Relationship Guide: Missed Opportunities

People these days tend to focus on the wrong things when it comes to relationships.  Focusing on the big things will likely result in your relationship failing.  Sure, some big things are really exciting and make you feel good, but the small things are what truly matter.

Look at it this way: focusing only on the big things is like getting a bonus at work, but not getting a salary.  Makes sense?  The salary sustains your everyday life while the bonus allows you a chance to partake in luxuries now and then.  If you don't have the everyday security of a salary, then your life is that much more difficult while you sit around waiting on bonus time.  Approach relationships with the mindset of:

If I try each day to make their life easier, then I'm doing my job as a significant other.

Encourage them when they're discouraged.  Run an errand for them when they're busy.  Flirt with them when they're not confident.  Surprise them with something when it's not an occasion for it.  It is just that simple.  Those are some of the small things that have a huge impact on a relationship.  If that's not your mindset, then your relationship will ultimately fail.  I guarantee you that.

However, despite it being so easy to accomplish, people still tend to not go that route.  Some people want to dazzle you with things that have a huge immediate impact, but no long-term value.  They want to impress you with an expensive gift.  They want to win your heart through sex/attraction.  They talk about all the things they want to do for you, but never actually do it.  It's all smoke and mirrors.  People like that are incapable of caring and most of them are just plain selfish.  They do things periodically not because they care, but to "shut you up" or "throw you a bone."

A perfect example would be a business man.  He may go out of town regularly and doesn't have a lot of time to spend with/see his wife.  He can be out of town all week, but once he gets home on the weekends, what he does determines what kind of marriage they truly have.

A) The "throw you a bone" guy will come home with a new piece of jewelry to give to her.   He'll buy her an expensive dinner.  He'll talk to her about what he spent the week doing on the job.

If you're okay with "A," then chances are, you're materialistic and incapable of a real relationship.  That's fine as long as you can admit that.  "A" sounds like a good choice until it's realize that the jewelry is essentially a muzzle for the wife.  It buys silence while the football game is on.  The expensive dinner is a mutual benefit because it means that neither of them has to actually cook.  Telling her about his job can be nice, but wouldn't it also be nice for him to want to know how her week was, too?

People who love one another will make each other's lives easier every chance that they get.

To be in a successful relationship, both parties have to truly care for one another.  This means by always trying to make the other person smile, keeping them out of harmful situations, and of course, doing the small things that make their life easier.  Let's look at person "B:"

B) The man who truly cares will come home and be the partner in the relationship that his wife needs him to be.  He'll not make a mess of the house.  He'll help with / spend time with his children.  He'll give his wife the emotional and physical attention that she's been missing all week.

So, for those of you who are in a relationship, I want you to honestly evaluate yourself for just a moment.  Ask yourself: what did I do this week to make my man/woman happy?  If your answer is "had sex with him/her," "bought him/her something expensive," then the ending of your relationship is inevitable.

Do you think that most people just don't know what "caring for someone" truly is?