After a messy relationship AND a messy breakup with my ex some time ago, I thought it best to see what I got out of the relationship. I don't mean money or sex, I mean what I learnt. Here are a few things to AVOID in a relationship. Things that I hated about my ex, things that I hated about myself when I was with my ex. Things that I'm working on for myself and for my next love interest.
1. DON'T BE OVER CONTROLLING
My ex was the master of control. He was manipulative and he always had to get his own way. This lead to many mistakes, and MANY arguments.
For example, don't tell your partner who they can and cannot be friends with just because you don't like them. Don't make your girlfriend or boyfriend where certain clothes because you don't like there style. Things like these are saying you don't trust your partners judgement. And what is a relationship without trust?
That being said, let's get to our next point.
2. DON'T BE UNTRUSTWORTHY
I'll be 100% honest right now, in my last relationship I probably wasn't the most trustworthy. I texted other boys, in only a friend manner but with my ex who was the jealous type, he read into it and this made him trust me less. So let me rephrase that first sentence. In my Exes mind, I wasn't trustworthy. But I would never do anything that was questionable and unreasonable. But the thing is, in a relationship, you need your partners trust and so I should have been more trustworthy in his eyes and I should have done what I could to keep his trust always, even if I thought he over reacted in some aspects.
3. DON'T BE SELFISH
You can't just look out for your own needs and interests. Being selfish, can be the cause of untrustworthiness and being untrustworthy can be because you are too controlling.
Being in a relationship is about balance. You need to respect the other, you need to want the best for them. You can't expect the world from them, you have to show your love not by being jealous, or controlling, or from buying a lot for your partner and expecting everything back.
My ex would buy me clothes, lunch, shoes, jewellery. All in which I never asked for, I even told him not to. But he still continued, which yeah it was nice. But it lost its meaning. Him buying those things weren't heartfelt, he wanted more back. Any time we got into an argument he'd bring up how I never buy him anything, which was true in a sense, I only ever bought him 2 things in a year, but not because I didn't want to but because I didn't have a job, I was at school and I got $20 a week, which I used for petrol. Do you see my point? You can't give a gift and expect one in return. That's selfish not love.
Really what I'm trying to say is, you need balance, you can't be too selfish (you can of course expect the same amount of love back, even if it's shown in a different way) you can't be too controlling (you can of course expect to have respect from your partner) and you can't be untrustworthy (but you can ACCEPT we aren't all perfect and if you are too controlling or selfish, you may have a distorted view of untrustworthiness, making you not trust your partner over things you shouldn't be controlling.)
Just be fair, and show true love for your partner.
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