Don't believe men or pickmes that say things like "relationships require work" and "its a give and take". Relationships should NOT feel like work. He should be prioritizing you, he should be putting in effort, and him being apart of your life should be like sprinkles on top of ice cream - its a nice and fun bonus but you don't need it or rely on it to be there.

Men will try to say relationships require "work" to trick you into actually doing all or most of the work, ie the planning, making effort, being cute, and treating them well. Its a tactic they use to get you to be the one doing wife things for them while they sit back and relax.

"Its a give and take" is what usually leads to scorekeeping and transactional relationships. These type of men will do a "favor" for you, usually unprompted, and then use it against you to manipulate you in the future. Real love is when someone does something for the other person without expecting anything in return or because they were begged to do it. A healthy relationship should match energy rather than sap and take it. Relationships shouldn't involve you going to his boring car show or anime expo when you aren't into anime because he came shopping with you for an hour. "But babe I took you to bath and body works (and he didnt pay for a thing) so you need to come with me to my car show!" You don't owe him X because he did Y, its not a give and take, its not putting in the "work". You get up and go to a job, that's the only work you should be doing. Period.