Relationship Coach Blog

There are very many people available to be your partner. Most of them are not right for you.  The question is, are you the right one for the man or woman that you desire?  If you are looking for a relationship, it will not just be you who does the choosing.  It will also be your partner.

Desirability for a long term relationship goes way beyond money, looks, pick up lines, and fun dates.  If you don’t have the qualities that good people are looking for, they won’t commit to you.

I’m not talking about raising your “perceived quality” to lure someone into a trap.  I’m talking about raising your actual quality so that you can find and keep others of genuine quality.  Long term relationships depend on the quality of each partner.

Seeing yourself clearly is the starting point for becoming more desirable.  Chances are that when you broke up with your ex, you blamed it all on your ex.  That was something you needed to do at the time to move on.  But it wasn’t seeing clearly.  You were a willing participant in that bad relationship

Either:

1. You did not see the end coming.
2. Saw it coming but did nothing about it.
3. Actively did things that caused conflict.
4. Were codependent for your partner’s behavior, or
5. Did not know how to manage the problems when they happened.

(Which one was it for you?)

Imagine the set of skills that would have prevented or effectively dealt with the problems:

1. Being able to identify relationship problems while they are still small,
2. Knowing what to do when things start to go wrong.
3. Knowing how to reduce or eliminate conflict.
4. Knowing how to deal with others’ self-destructive behaviors, and
5. Knowing how to manage problems when they happen.

(Which one would raise your relationship quality?)

The plan simply to find someone completely different from your previous partner will not prevent the same problems from occurring.  The reason for that is these are general skills that apply to all people.  In order to have a good long term relationship with people, we need to have these skills.  The more of these skills you have, the more desirable you are for a long term relationship (just think, would you want someone without these skills?).

Excellence is a process of gradual improvement over a long period of time.  We become excellent by continuing to analyze and improve on our performance.  That is as true for relationships, as for business, or sports.  Failure to see relationships as requiring a certain set of skills causes many people to stay at the same quality level.

Working on your relationship skills as well as your wardrobe will improve your desirability.  For some people, this will require learning many skills, one by one.  For others, it will mean only a few key skills in key areas such as communication or how to take a relationship from friendship to intimacy.   Either way, there is no time to learn by trial and error.

Whatever improvements you make in your relationship skills, improves your ability to identify, attract, and keep a truly wonderful partner.  It’s not just a matter of finding the right one.

If you don’t know what is going wrong with your relationships, are having difficulty starting relationships, or feel stuck in a bad one, it is time to work specifically on the skills you need.  Here are some helpful links:

Answers to relationship questions from single men

Answers to relationship questions from single women

How to save a relationship, regardless of who’s to blame

Special relationship coaching package for new clients