortunately, the average single relationship usually lasts no more than a few months and the average married relationship no longer than 7 years. It seems that no matter what kind of relationship you want to have, there is going to be a level of difficulty. The question is, do you want the difficulty to be the emotional difficulty of a bad relationship, or the difficulty of learning and applying new skills on a day to day basis. This is not a no-brainer. Given the choice, most people choose to have short term ease even at the cost of a long term relationship. Those who are motivated to excel, on the other hand, are willing to make short term sacrifices in comfort in order to have a greater long term gain. This is true in relationships as well as in finances.

I would agree with you. But it's not just relationship problems. People who are messed up have problems with all sorts of things. No one can be blamed for being messed up in the first place because it is always someone or something that has messed them up. But, there are stages of growth in life, even for people who are messed up (have long term problems). The first stage could be considered to be when they are messed up and don't know about it. These people are really stuck. Because they don't know they are messed up, they make no efforts to change and continue to blame others. The second stage of growth for a person with long term problems is recognition that one's owns thoughts and behaviors are causing self-harm and harm to others. The individual stops blaming others, but is no better of a situation because their thoughts and behaviors continue to perpetuate their relationship problems. The third stage of growth is help seeking behaviors. Change cannot come entirely from within the person because they lack sufficient emotional and skills resources to overcome their strongly acquired habits. Sources of outside help could be spiritual, psychological, informational, supportive, etc. The fourth stage of growth is the application of new skills to initiate growth. Here too, support is essential to help prevent relapse into old patterns. The fifth stage is maintaining new patterns of thinking and behavior long enough to create new and healthy habits that are more rewarding than the old habits. The sixth stage is the seeking of excellence in one's relationships. There are few models of this in our environment so that a person must be able to work with an internal vision of what they want to create. It is at stage six where a relationship coach is most helpful.

It is true that most men enjoy a healthy sex drive from the emergence of adolescence, but it is far from true that men are only interested in sex. This is a stereotype which also includes an underlying message that it is bad for men to be interested in sex. Of course a man who does not have any sexual relationship is going to desire sex more than a man who has regular sex. Sex only relationships do not last long for either men or women. If a man has a partner who is constantly sexually available, but provides no other relational value, the relationship soon becomes dissatisfying. If men only wanted sex, this would not be the case. Men also have the ability to become very emotionally attached to their partner and may suffer from a breakup long after their girlfriend has forgotten them, even if they have found a new partner and are sexually active. Do not feel bad about your desire for sex and don't start believing the stereotypes. Such beliefs are counterproductive to a good relationship. Women are also interested in sex. The keywords for a great relationship are balance and mutual goals.

The perfect woman for you might be right next door or on the other side of the world. If you don't know what you want from life, then you are also not going to be able to recognize a great woman when you see her. Men need to have plans and ambitions for their life. Women are also attracted to such men. When your ambition is simply to get a woman, that does not distinguish you from any other guy. So, step one is have a plan for your life. Step two is to have some criteria for women that would be a good fit with your life ambitions. These criteria will help her with her life as much as they help you with yours. It is not bad to have such criteria. It is the mark of a successful man. Step three involves becoming the kind of man who would be attractive to women with your criteria. This often involves working on your life goals as well as improving your social skills. Step four is to become curious about women. What they think and why they have made the choices that they have (for example, why did a woman choose her particular career?). Not only will women perceive you as different from other men, but your life goals will also be appealing to the right woman when you find her. Step five includes creating as many opportunities as possible to meet such appealing women. This approach to finding a great woman has the advantages that you get your life in order, you find meaning in something that is important to you, you don't become emotionally dependent on a woman, you are able to be open and honest with women, you will be naturally attractive to the right woman, and you will also be helping that woman to find her dream partner. Very few men do this. But if you do this, then you can be a winner. Get yourself a good relationship coach or life coach to start the process going well.

There are three possibilities for this: 1) there is something about you that making women more hesitant or resistant; 2) there is something about the particular women that you are dating that tends to make them this way; or 3) the women are being normal and you are interpreting them incorrectly. In the case of number 1, find out what it is and work on it. In the case of number 2, get out of your habit of choosing women who are not a good match for you.

In the case of #3, learn what this really means. Any woman who is of value, will also need to determine if you are of value to her. If you ever watch a woman buy a pair of shoes, you will see how carefully she studies them and thinks about them before she makes the purchase. If this is true for shoes, then just think how much more true it must be for choosing men! It is not at all bad to be evaluated by a woman and in fact, you should be evaluating her. Do not fall into the trap of being overly concerned about passing her evaluation. It is not a contest! Finding a life partner is an important task. It's a little like buying a car. You don't want to test drive every model on the lot because that would take too much time and energy, so you have certain criteria right from the start. You then test drive potential models within your criteria to see how they perform. It does no good for a sports car to try to behave like a luxury car or an economy car to drive like a sports car. Some early "difficulties" with women may be their put a little extra stress on you to see how you handle. Do be at your best with a woman, don't make it a contest, and don't try to be what you are not. Leave that for the players who have little to no chance of having a great relationship.

If you believe this, then you don't have a life to begin with. You have become overly dependent on a woman to meet your needs. As a result, you feel desperate and you have become much less likely to attract a valuable woman. Because you are so emotionally needy, anything this woman does which jeopardizes your needs being met makes you feel anxious and insecure. Having a man like this is scary to a woman and rightly so. If you are feeling suicidal, first deal with that by getting help. 1-800-SUICIDE is a hotline number you can call while you are arranging for counseling. Many other people have been in your shoes and come out on the bright side. But you must be a man and take action on the side of good. Real men do not seek to harm themselves or others--even if they must give up something that is important to them. Self-respect is a valuable commodity. We get self respect by living according to a set of standards and values that we decide are important to us. Then, even when people disagree with our values, they come to respect us for not being hypocritical. By becoming such a man of self respect, you will become more attractive to women.