Long term relationships and how to survive them
Is this about to become the biggest mis-selling scandal ever? When couples get together both of them tend to be romantic, good listeners, affectionate, cheerful, patient. They book romantic dinners and mini-breaks and put it all on the credit card. Anything to please. Then as time goes on and you might even have squeezed out some children between you, what was promised at the dating stage disappears. You think you’re getting one thing but you’re getting another. I’m not pointing the finger here at men. Who’d do such a thing? But below I outline what women hate about the mis-selling of what the future holds in terms of romance and how to get over it.
Are you still getting chocolates after all those years?
I should add that my own partner of nearly 20 years is in no way like this. I’m just echoing what I’ve heard so many women say, and I had an interesting chat with two wonderful women who have some ideas on what to do:
The hates:
- Forgets your name
- Never books anything romantic – no dinners, no dates, and a mini-break is something involving snapping a Twix rather than packing a suitcase
- Stops asking questions about you
- Hasn’t bought you flowers or sent you a cheeky text since the dating stage
- Lights up like a Christmas tree when he comes in and sees the dog or cat
- Doesn’t kiss you on arriving home
- Doesn’t notice a new hair style, in fact wouldn’t really notice if you’d had a leg removed or an ear trumpet surgically inserted
- Lets himself go – nose hairs, neck hairs, and the lower bits haven’t seen a trimmer since Friends was on the TV
The solutions:
- Buy yourself those flowers (on the credit card if need be)
- Go to a restaurant with your mates
- Go on a mini break with your mates
- “Don’t try to change him. You can’t”
- Make yourself look great for you only – and your mates
I once saw a quote that said: “Men marry women because they hope they’ll never change but they always do. Women marry men hoping to change them but they never do”. All the best bits of ourselves that we’re sold at the dating stage, and to be fair everyone does a bit of mis-selling, have to be forgotten – and a new way of treating yourself learned. Otherwise the trading standards officers are going to have a real case on their hands like the banks did. This is PPI but it might stand for Post Pretending Incidents.
