What Strides and Discoveries Have You Made About Being in a Relationship

musicalistic · 2021-09-27T03:45:45+00:00

The relationship with their family (How the dad play the role in the family? Is the mother encouraging interdependence? How they deal with siblings and difficult relatives? )

Emotional Intelligence (How they deal with strangers? Do they have tantrums? Are they able to understand their own feelings? Are they able to handle their emotions? )

Unrequited feeling & unresolved traumas (Are they still hung up on the women that rejected them? Are they still glorifying their HS years? What trauma do they have? Have they made efforts to heal and learn?)

Hopes & dreams (Are they having clear plans on how to progress in life? Are those hopes and dreams are realistic enough to pursue? How they will handle when they can't pursue their hopes & dreams because life happens? Do they have any backup plan?)

Financial (Do they try to save & invest the money? Are they stuck in the sandwich generation? How they manage the things monthly? Do they willing to pay for dates and gifts? Do they easily lend money to everyone?)

Coping mechanisms (Are they addicted to something (Porn, video games, alcohol, etc) ? How they soothe themselves when things get tough? What are their attachments? Are they going autopilot in life? )

Self-love (Do they taking care of themselves well? Are they secure, believe and confident about themselves? Do they understand and manage to hold boundaries? What are their hobbies and favorite pastimes?)

Dating (Do they have clear awareness on what type of people they want to date? Do they know how to handle if things don't work out? Do they expect things to go fast or slow? What are they wish to achieve?)

There are so many things that I discovered, the list above can go on and on.

hensbanex · 2021-09-27T11:53:14+00:00

The biggest thing I learned from FDS is also the most simple: relationships are supposed to add to and enrich your life, not detract or take away from you. If you ever feel like you’re making compromises or you’re getting stressed or resentful because of things you “let slide,” it’s time to leave. Nothing gets in the way of my peace and happiness anymore, and having a partner who is very stable and patient and generous (without expectations) made me realize that. it’s shocking what we settle for when we don’t have a healthy perspective on what relationships should be.

Worldly-Efficiency-9 · 2021-09-27T08:44:01+00:00

To me one of the most important things is paying attention to the way he behaves during disagreements/fights.

Is he always playing the victim? Or is he expecting you to fix everything and come up with an apology? What kind of body language does he use? Does he raise his voice or tries to manipulate you?

This will determine a lot of things in the relationship.

Aloe_You_Vera_Much · 2021-09-27T03:30:51+00:00

I spent 6 years in a relationship that was a mix of good and bad and coming out of it I feel I learned so much, especially because the last 8 months of it we were in couples therapy.

1) Financial issues. It’s very important to be in the same stage of life, careers, etc. I cannot stress this enough. If you are established in your career and your partner is uncertain of their career and bouncing between low paying jobs, it will not workout. Along the same lines, any hint of financial dishonesty will ruin the relationship.

2) I discovered I am hyper critical in my relationship. While it’s good to have standards, I can take it too far and be critical in non important issues which can cause resentment. So I am working on letting things go, mostly in my personal life, as I am hyper critical of myself. For example I might beat myself up on not doing the dishes for a few day because I was busy. But this is a normal human thing and I need to be okay with this. Similarly, if my partner had a very tough and busy week at work, I might also be critical with them if they didn’t do the dishes for a few days.

3) I learned how to accept someone’s actions as who they are rather than their words. Therapy was vital for this part. Because my partner often would say things like “finishing my bachelors degree IS important to me” or “my job is terrible and I want to look for a new one” or “my physical and mental health is really difficult right now and keeping me from doing these things”. But their actions wouldn’t line up with these words they said. But I would believe their words, and yet get more and more annoyed with them at the same time and just bottle up those feelings, and my annoyance would just explode sometimes. Through therapy I learned to listen to their actions, and then determine if what they were doing was a dealbreaker. And it turns out those were a deal breaker for me.

4) I learned not to be afraid of being alone. And I learned what a scarcity mindset was. I thought that because there were a lot of good things my partner did, like not watch porn and be nice to me (yeah this was complete bare minimum but it was my first time experiencing this because my childhood really messed up my relationship skills) that I would never find another person who had those things. But now that I’m not so scared of those things, and that I’ve gone in dates with other people who have food qualities, I feel so free and like I could make a good selection of a future long term partner.

Noemie_Mathilde · 2021-09-27T11:25:04+00:00

The FDS podcast episode on communication dynamics was a game changer.

katiekat0214 · 2021-09-27T13:14:34+00:00

Mistakes:

-- being too forward, picking him, fawning, flirting way too aggressively (GOD how I hated hormones that made me behave in such a forward, Pickmeisha way to try to get intimacy, which I didn't know in my 20s was more than just sex... what I REALLY craved was mental and emotional and communicative intimacy, sexual intimacy LAST, demisexual that I am... menopause is a GIFT of clarity, maintenance hormones only, self-contentment, non-neediness)

-- not seeing him as he was, but how I wanted him to be

-- sunk cost fallacy, staying way too long, getting more and more resentful

-- trying to change him to suit me, or only once or twice, doing something he wanted to try to change me... misery, utter misery, never lasted

-- marrying a cop (first husband, 20s, college), marrying into that whole macho, misogyistic, insecure culture... never again

-- trying to be the Good Wife, doing the second shift the moment I got home from work, and never being able to please him... did not last

-- accepting crumbs of compliments ("it's okay") when everyone else LOVED my cooking (still does)... it was first/ex husband's way of being withholding and shitty... accepted that only a couple of years then quit cooking for him

Lessons learned:

-- just observe a man I'm interested in, and see how he interacts or not, his body language, actual language, how he looks at me or not, if his eyes slide over me... all that tells real interest or lack thereof

-- separate all my attraction from what's actually going on... observe clear-eyed, without emotion as much as possible

-- if he is attracted, go slow. This lets me know he respects any boundary I have, understands the need not to rush, has no manipulative agenda, and really wants to get to know me.

-- be ready to walk away immediately

-- know your boundaries, enforce them, and be ready to walk away at a moment's notice if they're crossed more than once. I do believe in giving one second chance, one only. After that, it's intentional, bye, we're done. No loss.

-- make sure EVERYTHING is on the table for discussion. One of the most heartbreaking things about my ex-husband was that vast swaths of topics just couldn't be talked about, due to his emotional limitation. I could talk to anyone else about anything. Him? So much silence. UGH.

-- becoming very clear in myself what I did and did not want for my own life: YES, very much yes, to a marriage that was happy (hence doing it twice), and NO, hell no to kids... and standing firm in my own agenda, wants, and needs, no matter what anyone else said, none of which was well-thought-out, or considerate of my own wants... most people just parroted the standard cultural expectations.

-- lots of journaliing to sort out my own feelings, next steps, plans for the future, with and without men. It was a way of keeping on centering myself, because I knew I had a tendency, drilled into me and lots of other women by this society, to abandon my own wants and needs, and focus exclusively on what a man wants. NOT happening.

-- keep only those people in my life who supported me, and drop or distance myself from those who were far more traditional and/or conservative than I am, because our values just didn't mesh well. That means men and women. I can be and am polite to everyone; that costs nothing. But getting to know me requires we have enough in common to sustain friendship over the long term.

dancedancedance7 · 2021-09-27T06:57:02+00:00

I think it's good to not overthink relationship skills.

Somehow most of us are perfectly capable of maintaining great relationships with family members, friends, and colleagues, all without having to over engineer it.

The most important thing to learn is how to choose well, in my opinion. After that I think it's a hell of a lot easier.

AutoModerator · 2021-09-27T03:13:45+00:00

[1] - We Just Launched a Website: wwww.TheFemaleDatingStrategy.com. Click here for registration information. Please also join our Twitter and Instagram Pages for updates!
[2] - Please read the FDS Handbook and Wiki before commenting. Repeated comments demonstrating lack of basic sub knowledge will result in a temporary or permanent ban.
[3] - Please REPORT any comments that do not follow the sub rules. If you do not report it, the mods will not see it.
[4] - PLEASE REMOVE ALL PERSONAL IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION from images (Name, Location, Job description, education, phone number, etc). Failure to remove ID info will result in a 1-2 day ban. Repeated failures will result in a permanent ban.
[5] - This sub is FEMALE ONLY. All comments from men will be removed and you will be banned. DO NOT REPLY TO MALE TROLLS!! Please DOWNVOTE and REPORT immediately.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

Title	What Strides and Discoveries Have You Made About Being in a Relationship
Author	InspectorGadget07
Upvotes	137
Comments	23
Date	September 27, 2021 3:13 AM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/FemaleDatingStrategy
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/comments/pw8k0r/what_strides_and_discoveries_have_you_made_about/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/what-strides-and-discoveries-have-you-made-about.1074055 https://theredarchive.com/post/1074055

Comments