theMan - You can be a great person but still be terrible in relationships. Being in a great relationship requires that you are disciplined in the way you interact with a woman. When a woman gets the upper hand, the following tends to happen:
1. She gets bored
2. She expects lavish gifts and praise and gives little in return
3. She becomes aloof and difficult
4. She behaves poorly and tries to see how far she can push you until snap out of it
5. She plays games
Most men are not aware of their behavior and are too focused on sex which typically gives the woman the upperhand and leads to the problems above. As a starting point, here are some principles and ideas to ensure that women do not get the upper hand in a relationship.
1. Stick to your guns – Don’t put up with any riff-raff or unfair behavior. If a woman is behaving poorly (i.e. insulting you in front of your friends, complaining incessantly, etc), walk away. If you have a rule that you will not hang out with your ex’s, then you should enforce that rule for her as well.
2. Never let a woman know that you want sex more than she does.
3. Never trade chores, money, or anything else for sex and never make the woman think that she is doing you a favor by doing something sexual with you.
4. Don’t let a woman dictate how you spend your time.
5. Don’t try to entertain women or take responsibility for their entertainment. There is a multi-billion dollar entertainment industry for that. Women get bored easily and it can take a lot of energy to be entertaining all of the time.
6. Before letting a woman start a fight, make sure that she is not just being influenced by her hormones (i.e. on or around her period). Women tend to think that there is a problem with the man and typically are not aware how much their own hormones affect their emotions.
7. Think that your happiness is just as important as a woman’s happiness.
8. Never give in in a test of wills and be rational.
9. Communicate that character and personality are more important to you than looks. Character and personality can get better over time whereas looks will only get worse over time. This way, you can level the playing field even in a situation where the woman is extremely attractive.
My intention behind these rules is not necessarily to take the upper hand. I have different rules for that. These rules are simply to prevent a situation where the woman has the upper hand and can pave the way for a relationship of equality.
Does anyone man out there have a better list or something that they want to add?
Here’s the bad news. I think that if one person takes a *big* step “backwards” in the relationship (e.g. regular mutually-initiated sex that then suddenly changes to one person being chronically resistant or bartering it), then it’s almost always a dead end. If it’s severely competitive or almost always like trading, then it’s a dead end. Basically, if there’s not the mutual desire (not necessarily a guarantee in every case) to agree with one another about emotions including physical interests, then see that as a warning sign that there is at least a high probability for a dead end.
Be able to recognize when either you or the other person takes a big step backwards. Recognizing it when it happens will be painful in the short term but much better in the long run. You can’t “convince” or somehow negotiate that someone be physically attracted to you (or to continue to be attracted to you). Think of the opposite. Could someone “convince” you?