This mindset has been working well for me lately. It's not new news, but it seemed worth repeating because LTRs get discussed relatively infrequently here:

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Unless you're immediately trying to reproduce, maintaining a relationship is for the girl's benefit and proactively harms you and your life goals. The girl gets the benefit of having a dominant Alpha male in her life, which is hard to find (especially in the degenerate effeminate West). She gets the satisfaction of having locked down a HSM man.

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On the other hand, consider the things that you should value spending time on:

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1) Keeping up a lifting routine.

2) Keeping up an active social life.

3) Working at your main career.

4) Developing new skills and hobbies to expand your economic prospects.

5) Flirting with new girls to keep yourself sharp, and to guard against oneitis.

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Maintaining an LTR will slow you down on 1-5. When you find yourself in an LTR try to focus on 1-5 anyway, and not the LTR, because 1-5 are for you.

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1) If you're lifting and she complains that you're not around enough, then fine. She can leave if she's not happy. The more you lift, the more quality women you'll have access to the future anyway. Invite her to come lift with you. If she's a lazy fatty and doesn't come along then you don't want her anyway.

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2) If you're having quality guy time with your friends and she's anxious that you're out with other girls, or if she's upset that you don't include her in your social life 100% of the time, then fine. She can leave if she's not happy. Keeping up an active social life is for you, and keeping her cut out of parts of it will provide you with a safety net if she bails. You'll be alright if she bails because your social life will keep chugging along without her anyway.

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3) If you're working late and she's unhappy, then fine. She can leave if she wants to. She's going to leave anyway if you don't do well at work and bring in the $$$, so it's a wash. If you spend too much time on her and ignore your career, then when she bails you'll be both broke and alone. If you spend more time on your career and ignore her instead, then when she bails at least you'll be making bank and be in a good position to pick up new girls.

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4) If you're working on new skills and hobbies over the weekend, and she's unhappy about being sidelined, then fine... see #3.

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5) If she's upset that you're flirting with new girls, or even fucking new girls, then fine. She can leave if she's unhappy. If you don't keep your girl skills sharp and she bails, then you're fucked. You'll have a hard time dating after N years in an LTR with no outside flirting. If you do keep your girl skills sharp then at least you'll be in a good position pick up new women when the LTR ends. Keep in mind that this is important in the long term, as well as in the short term. Keeping your game sharp will help you if your 8 month LTR ends. But it will also help you if your 30 year LTR ends. For all you know your wife will die of cancer at 52, because life sucks and nature is brutal. At 52 you could still be in a position to pick up 28 year olds, provided that you've spent the last 30 years focusing on 1-5 and keeping your game sharp.

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Always focus on yourself first. You'll have times when focusing on 1-5 will seem to jeopardize your LTR. Try to remember that you're actually better off without the LTR to begin with, and that the correct life strategy might even be to proactively try to nuke your LTR so that you can focus on 1-5 even more. "Paradoxically," doing 1-5 to the apparent detriment of the relationship will usually make your girl's attraction to you spiral out of control. This might backfire if she actually does leave, but that's fine because more time for 1-5 is legitimately what you want anyway.

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The main benefit you get in an LTR is consistent sex without having to put in the effort. But that's a false benefit because you should be in a state where it takes you minimal effort to get laid anyway. If you're not in that state then you shouldn't be in an LTR at all to begin with, because your girlfriend will have you by the balls the entire time (literally). In that case you should be doing exclusively 1-5, 100% of the time.

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YMMV. This strategy works best if you're in your late 20's and still on your way up in life. If you're 38, have $5,000,000 in the bank, and have a 22 year old 9 on the hook for an LTR then maybe you want slightly prioritize reproducing and taking care of your wife and kids. But for most of us here that's probably not the case.