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Are you sure you can distinguish between needyness and falling in love with somone and having feelings.

Get her pregnant...

Relationships, there's a huge amount that can be said here, entirely own forum worthy in itself. I'll try and nutshell some of the most important aspects of maintaining something that would normally be considered the closest thing to a healthy relationship though. Having a healthy relationship is generally the best way to maintain one that actually lasts.

Communication. This is probably the most important thing. It's something that has to be mutually understood, if there's a problem it has to be brought up as early as possible and talked through. The earlier a problem is addressed the more likely it can be solved. Problems start small and get bigger. No matter what the problem is, be it unhappiness, diminishing feelings, problem with something specific, anything at all, no matter how small, it should be brought up.

Honesty. This is important for communication to work in the first place, absolute honesty even on things that a partner will probably dislike is necessary. That includes white lies people tell that just aren't necessary. When you're honest about things most would usually at least mask with small lies people understand the extent of your honesty. This lends itself to communication and the solution of problems because of the next thing.....

Trust. When both communication and honesty combine trust becomes stronger and stronger. With every problem addressed through communication a stronger connection and trust in your partner's ability to be rational and work together to fix things makes everything stronger. When something goes down that most people would get needy or insecure about (outside interference is a big one, guys hitting on girlfriends) trust and honesty becomes a major factor. You won't be bothered by anyone when you categorically trust your partner. These people are the kinds of potential problems that should be brought up early and at least talked about, not in a needy manner, for the "in the bud" nature of the problems.

Balance. Relationships are about balance, if one side has less control insecurity occurs. Insecurity breeds neediness, neediness breeds unattractive features, these breed poor behaviours on both sides, relationships end. This chain of events is the cause of a long term relationship's end in the vast majority of cases. The rest being a partner simply losing their connection with the other (usually caused where one partner leaves the honeymoon period). Remember that balance does not mean relinquishing power or being a pushover, it means balance, being a man, standing ground when it's necessary and admitting fault when it's not. Not being stubborn is a major thing, having a partner who can admit concede when you're right is another.

Work together to make a relationship work. Always try to solve a problem before ending a relationship, a man doesn't just up and run away saying "Oh bollocks to that there's loads of other women she's not perfect there's a problem now. GFTOW" There is no such thing as a perfect relationship, they all have rough patches. Solving those together is the mark of a couple that can last.

On top of all the above, remaining attractive is a must. Constantly reminding your partner of why they should be with you over anybody else by being the fucking man. Being fun, being awesome, being the best person in their life. You have nothing to fear of anybody else.

No matter whether you do everything above perfectly, a relationship can only work if both people do the same. Maintaining the above pattern in a relationship is difficult and generally has to be asserted and reasserted regularly.

The majority of this is of course quite mainstream advice, this being because of something I assert regularly, being in a relationship requires an entirely different mindset to the one necessary to attract someone. They are two different phases that require different things. Being a domineering and controlling person who manipulates people by making them insecure through the use of underhanded "negs", "freezeouts", deliberately not responding to texts for a couple of hours or using other girls to create jealousy when supposedly in a serious relationship is in fact a form of domestic abuse, mental opposed to physical.

Jay, that post was brilliant. I'm printing that fucker out, re-reading it a dozen times, then keeping it for future reference.

Don't think much more needs to be said on the subject after that. AWESOME post!

Much love,

Craigus

your ADHD kicking in there Special K?

HAHA! Nearly choked on my sandwich reading that!

Drag her into the bedroom and throw her on the bed when she least expects it, like when she's surfing for car insurance, fuck communication and balance.

Moderating /r/relationships has kind of created this in my head. After you've either answered or read someone else giving the same answers to the same questions 10,000 times it gets fairly burnt in. There's plenty of further possibilities, questions and depth but all in all this applies to the almost universal and most general stuff.

With patience I believe this kind of relationship can be nurtured and helped to occur naturally. When one person understands all of the above they can generally teach the person they're with to understand what makes something work too. Experience teaches ideal persuasive language in relationships too, discussion of feelings is generally the best way to go in the end, a relationship is generally built upon the foundation of the fact that both partners are really working to please one another opposed top pleasing themselves. With this in mind be explicit about negative feelings (but not in a blow it up manner) is usually all that's necessary to stimulate discussion towards resolving problems opposed to stubborn discussion that ends up escalating problems. In the event that the other person shows a lack of desire to resolve the problem even knowing that what they're doing is negatively affecting the relationship and more importantly their partner's feelings it's a pretty big red flag, not necessarily a relationship ender but anything that implies someone cares more about something outside the relationship than their partner is a big deal.

That said, minor deals are not big deals, a partner not wishing to reduce their xbox time because they see it as a hobby is kind of different, judgement is necessary and this is what I mean by there being so much more to say on the subject because there's so many things that could be qualified as they fall outside of basic rules and into the realm of experience, judgement and compromise. Playing 5 hours of xbox a day while not participating in the nation's average of 5 hours of television a day is not a negative thing, it's a ridiculous double standard.(/angry gamer)

These kinds of things can generally be resolved before they become issues with two partners who communicate well.

Biggest thing of all that bugs me is people in relationships asking for people outside of the relationship what they should do... What they should do is talk to their partner about the problems opposed to random people on the internet. It astounds me that people are so averse to actually telling their partners something is wrong and instead choose to just break up with them a few weeks later when it's escalated and they're finally too bothered by it.

You post some damn good relationship stuff but can you start bullet pointing, it I'm a busy man.