When it comes to our romantic relationships, most of us fall into one of three categories: Either we give too much of ourselves, we take too much of others, or – the elusive third category – we somehow find a balance between the two.

I think the biggest problem here is that the balance ends up being built into the relationship somehow.

When two balanced givers-and-takers end up together, it’s pretty harmonious. Most of the time, though, a giver ends up with a taker, and the results can be catastrophic.

Thankfully, you can give into your caring nature without compromising your autonomy, and find your own center – simply by never doing these 5 things for anyone, ever. It might sound a bit dramatic, but trust me – these are the things that define who you are.

1. NEVER change the way you look for her.

It’s completely normal to want to look attractive to your partner – and I definitely encourage you to go with it. But if your partner is pressuring you to change your hairstyle, your weight, or your wardrobe simply to match up with her preferences, she’s not with you for the right reasons. Any changes to your appearance should be made because you wanted to make them, and your partner should be fully supportive of the changes you do want to make.

2. NEVER put your dreams on hold for her.

It might seem like waiting until after your partner has done what she wants in life makes you a good girlfriend, but realistically, it just means that you’re willing to sacrifice your happiness for someone else’s. That might be the stuff romance novels and sappy cinema are made of, but in the real world, your girlfriend should support the things you want to do. The partner who truly loves you wouldn’t even ask you to give up your dreams on her behalf.

3. NEVER wait around for her to make your decisions.

Are you a strong and confident woman who’s in control of her own life – or are you the type of person who needs someone else’s validation and approval before you move forward? You need to have your own drive and your own ambitions, rather than relying on someone else’s plan for you. Remember, this is your life, and you’re the only person who has to stick around.

4. NEVER bail on plans just for her.

Sometimes it gets a little too easy to take your family and friends for granted. It’s completely normal to move things around if something important comes up, but a partner who cares about you will fully understand if you’ve already got plans. She shouldn’t expect to be your top priority, and your family shouldn’t have to wait until she’s otherwise occupied before they get to spend time with you.

5. NEVER let her change who you are.

Throughout the course of a relationship, you’re most likely going to undergo certain changes – but you’ll need to make sure that they’re coming from you, and not from someone else. Not only are you compromising your innermost self by doing this, she’s not really going to love you more if you match her expectations. You can’t fully commit to a change you don’t want, and while your changes might catch her attention for a little while, the relationship just wouldn’t be long-term-sustainable. It’s better to save your heart, and stay true to yourself.

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Have you ever wanted to keep tabs on someone you were interested in, but didn’t want to let them know you were keeping tabs on them? With the social media age being in full-swing, it’s easier than ever to dig up all the information you could possibly want to know about someone. Of course, it’s still sort of creepy to do it… But only if you get caught, right?

While I’m not exactly promoting the idea of lurking someone’s online presence, I’m also not denying that I’ve done it before. I’m going to tell you 4 ways to make sure your crush doesn’t find out you’ve been cyber-stalking her, so you can continue building your imaginary relationship in your head. (But, I urge you to get the courage to ask her out as soon as possible. Don’t be that person who only ever pines from behind the screen.)

Don’t touch anything.

Obviously, if you don’t want to get caught, you need to make sure there’s no trace that you’ve been where you’ve been. It’s almost as if we’ve been pre-programmed to “like” everything that our crush posts, though – so when you’re six years back on her timeline, you’ll need to exercise all the self-control you possibly can.

If you accidentally “like” or “react” to something, though, you might not have anything to worry about. Some women turn off push notifications on their devices, or don’t have Facebook installed on their devices. Unless she sees the notification before you undo it, you’re still in the clear.

Follow her regular haunts.

If you don’t know your date well enough to be on her friends list (or maybe even know her name!) you might want to keep up on the places you’ve seen her. For example, if you’ve seen her more than a few times at your local lesbian club, there’s a good chance that following their Facebook page might get you some candid pictures of her.

But what if she’s not a part of the club scene? You can still follow her workplace (if you know it) or something else you remember her mentioning. And, thanks to Facebook’s new social graph search, you can search with basic English instead of Boolean text – try searching for “people who work at (your workplace)” or “events (crush’s name) has attended”.

Figure out what makes her laugh.

If you know her name, as it appears on Facebook (which it’s supposed to be, according to the kinda transphobic way the policy is written), you can figure out everything she’s liked and commented on – pages, photos, and statuses. Of course, this will probably be mainly memes and company pages, but still. The more you can find out about her, the better.

Try using the graph search for this one, too. You can use phrases like “photos (crush) has liked”, “pages liked by (crush)”, and “links (crush) has commented on”. Unless this person has been super strict with their privacy settings, it’s going to turn up some results. (Might want to check your own settings, while you’re at it…)

Get hand-delivered stalker statuses.

If your crush happens to be on your friends’ list and you happen to want to be a total creeper – without her knowing – all you have to do is add her to your “close friends” list, and you’ll get a notification every time she does anything on Facebook. Everything will be hand-delivered right to your notifications list as soon as it happens.

The creepiest thing about this particular trick is that Facebook doesn’t let you know when you’ve been added to someone’s close friends – meaning you have no idea who’s watching your every move. When in doubt, remember – stalk responsibly and no one presses charges. Good? Good.

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Are you worried that your partner might not be as into you as you’re into her? Sometimes, despite our best intentions, we end up with people we just can’t make ourselves fall for. I’m not sure why we really bother trying to persuade our heart, when numerous chances have showed us that the heart definitely wants what it wants. Yet, still, we find ourselves stuck to people when we’re not really that into them.

If your partner keeps showing you these 13 signs, she’s probably not that serious about your relationship – time to get out before you get your heart broken!

1. She’s too busy for you.

I know, everyone has their own stuff going on, and you need to respect your girlfriend’s other priorities. But if she’s serious about the relationship, you will be one of those priorities. If she makes excuses as to why she never has time to see you – or worse, only has time to pop in for sex – she’s probably not serious about the relationship.

2. You don’t know anyone in her life.

Not everyone has the luxury of being able to bring their same-sex partner home to their parents, but chances are there’s at least someone else in her life that knows she’s into women, and she’ll naturally want you to meet them. If you’ve been seeing each other for a while and the subject of meeting her friends and family has never come up – or it’s been brought up by you and immediately shot down by her – you might want to question what she’s keeping hidden.

3. She won’t tell you about her past.

First, let me start by saying that trust issues are very real, and can be a problem for many of us. But you can’t have a serious relationship without trust and communication, so if she’s dodging questions and changing the subject any time the past is discussed, she might not be ready to fully commit.

4. You have to plan all the dates.

Some people (like me) are natural born planners. Some people (like my girlfriend) are not as obsessively inclined. In any relationship, there’s going to be one of you who’s better at it than the other. But if she refuses to even make an effort to plan dates and surprises for you, and instead insists that you should just tell her where to show up and what to wear, she’s probably not looking for anything long-term.

5. She won’t call you – only texts.

I’m not sure exactly where the ratio stands of women who love talking on the phone versus those who hate it, but even among those who absolutely can’t stand being on the phone wants to hear their partner’s voice from time to time. (Not that I’m talking about myself again or anything…) If your girlfriend sends you to voicemail and then responds with a text (and she’s not otherwise occupied), she’s probably not that serious about you.

6. You don’t know what her future goals are.

Future goals are another touchy subject, since not everyone knows what they want to do in life, right? But from a more practical standpoint, if you don’t know what your goals are, you’ll never achieve them. If she doesn’t have any long-term goals, she’s not really ready for a relationship yet. If she does have long-term goals and she has no desire to share them with you, you’re probably not a part of them.

7. She still talks to her most recent ex.

I fully understand that some people are friends with their exes. That’s all fine and dandy. But you can’t be friends with someone you still have feelings for, so if she’s still friends with someone she only recently broke up with, she may still have unresolved feelings for her – and it shows that she doesn’t respect your feelings. If she was serious about you, the respect would be there.

8. She won’t hold your hand in public.

Let me start by saying that different people have different levels of comfort with showing affection in public. Once you factor in the risk of discrimination from strangers and family, public displays of affection are even more difficult. But if she won’t show any affection to you in front of other people, such as hand-holding or shoulder-rubbing, she may be trying to keep you a secret.

9. She often bails on plans together.

Sometimes, things come up, and it’s hard to do the things you planned for. You can’t plan on life, after all, and there are unexpected detours around every corner. But if it seems like she’s blowing you off, especially if she can’t be bothered to let you know something came up, chances are you’re not a priority in her life.

10. You spend more time being worried than happy.

It’s never going to be sunshine and rainbows every single day, but most of the time, your relationship should make you happy. If she seems to make you insecure and irrational on purpose, and she never does anything just to make you smile, she’s probably not into it with as much as you are. (Just make sure you’re evaluating your own emotions appropriately, too.)

11. She isn’t trying to get to know you.

When you meet someone you care deeply about, you feel like you’ve known them your entire life, which makes it easier to talk about what makes you you. But if you don’t really care that deeply, you’re not going to care what makes the other person how they are. Does she tell you things about herself and then attentively listen to the responses? Or does she only want to talk about the present moment or herself?

12. You’ve never seen her place – you always go back to yours.

Some women might be a bit uncomfortable with how their abode stacks up against their girlfriend’s. But if she’s serious about you, she’s not going to keep that a secret – she’ll just try to make her place look as presentable as possible, and invite you in. If you’ve never seen further than her front door – or worse, not even that – and she’s been back to your place more than a dozen times, she probably doesn’t expect you two to last.

13. She flirts with other women (or men!), right in front of you.

One of the most blatant signs of disrespect early in a relationship: The overt flirt. Some people have a flirtatious personality, and they can’t even seem to help it. But if she truly cares about you, she’s going to do everything in her power to make sure she keeps it under wraps, at least while you’re around. (And, of course, the woman who’s in it for the long-term will make sure she breaks the habit when you’re not around, too.)

It’s a really sad day when you find out that the woman you’re crazy about has been cheating on you with someone else. Whether you find out she’s been sexting someone on the other side of the planet or you find out you’ve actually been the side chick for the last year and a half, the humiliation of having your expectations shattered by someone you see as just a random tramp can be devastating.

Chances are, however, that she’s not random. You have to remember that your girlfriend is the one who promised her loyalty to you – and, in many cases, the other woman is essentially innocent. Don’t blame a stranger for your terrible partner. Chances are, your partner was terrible before she got there.

1. Women long for affection, attention, and appreciation.

One of the leading reasons for infidelity in relationships is that one partner is feeling neglected, unappreciated, or sex-starved. In a perfect world, she’d bring this up to her girlfriend and they’d work things out, but reality doesn’t always work like that. When two women (who are both starved for these key components of love) happen to meet and start spending more time around each other, emotions and intimacy are bound to get confusing. It’s in our nature.

Now, this doesn’t excuse the act of cheating, and it certainly doesn’t mean the side chick should be protected from hearing the way you feel. Just remember that the other woman wasn’t the only one involved in the decision for your partner to be unfaithful. She might not have even known the position she was getting into.

2. Your partner felt it was OK to go behind your back.

Regardless of whether or not the affair was “justified”, your partner is the one who made the decision to keep things from you. Your partner is the one who opened the door for someone else to enter your relationship. In a truly honest relationship, one where both partners respect and value each other, there’s no opportunity for anyone else to step in.

In some cases, your partner won’t exactly “mean” to cheat on you. She might have been too drunk at a party, or gotten caught up in an emotional moment. This doesn’t automatically excuse her from what she did. If it was truly a mistake, she should be the first one to come to you – and not because she’s afraid you’ll find out from someone else. If she acts as if what you don’t know can’t possibly hurt you, she doesn’t respect you as an equal.

3. Being a side chick is less of a commitment than having a “real” relationship.

As unfortunate as it is, I’d be remiss if I told you that there was no such thing as a woman who prides herself on destroying relationships. These women do exist, and they’re some of the worst to deal with. They may feel that they’ve done nothing wrong, because they don’t respect the boundaries of relationships, or they might just not care because they’re just looking for an easy way to fulfill their physical needs.

Of course, in this situation, it’s still not entirely the side chick’s fault – she’s still only half of the equation. Even if she was totally on board with sleeping with someone who was already in a relationship, your girlfriend still allowed her to enter your relationship. Placing the blame entirely on this other woman, as easy as it may be to do so, is not the right answer.

4. Taboo equals thrilling.

There’s something intense about doing something you’re not supposed to do. It’s an adrenaline rush, and different people get that rush in different ways. Just as there are some people who get off on robbing banks or dressing up as bunnies, there are people who get off on being unfaithful. For some people, it may even be a part of their personality. These types of people tend to do better in open relationships, but not all monogamously-challenged people fully understand their relationship style.

Does this mean that you have to accept your partner’s infidelity, or forgive her and start again as a polyamorous couple? No – not if you’re not comfortable with it. The fact still remains that she snuck around behind your back and did something she knew you wouldn’t be comfortable with. However, if you want to give the open relationship a chance (and she wants to, also), there’s no real way to know if it works for you unless you try it. Just be warned that you might still end up hurt in the end.

5. They assume you’ll never find out.

Most people don’t set out to cheat on someone with the intention of their partner finding out about it. In fact, most people who are unfaithful will go out of their way to cover it up. They might pride themselves on their ability to be sneaky, or they might think that you don’t pay close enough attention to them. Whatever the reason is, she thought she was going to get away with it.

The other side of the coin is that, eventually, there comes a time in almost every affair where the spurned partner will find out. Usually, this results in the cheater confessing, out of guilt and fear that someone else will tell before they have a chance to. This is one of the lowest forms of relationship disrespect, because your girlfriend didn’t even think you deserved to know.

6. She doesn’t really love you.

I’ve long felt that someone who’s okay with cheating on someone else and destroying their trust can’t possibly love the person they’re with. I’m not really sure if that’s exactly true, but I know that I’ve personally never been able to wrap my head around an open relationship with someone I really cared about. I can’t pretend to speak for everyone, but I know that some of the women who have strayed outside my relationship with them definitely did not love me.

If you think she loves you, but just has an issue staying faithful to a single partner, you can try the open relationship thing – if you’re comfortable with it. However, whether she loves you or not, no one is worth putting your heart through the wringer – so if you can’t handle the thought of sharing your boo, it might be best to just walk away.

7. She may be lying to the side chick, too.

As much as it sucks to admit, sometimes your scummy girlfriend is just a scummy girlfriend – whether you’re ready to assign the blame to her or not. Just because you’re not ready to admit it doesn’t mean she didn’t really do you wrong, so do your best to put the blame where the blame is due.

When you catch your girlfriend cheating, it’s easy to shift the blame to the other person, because you don’t want to admit that the person you love doesn’t love you. But her other woman has literally nothing to do with you, in most cases. Unless you personally knew this other woman, and you know for a fact that she knew your girlfriend was taken, you can’t reasonably hold her responsible.

8. Roughly half of all people, male or female, gay, straight, or bisexual, will be unfaithful at some point in their lives.

It’s unfortunate, but statistically, cheating isn’t as uncommon as you might hope it is. Thankfully, the acceptance of polyamorous relationships is making it less likely that those who prefer open arrangements end up with those who prefer complete exclusivity, but there are still a lot of stigmas out there – stigmas that result in good people making stupid romantic decisions.

Thankfully, that old adage “once a cheater, always a cheater” isn’t exactly true, either. Basically none of the old wives’ tales about unfaithfulness are necessarily true – they’re all a bunch of stereotypes, and we know where stereotypes come from.

9. Because she can.

The most important thing to remember is that your girlfriend cheated on you because the opportunity presented itself. Whether she created the opportunity for herself or refused to turn down the offer, she cheated – and the other girl is not the problem. Dump your scummy girlfriend, and wait for someone who will treat you right. You deserve it!

Hello there, and allow me to formally introduce myself. I am the queen of the on-again/off-again lesbian relationship.

I spend my spare time serving as a cautionary tale of what happens when you let good sex make up for bad behavior. I can also be used as an example of what happens when you’ve got the best sex around and are continually attracted to women who are totally out of your league.

(Or, at least, that’s what my exes would probably say, in between the break-up and make-up parts of our recurring cycle.)

After recycling a few exes in particular to stretch casual hookups out over agonizing years, I think I’ve come up with a few solid reasons why you should absolutely not go back to your ex – no matter how great she promises things are going to be this time.

Reason #1: You had a real reason to break up.

Once nostalgia starts kicking in and you’re feeling a bit lonely, it’s easy to remember all the things you loved about her in the first place. You start to think about which side of her bed is comfier, and which of her sweatshirts look the best on you. It’s easy to put together all those magical little pieces that made the relationship so spectacular.

The only problem is… It’s not spectacular anymore. No matter what the specifics were, one thing’s for sure: She’s not your one true love, or you wouldn’t have broken up. I know, I know… Everyone does it, and sometimes it turns out super awesome like in the movies. But your life is not a movie, and chances are, things haven’t changed that much. Save yourself the heartbreak.

Reason #2: It’s not worth the effort.

All relationships require work, but when you’re in a good relationship, it feels like you’re getting a valuable return on your (time) investment. Maybe you’ve got kids to think about, or nowhere else to live, and it feels like working it out with your ex is the only option. For the rest of us, though, it’s not your brain holding you to the commitments with your ex – it’s your hormones.

Now, what happens if you are totally stuck between working things out or being miserable? In most cases, this is just your brain stepping in and trying to make excuses for your hormones, by pretending it’s what’s best for your heart. It’s not what’s best for your heart – it’s what’s best for your sense of complacency. Why settle for being comfortable when you can do just as much work and be truly happy?

Reason #3: Your life is not a romcom – even if you’ve grown attached to your cast mates.

I know, I know – the urge to prove that our relationship is the exception to all the rules is super, super strong, especially when we fill that void in our heart with sappy love stories and songs about rain. TV and movie couples work their differences out no matter how big they are, and we feel hopeful that we can do the same.

You probably could do the same – if you had a whole team behind you handling makeup, wardrobe, expense reports, and dialogue. I’m not saying that your one true love doesn’t exist, but chances are, she’s not the one that everything’s gone wrong with. Most likely, she’s going to be the one who comes along and saves you from pining over the same person for the rest of your life. You can’t go out looking for her – you have to actually wait for her.

Reason #4: The only closure you need can be typed.

We often tell ourselves that we have to give it another go, “for old time’s sake”. We need to catch up. We need to get closure. We need to figure out where we went wrong last time. The truth is, you don’t need to do any of that. That’s just your hormones coming in and screwing things up for you.

If you need to catch up, you can find her on Facebook later. If you need to figure out where you went wrong so you can move on, you can get that from a text message. If you need to sleep with her one more time, try handling things yourself and see if you still want to hook up with her again. Trust me – this is solid science. There’s nothing you need to say to each other that has to be face-to-face, unless you ran over her cat or something… And then even I can’t help you.

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One of the most painful things you can watch your best friend go through is the pain and torture of a break-up. Whether she’s on her third boo this year or it’s the first time ever, her emotions are a total wreck. You want to be there for her, but it’s exhausting, and you’re running out of ideas.

Generally, the best things to do are going to be what you would want someone to do if you were going through a heartbreak. Obviously you don’t need to break up with your girlfriend in solidarity, but she probably won’t want you to show her off right now, either. You want to keep her mind off the ex, but you also know she needs some support and a place to vent about it. You’re a great friend for keeping up with it all – here’s all the ways you can help her now.

Distract her.

One of the simplest things you can do for her is to simply distract her from her pain. Naturally, you shouldn’t just distract her from things – we can’t just run away from the unpleasantness of a breakup. Still, having a temporary reprieve from the hurt will keep her from dwelling on things, and may help her to move on. Try picking up her favorite magazine or movie, for while she’s home alone, and take her on a road trip or a night on the town. On the days she doesn’t feel like doing much, binge-watch your favorite show together, or have your own private movie marathon.

Pamper her.

When you’re just getting out of a relationship, your personal style can start to take a bit of a hit. Taking her to get her hair or nails done, or a trip to go clothes shopping, can help bring her self-image back up and make it a little easier to work through the pain. This might be particularly important if her ex was abusive, narcissistic, or otherwise a jerk (but let’s be real – everyone feels better when they feel good about themselves). Then, once she’s gotten all snazzy, take her out to a nice dinner. If the breakup was particularly rough, she might not be eating right, and malnourishment can definitely increase the effects of depression. Sweet treats can also help some, in moderation, so feel free to opt for ice cream, too.

Watch her health.

Breakups can make a huge impact on someone’s physical and mental health, so make sure you’re checking in with her from time to time. Physical activities, such as dancing and hiking, or fitness classes at your local gym, can all help push the blues away while also helping her meet her exercise needs. Some people have a hard time remembering to eat when they’re depressed, so bring her food when you can.

It might help if you create a miniature “survival kit” for her, too, with some of her favorite things, as well as a small notebook to write angry letters to the ex, or document other things she’s feeling. Then, once she’s past the worst pain, ceremonially dispose of the notebook in a way that keeps her from drudging up those ugly memories – such as at a bonfire, in a paper shredder, or simply burying it in the back yard. There’s something very therapeutic about metaphorically getting rid of the bad thoughts – it doesn’t hurt to try!

Be a little extra positive.

If she’s having a particularly rough time of it, it might be helpful to send a little extra encouragement her way. Write her a hand-written letter full of the things you love about her, or send her a charming card. If you can afford to have flowers sent to her, make sure you don’t send them from a secret admirer – this can just add to the hurt if she thinks they might be from her ex. Instead, attach a message that you think will make her laugh, and sign your name proudly. You do deserve the credit for being as awesome of a friend as you are.

Be there for her.

Even though much of the healing process centers around moving forward, it is important to take time to process the past and the present. She needs someone who’s going to listen to what she has to say and not make it about themselves. Try to resist the urge to give advice or personal stories, unless she asks for them. She’s hurting right now and there’s a chance she may lash out at you. Try not to take it too personally. She will move past this, eventually, and she’ll be grateful that you were there to support her.

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Isn’t it irritating when you’re having a conversation with someone, and they accidentally cue you in that they seriously haven’t been listening the whole time?

Personally, I hate repeating myself, so if someone doesn’t hear me the first time, it’s super hard for me to not say something snarky and walk away. I’m trying to work on that, but it doesn’t exactly come easy, just because I’ve started trying.

My current partner and I have what I’d like to call a “listening confirmation problem”. I tend to take it for granted that she’s listening when I talk to her, and sometimes, I’m embarrassingly wrong. Sometimes, she didn’t even know I was talking. Yikes.

I’m almost convinced that it’s something to do with me, because it’s not even just with her that I have this problem… Although it definitely happens more with her. Recently, I’ve started wondering what could cause these listening confirmation problems to happen. Which do you think is the case in your relationship?

Reason #1: Narcissism.

Narcissism is an ugly word for an uglier situation: When you’re dealing with someone who legit only cares about themselves. Most of us have dealt with narcissism for at least a brief period of our lives, but we usually outgrow it shortly after we finish our teenage years. Narcissism makes it difficult for people to listen to conversations unless they hold praise for them. They’re usually not very fun to talk to even if you’re not trying to date them, but dating a narcissist can be a downright dreadful experience.

More than just directing the conversation to positive things about themselves, a narcissist may try to take control of the conversation, and might even insist that they know best – even when speaking to someone who is literally a professional at something the narcissist knows nothing about. The good news is that narcissism is habitual, not neurological, so narcissistic people who want to learn to listen better just need to start training themselves to be open to the other person’s ideas, too.

Reason #2: Mirroring.

Fun fact: To a certain extent, people treat you how you treat yourself. People usually think about you the way you think about yourself. And if you listen to yourself, your inner voice if you will, other people are more likely to listen to you, too. Obviously I’m not saying you should be hearing voices and doing what they say, but think about your body’s internal cues. When you start to get tired, do you go to bed, or do you push yourself to stay up? Do you eat when you’re hungry, or when you’re bored? Are you reaching for soda when your body clearly needs water?

Obviously, we all want to think that we’re treating ourselves with the love and care we deserve, but sadly that’s not really true for most of us. We tend to write off our body, either consciously or subconsciously, and we dismiss the things that we know are true, in order to chase the things that might not be. We are conditioned to put ourselves second, without realizing that you can’t give if you have nothing to give – you need to think of yourself first. Love, respect, and listen to yourself, and your partner will have no choice but to do the same or to move on.

Reasons #3 and 4: Confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance.

If you haven’t heard of either of these terms, don’t worry – you’re not alone. I hadn’t heard of them, either, until I started doing research on relationship psychology.

Basically, confirmation bias occurs when the things someone is hearing are automatically filtered through their built-in views about the world, and exposed to our own personal prejudices. This seems like it’s pretty unfair, but the truth is, it’s human nature – we can’t really change it, unless we actively try to change our opinions. (And, to be clear, this isn’t necessarily a good idea – although it will depend on the situation.)

Cognitive dissonance, on the other hand, occurs when facts seem to go against our opinions, causing some internal turmoil. In other words, if your partner thinks of herself as super honest, and you have evidence that she lied to you about sometime, she’s going to have a hard time accepting this news, and may even argue illogically against it. However, cognitive dissonance isn’t necessarily a bad idea, as this is how our views are challenged in order for us to grow into a better person.

Reason #5: Unwanted advice.

Picture the scene: Your friend, coworker, or love interest has just told you this horrible story about how their morning has been. Do you try to fix the problem for them, or do you just let them talk it out? You might assume that the second option would be rude… But that’s where you’d be wrong. Most people don’t tell their troubles in order to get advice and answers, and if they are searching for that, they’re probably going to come right out and say it.

When you give advice, you’re basically telling someone that your answer to the problem is the correct answer to the problem – and if they weren’t looking for a better answer, you’re going to get written off, without even trying. Most people are looking for information to help them solve their problems on their own, or they’re looking for a sympathetic ear. Rarely will they be looking for someone to tell them they’re wrong.

Reason #6: Anger.

One of the keys that goes along with cognitive dissonance, above, is a person’s reaction to anger. Most people are incapable of having a rational conversation when they’re angry, and the more level-headed you try to force yourself to stay, the more likely you’ll end up humiliating yourself with an outburst. Well, when you’re dealing with anger, it can be pretty hard to actually listen to what the other person has to say – even if what they have to say will relieve your anger.

In some people, anger can immediately lead into narcissistic behavior (think temper tantrums, but only slightly more grown-up). This anger/narcissism combo ends up feeling like “what you say is irrelevant – I’m mad and I have to be right”. We know that this is not the way to handle our problems, but when we’re angry, we just don’t care. Try revisiting the conversation after you’ve both fully calmed down, and your voice might be heard a little better.

Reason #7: Aggression.

Okay, so it’s not just her anger that makes it hard to listen – it could also be your anger. If the things you say and the tone of voice you use convey that you’re pissed off, she’s going to pick up on that – and her fight-or-flight response will fly off the deep end. If she does hear the things you say, she’ll be too busy getting irritated with your snotty tone to fully comprehend your point.

While the words themselves play a role, the tone of voice makes a bit more of a difference. When humans hear a hostile tone, they’re most likely going to block it out, in order to preserve their own feelings. It’s not like it’s entirely her fault, either – it’s important that you understand that angry words are not an effective method of communication. Like we said in #5, try to wait until you’re less pissed off – or at least until you can handle your sass.

Reason #8: Broken trust.

Once someone has broken your trust, it’s super hard for you to build up that trust a second time. The cracks will always be there, even after the slow healing process, and if you’ve ever done or said anything mean or dishonest to someone – and they found out about it – they’re significantly less likely to listen to what you have to say in the future. You’ve taught them that what you have to say doesn’t necessarily mean anything. You’ve taught them that you can’t be trusted.

I wish I could tell you that you can rebuild the trust after it’s been broken… Human psychology doesn’t exactly work that way. At least, not often. If you are able to repair your trustworthiness with someone, it’s imperative that you don’t screw it up again, because the likelihood of getting yet a third chance is pretty freaking slim. Just don’t get your hopes up.

Reason #9: Empty filler words.

Have you ever spoken to someone who used the word “like” about 40 times in a sentence? Or maybe it was a different word, but it was repeated so many times it became meaningless? Even if a single sentence goes on too long, it’s a lot more difficult to listen to. What’s worse is that we’re not often aware of these words as they’re leaving our mouths, because they mean nothing – they’re just an errant word that slipped out our mouths when we were saying the meaty stuff.

The problem is, people don’t want to sift through the filler words to get to the point – that’s your job as the speaker. You can’t expect your partner to listen to you if you drone on and on with the same thing. Practice removing extra words when you talk. Writing is a great practice for this, because you can actually map out your sentences without anything extra. Of course I’m not suggesting you script everything you say, ever, but doing a little rehearsing while you’re changing your habits can be helpful in the long run.

Reason #10: Dismissiveness.

It’s important to realize that “treat others as you’d like to be treated” is, quite frankly, not the way most people work – and for good reason. If you’re always nice to someone who’s not nice to you, you’re going to grow to resent your life. If, instead, you don’t waste your energy on people who won’t put in the effort with you, you’re conserving your resources and focusing on those who make you better. Maybe it sounds mean – but it’s the way you need to be.

If you’re struggling to find a reason why your partner isn’t listening to you, have you considered that you might not be listening to her? If someone never listened to you, you’d probably stop listening to them over time. It’s not a matter of revenge, either. It’s a matter of self-preservation. We don’t waste our energy on people we deem unworthy of the effort. Try to adjust your own listening habits, but keep in mind that your partner might not be willing to give it another shot.

Reason #11: Ineffective communication habits.

Communication is an art form, and if you’re not using it properly, there are bound to be misunderstandings and disagreements. While much of these communication rules are taught at a young age (such as don’t speak too quickly or too quietly), others aren’t learned until we’re well into our adult lives. This can lead to major miscommunications, especially if both conversation partners are clueless to the conventional rules of dialog and etiquette.

Pay attention to your own communication style. Do you speak too loudly or too softly? Do you speak too high- or low-pitched? Do you speak too quickly, or do you speak too slowly and lose interest? Do you use the wrong inflections when speaking, such as using the question-ending uptick at the end of your declaratory sentences? As much as I really hate to say this… Think back to middle grade English class, and remember all those sentence rules. Yep, every one of them. If you don’t remember them, and a good number of people in your life seem to ignore you… It might be worth taking a communication class or two.

So… whose fault is it, anyway?

Well, in most cases, it’s not going to come down to one single reason. But examining the different possible reasons and assessing which ones apply in each aspect of your life might be helpful in making better changes. Just remember that you can’t count on the other person to change – you can only count on yourself and your ability to change your own habits.

If you think your partner would be interested in making some changes, too, feel free to share this post with her. If the two of you are able to sit down and assess the nature of your miscommunication, you stand a much better chance of fixing it. Try not to make it about who’s right and who’s wrong – that’s exactly the type of thing you’re trying to get away from! Instead, each of you focus on the things you personally need to change, and move forward from there.

I’ve always been a little bad at maintaining “mine” in a relationship. I’m a pretty generous person, by nature, and more than once I’ve been in a situation where the person I was with took advantage of that. I always figured, a happy relationship requires sharing everything, right? So it totally made sense to pool my money with my partner’s money and call it all “ours”.

The only problem is… I tend to date women who aren’t very ambitious. Dare I say I’ve had a few girlfriends who have been downright lazy and selfish. In my experience, these women tend to be the worst about taking advantage of me, even in other areas of our relationship. Now, I’m not sure whether that’s a fair connection to make, but I do know that the way we spend money tells a lot about who we are as a person, and as a romantic partner.

Many of the questions we think we need to ask go undiscussed, just because we’re not sure we’re going to like how our partner will react to them. For example, if you’re worried your partner doesn’t share your views about faithfulness, you probably won’t bring it up. Realistically, though, the greater the differences in your opinions, the more you need to talk about those things – that way you can decide if you can reach a solution that works for both of you.

How many of these discussions have you already had – and how many do you still need to have? Can you think of any we forgot?

1. How do you feel about kids?

In many cases, the way we grew up greatly influences our views about having children. My brothers are all way older than me, so I’ve had my “rental kids” since I was about 7 years old. I’ve also never been the type to fantasize about getting pregnant and having a child biologically related to me. In fact, I decided when I was 3 years old that I was going to adopt a child, rather than giving birth. My ways are pretty ingrained.

For those who were born in less-inclusive families, such as with homophobic parents or a traditional nuclear family, the idea of adoption might not be a reasonable answer. I’ve dated women whose families wouldn’t accept a child that wasn’t biologically related to them. I’ve dated women who have already had kids, conceived naturally in a previous relationship. I’ve dated women who never wanted kids, and women who wanted kids as soon as possible.

Even though it doesn’t seem like having kids is directly related to your finances, there is a lot of overlap. It should come with no surprise that a family costs significantly more than a couple – and not being financially stable enough to afford those costs can cause severe strain in every aspect of the relationship. Once you add in the need to save up for artificial insemination, surrogacy, or adoption, if that’s part of your plan, it’s much easier to see how your future family is deeply related to your financial health now.

2. What’s the total amount of our combined debt?

Okay, now this one definitely sounds like a financial question, and depending on how long you’ve been together, it might be considered really intrusive. The fact of the matter is, it’s important to fully understand your debt before you merge your finances, rather than after the fact. In some places, getting married will automatically hold you accountable for your spouse’s debt – I have a friend who was stuck with about $42,000 in credit card debt when her husband went to jail before she filed for divorce. Of course my fingers are crossed that you won’t end up in this exact situation, but there are other ways you’re going to be accountable for each other’s debts, even if you merge your bank accounts before you get married.

If you’ll be using a combined checking account to pay off those debts, you’ll obviously need to talk about how much is going to be coming out every month. It might turn out that the one with the higher minimum payments is also the one making more money – this is great! But if that’s not the case, things can seem a little unfair, pretty quick.

When you are involved in any joint banking decisions, you’ll both be held responsible if anything goes wrong, which can have a serious impact on your credit score. I was recently denied for a new bank account because of an old joint account that went wrong. Trust me, it really is an embarrassing situation when you realize you can’t open an account now because your ex-girlfriend screwed up an account you stopped using years ago. In some places, it’s not possible to take someone’s name off of a joint account, either – so you’re pretty much stuck unless you close the account entirely.

As unfair as it might seem, your credit history does tell a bit about your relationship savvy, too – at least, the type of debt does. Medical debt often indicates a lack of planning ahead, such as building good health habits and saving for emergencies. Large credit card debt can indicate a tendency to be impulsive and a desire to live above your means (for example, using credit as a way to build your reputation, when you can’t afford to live the life you want to display). Student loan debt is a bit different, as the cost of tuition is so high, but a failure to pay off that debt can show a lack of commitment and follow-through.

Once you’ve discussed your debt, you’ll need to sit down together and create a detailed plan for the future. If there are debts outstanding, calculate your minimum payments, and make an effort to pay at least double that. If debt isn’t an issue, create a plan for the future of your finances, and make sure you stick to it.

3. Where (and how) do we want to live?

First, let me get an obvious point out of the way: You should never merge finances with someone you won’t live with. If you can’t live with them, due to their job or yours, or perhaps a family situation, the lines get a little fuzzy, but if you can’t picture sharing a home with this person, you’ll probably hate sharing a bank account with them.

OK, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way…

It shouldn’t surprise you that your living situation can be greatly affected by your finances, and can also play a part in affecting your financial situation. This “life goal” can change throughout the course of your life, too, either as you experience new things or you reach new levels of financial freedom that you didn’t see as a possibility before. Either way, this discussion should happen before you start pooling up, and ideally every so often after that.

It’s always been my dream to live in a camper van and travel the continental United States, maybe even spend some time in Canada and Mexico. But it’s also been my dream to own a smallish house with a detached writing studio in the back… Think Jenny’s studio in The L Word. These two goals might not seem like they work well together, but with enough ambition and savings, it can totally be a reality.

If, on the other hand, my partner hated the idea of living in a camper van, or wanted a huge mansion, the savings goals would be a lot different. We’d have to save a lot more for this bigger house, which means even more time spent living with our parents… Not exactly ideal for me. If my partner had no intention to move further than her parents’ spare bedroom, her ambition probably wouldn’t match up to mine, and I’d feel like I was saving all on my own.

In any case, talking about your ideal living situation will help you to understand exactly what you need to do to move forward. If you want to make these dreams a reality, it’s going to take some planning and elbow grease – you can’t just keep those dreams to yourself.

4. What’s going on with college?

When I was in my early 20s, I tried the college thing. Due to a few less-than-stellar situations that happened during that time, I was unable to finish my first year – and I lost the GPA that was paying for my tuition. I’d had to pull out my very first student loans, right before I failed out, and since I didn’t graduate, but simply stopped going to class, I didn’t qualify for any type of deferments. Any time I fell behind financially in other areas of my life, my minimum payments went up, because the interest was adding up quickly.

Non-compulsory education is a tricky subject, because it’s proven to increase both your earning potential and your total debt. I’ve always been the type of person to maintain that a college degree isn’t the only indicator of success, but it can be helpful to take the shortcuts it provides. It’s all in finding the degree that offers the highest amount of job satisfaction, with the highest likelihood of financial security. (If only that was as easy as it sounds.)

When it comes to your future plans, you won’t be able to decide for each other what to do in this situation – it’ll need to be a decision you each reach separately, and then find a compromise between. In the same relationship that destroyed my bank account, “we” came to the conclusion that I’d go to college after my partner finished – and then, due to other factors, we broke up just a few months after she finished school and started working. I don’t like thinking that the two are related, but in some ways, they are. Don’t put off your future for someone else, even if you see the relationship as lasting – things can come up at any time, and you’ll be kicking yourself if you miss out due to not making yourself a priority.

5. What are your top three must-have recreational expenses?

Sometimes, when creating a financial plan, we think that we have to cut all “fun” spending out of the picture and just focus on the future. I’m really bad about this; I either spend impulsively on everything I want, or I refuse to let myself spend anything that isn’t essential. As much as I value the time I’m in an “online shopping embargo”, it’s not usually the best way to handle the situation, since it increases the likelihood that you’ll overspend when you do your recreational shopping.

Instead of cutting those things out of your life entirely, it’s better if you make a few picks for the things you’ll allow yourself regularly. For me, the top three would be “date night”, stationery supplies, and dog toys. For my partner, Netflix and Gamefly rank a bit higher. Through regularly comparing the things we want to keep up, we find ways to make things work, without sacrificing the things we want the most.

It’s important to realize that these things are going to change – maybe even frequently. And, of course, allowing these expenses isn’t a free-for-all to spend as much as you can on those things. But prioritizing the things you want gives you room to decide whether you’ll save up for the things or just use them as little mid-week rewards. (I don’t save for my dog toys or date nights, but I will save up for a new journal or pen.) It’s still essential that you create budgets for these things, and the specific amounts that work for you will be largely determined by your overall financial situation.

6. Who’s going to handle the budgeting?

Let me be clear: In a perfect, happy relationship, the two of you will sit down together every week, go over the bills and the paychecks and your savings goals, and figure out a plan of attack for the next week. Unfortunately, that’s not realistic for every couple, or every schedule, or even every financial plan. It can be stressful putting your finances under another person’s control, or it can be stressful taking on someone else’s financial obligations. No matter which person you are, it’s important that you understand how the two will work together.

When taking all of your debts, bills, and expenses into account, you’ll need to create a more detailed action plan. As a general rule of thumb, use the 50-30-20 rule: 50% of your income should go toward your bills, 30% toward savings, and 20% toward recreational activities and purchases that you want. Whenever possible, bump up your savings or pay off more debt – but don’t try to cheat your future.

Keep in mind that figuring out a perfect financial plan is probably not going to be perfect for long – so getting comfortable discussing them when it doesn’t seem to make much of a difference will set you up for better solutions once things are more difficult. There are no “always right” or “always wrong” answers, so make sure your plan works for you. Try to keep things as fair as possible, and remember that you don’t have to keep everything together. If it’s easier for you two to maintain your finances separately, and you both agree to that solution, don’t let anyone else pressure you to merge your accounts. Trust me – if your partner insists on merging, even though you’re not comfortable with it, there’s probably a reason – and you probably won’t like it.

Are you stuck in a job you hate, dealing with a grueling day-to-day schedule that you can’t seem to shake? Or maybe your work life is fine, but your romantic life is completely off the deep end. Your partner isn’t fulfilling her end of your “deal”, so to speak, and you feel like you’re the only one making the effort to work things out. We all encounter rough times from time to time, but the difference between occasional unhappiness and a habitual rut is a huge deal.

Thankfully, it’s probably your fault.

It might seem a bit harsh to say that it’s your fault, and it might seem downright rude to say that’s a good thing, so let me explain.

If something is your fault, you have the power to change it. It’s something you can control, in most cases, even if you’ve told yourself you can’t. Placing the blame on yourself is, in many ways, beneficial, because it gives you the motivation to work toward a solution, instead of just accepting things as they are. When it’s your fault, you want to fix it, but when it’s someone else’s fault, you want to run away from the problem.

Want to know how you can fix things without throwing away your sense of self-worth? We’ve got you covered. Read on to see the 4 bad habits that keep you from living the life you want, and what you can do to fix them.

Bad habit #1: You fight and argue.

We often think that fighting for the things we want is going to bring us closer to getting them. After all, many of us hear stories about how we’ve got to fight for love, fight for our rights, and fight for what we believe in. The only problem is that there is a huge difference between fighting for something and fighting with someone. Fighting and arguing with someone is fueled by anger and conflict, and this type of situation is likely to bring further conflict along the way.

When you engage in a verbal (or physical) fight with someone, you are both relying on the ability to overpower one another. In your love life, this can lead to resentment. Remember, the two of you should be partners – neither of you should overpower the other. The happiest relationships require balance between both parties, and you can’t have balance if you’re angry with one another all the time.

When fighting happens at work, it has the potential to cost you your job – or, at the very least, your job satisfaction. It might seem that you need to engage if your boss starts a fight with you, but realistically, you don’t. It’s human nature to respond to anger with more anger, but this only feeds a cycle of intimidation and intensity. If you do keep your job after fighting with your boss, you’re not going to be able to totally shake that resentment that’s built up.

Bad habit #2: You give up or give in too easily.

For those who want to avoid the hassles and downsides of fighting, it might seem easier to just give up on getting the outcomes that you want. You decide that you can’t afford the cost of heightened anger throughout your workday or your relationship, so instead, you elect to sacrifice. You avoid the feeling of being overpowered by just letting the other person win before it’s even begun. Over time, this makes you feel hopeless, and can lead to depression.

Consistently giving up in your relationships in order to avoid conflict seems like a good plan – but when the relationship has gotten so dire that you can’t picture the happiness anymore, clearly it’s taking an unwanted toll on you. You see a fight as being a negative thing, so you refuse to fight instead – which is a willful loss of power, as opposed to letting it be taken from you.

In a work situation, giving in can be just as harmful to your self-worth and job happiness as fighting. The things you love about your job start to become overpowered by the things you’ve given up for your job, and you may even begin to think that you’re not worthy of the job satisfaction you previously had. The metaphorical carrots that were dangling in front of you start disappearing, until there’s nothing left to do but get through the day.

Bad habit #3: You freeze and let anxiety build.

So, anger is bad, and hopelessness is bad – so what about ignoring the problem entirely? Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but that’s not a good idea, either. When you refuse to correct an unfair expectation (such as your boss expecting a project that’ll take 12 working hours to be completed by the next day, or your girlfriend expects you to work full time and still do “wifey things”), you’re simply inviting further anxiety to the situation.

Your romantic relationships suffer when you refuse to voice your opinions. If neither partner is willing to communicate and reach a proper resolution, both sides will be filled with tension and undue stress. This may be especially true if you both feel that you’re right, but neither wants to work out a solution that works for both of you. Holding things in sustains feelings of anxiety and prevents you from moving forward. When things are left unresolved, neither side can be happy.

At work, a refusal to talk things over creates tremendous disappointments for all involved. Your supervisor will be expecting you to meet this unreasonable deadline, because you didn’t tell them you couldn’t meet it. You’ll be expecting to meet it out of sheer willpower, and you’ll be disappointed in yourself when you don’t. What’s worse is that anxiety has a strong potential to grow into a bigger barrier for you at work – keeping you from completing even the most reasonable of requests in a timely manner.

Bad habit #4: You escape, through drugs, alcohol, or other obsessive-compulsive habits.

Distracting yourself through toxic behaviors isn’t as likely to lead to anxiety or depression, but there is still a strong correlation between addictions (and compulsions) and mental health issues. Dependence on alcohol and drugs can lead to shortened attention span, schizophrenic behavior, and other mood disorders, in addition to the physical effects of the dependence. People with a family history of addiction can see even stronger effects in this area, as the addiction is usually developed in a shorter time.

Using drugs or alcohol with your partner, instead of working through the issues you have, creates another complicated situation: A shift in your oxytocin behavior. Over time, the bond you share with your partner will instead be focused on the dependence to the drug of your choice (and yes, alcohol and marijuana are both drugs). If, one day, you decide to get clean, your relationship with your partner will be very strained, since your bonds have become attached to this outside force.

I’m sure you’re well aware of the problems that drugs and alcohol can have on your career, too: In many places, you can lose your job over your addictions. While there may be some controversy surrounding whether addiction counts as a medical excuse or not, many jobs are simply not safe if you’re under the influence while working, and it’s a little difficult to pinpoint exactly when the drug or alcohol entered your system. (This is coming from someone who long opposed the idea of testing for marijuana for job placement – it seems unfair to hold someone’s recreational time against them, but in jobs that require complete mental clarity, it can even be unsafe to have too much caffeine. Be aware of your job and how much precision it takes, and consider how your recreational choices could affect those around you.

The solution: Communicate with purpose.

Okay, so technically that’s very general advice, and from a general viewpoint, everyone communicates with purpose… It’s just a matter of what that purpose is. When we seek to overpower or dominate another, our anger comes out stronger. When we seek to avoid conflict, we become depressed with our reality, or anxious about things not turning out right. When we use substances to mask the pain we’re feeling, we begin to need these coping mechanisms in order to process things the “right” way. (Note: This isn’t actually the right way, but addiction has a funny way of convincing you that it is.)

Instead of diving into one of these toxic behaviors, you need to learn how to manage your communication effectively – to reach a solution, rather than to prove a point. When we allow our conversations to take a positive and productive direction, without sacrificing our own needs and wants in the situation, it slowly becomes easier to manifest the solutions. Problems no longer seem insurmountable, because we know we have someone helping us to reach them.

Of course, being the one to initiate this type of effective communication is a lot of hard work, and it may take a long time to turn it from a conscious effort to an unconscious habit. It might be easier to start by implementing these changes to your self-talk, before actually applying them to your interpersonal communication.

In your relationships, the purpose you seek for your conversations is going to mirror what you get out of them. If you’re always looking to be right, you may end up right – and alone. If you’re always seeking to make your partner happy, you may end up being miserable with the situation you’ve created. While these issues will be easier to tackle earlier on, there’s no deadline to reaching a positive flow in your relationship. Every argument you avoid through purposeful communication is a step in the right direction.

In your work life, the outcomes are similar. Effective communication must be embraced by both sides for maximum effectiveness, but humans are known to be led by example. If you set the habit of purposeful communication into play, and diligently stick to it, you may find that your colleagues (and even superiors!) start adopting these habits as well – or, they might not. Even if you’re alone in your quest for resolution, the satisfaction of taking the right steps will definitely make an impression on those around you, and at the very least, will let you breathe easily when you say no to something that’s simply not possible.

I think we’ve all probably felt the sting of rejection at least once. Whether it’s an implied sense of rejection when you’re too afraid to take a risk, or an outright rejection when you get up the courage – yikes – there’s no denying that it’s unpleasant.

Unfortunately, there’s not too much you can do to avoid the risk of rejection – as much as we might try to keep our expectations reasonable, it’s pretty difficult to completely separate ourselves from the “no” we’ve heard (or imagined).

Listen, guys – I’ve probably been rejected more times than I can count. Up until relatively recently, I’ve lacked the baseline self-confidence levels necessary to sustain a healthy relationship.

As much as we’d like to fake it sometimes, it’s painfully obvious when you’re looking for a relationship out of desperation. This cycle of fear, doubt, and self-blame tends to make matters even worse, and it takes a good amount of self-discovery to get past it the first few times.

Thankfully, once you’ve come to terms with what rejection really means, you can start to see that rejection is actually working toward your advantage – as long as you know how to deal with it.

It teaches you the power of perseverance.

I don’t know about you, but when I hear that I can’t do something, it makes me all the more dedicated to proving that person wrong. Of course, if it’s romantic rejection you’re facing, it might be worth it to dial back your efforts if they’re met with a “no”, but other areas of your life can definitely benefit from this little push.

Think of it as a bet you make with the other person. If you win, you’ve proven that you have what it takes. If you lose, you get to decide whether it’s truly important to you or not. Then, you’ll decide if it’s worth trying again, and maybe succeeding this time – or walking away and re-evaluating your priorities. Which means, in the long run, you still win.

It reminds you to stay humble.

There’s not a single person on earth who hears “yes” every time… Unless they’re never pushing themselves. (Trust me, that’s not something you want to strive for.) This blow to your ego might hurt, but it makes you stronger, because you’re forced to remember that you can’t possibly be amazing at everything. It wouldn’t be fair if you won every time. It brings you to your knees to make you grateful for how tall you stood.

Okay, so in the midst of the rejection pain, all that “humble” nonsense might as well be another language. It doesn’t feel good to be humbled; it’s not until after the fact that you realize just how good it is to be grounded. First, you’ve got to recover from the sting of hitting the ground. Then, you can remember that it’s not about you not being good enough – it’s about you not being the right fit. Just be patient with yourself if it’s hard to admit at first.

It teaches you grace.

So maybe grace isn’t exactly what you want right now – but it’s something you need. Rejection brings a reminder that bitterness won’t change anything, and neither will desperation. (If you’ve ever tried to bargain with someone who’s rejected you, I’m sure you know what I mean.) Rejection teaches you how to say, Hey, this didn’t work out – and that’s okay.

If you’re looking for a sign that being a graceful loser makes all the difference, let’s go back to Al Gore’s concession speech in 2000. For those who aren’t from the US and/or don’t know what happened in 2000, basically, the US presidential ballot-counting got all screwed up somehow, and there was this big legal battle between George W. Bush and Al Gore. Eventually, Gore admitted defeat, and delivered this line in his speech:

“… No matter how hard the loss, defeat might serve as well as victory to shape the soul and let the glory out.”

This line in particular embodies the attitude we should all embrace when our expectations get shot down. It’s not about whether you win or lose, as long as you don’t forget your value and virtue along the way.

It helps you see how you should handle letting others down.

When you’ve dealt with the pain of rejection, you’re either going to get jaded, or develop empathy. You learn how to gracefully let others down, without sacrificing yourself – after all, you don’t want to feel even worse, and guilt would just mess everything up. You learn from the rejections you’ve received, and you mentally note the ones that didn’t hurt so much. The ones that tore you apart, you note to yourself, too.

When you examine the ways you’ve been rejected, you can better understand what’s fair and what’s not far. Those who get jaded and bitter will know that what they’re doing is cruel, and it may cause guilt. Those who develop empathy will do their best to make sure they don’t hurt others the way they’ve been hurt. And if we could just all cultivate a little more empathy, maybe rejection wouldn’t have to be so stigmatized.

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Relationships are complicated enough on their own. Once you add kids into the mix, it gets even more difficult – especially if her sexuality is hidden from them. Regardless of whether she’s open about her romantic life with them or not, chances are good that you will meet them when the relationship gets a little more serious. We’ve got a few tips to help make that process go more smoothly.

1. The situation with the other parent may be complicated.

Most of the time, when there are kids involved, it implies that there will be continued contact between the two (or more) parents, even after the romantic relationship has ended. You need to realize that this doesn’t exactly concern you – at least not right away. Just because she talks to her child’s other parent doesn’t mean that she still wants to be with them – it means she’s being fair to her child or children.

2. She gets to decide when you meet them.

Even if things are going really well between you two, that doesn’t automatically mean that you get to meet her family. As unfortunate as it is, the exchanges between the child and their other parent aren’t always flattering – so she may choose to keep her love life private until she’s sure it’s worth the risk. This doesn’t undermine her feelings about you, it simply helps her to deal with them.

3. You are not the children’s new parent.

Just because you’re in a relationship with their mother does not mean that you are now their stepmother. This type of a title comes after a long time, and will depend on the status of the relationship as well as how well you get along with her kids. You don’t have the authority to discipline her kids until it’s given to you, and you don’t have the right to undermine her parenting. You are the guest in this family – remember that!

4. Her ex isn’t your ex.

When dating someone with kids, there’s a chance that you’ll be asked to help with the travel from one house to the other – but that’s about as far as the interaction between you and her ex needs to go. The invitation into her life was not an invitation to take over her life, so let her arguments with the other parent remain hers to handle – unless, of course, she asks for help, and it’s something you can legitimately help with. Don’t fight her battles for her.

5. It’s in your best interest to get in good with the kids.

Once you have met her family, you will want to get along with the kids, as much as possible. This isn’t always easy, especially if there are behavioral problems or hostility from the co-parent, but most likely, her kids are her world – so winning them over is essential if you want to win her over. (And, do try to keep things age-appropriate when you’re around them; even if she doesn’t do the same, she’ll appreciate that you care enough.)

6. Her kids come first, whenever she has them.

Until you’ve earned a title as part of the family, you’re going to rank a bit lower on the list of priorities than they do. Maybe in time, you’ll become an equal part of the family, but you will never become more important than her kids. They were there first, and in a much closer capacity – but that doesn’t mean you can’t still be a valuable part of her life, too.

7. When it’s just the two of you, it’s just the two of you.

If you’re looking for completely undivided attention, you’ll have it when the kids are with their other parent. She’ll still need to handle her day-to-day business, of course, but if she’s carved out time for you, that time is for you.

8. She knows how to love – possibly better than you do.

There are few loves as pure as the love between a child and their parent, and that means that she knows how to treat someone with love, care, and respect. After all, she’s been practicing since the day her kids arrived – whether biologically related to her or adopted. She knows that any relationship, even if not of a romantic nature, requires certain things to function properly, and she’s not going to settle for less.

9. She deserves love, too.

Many people may pass over a woman who already has kids, but there aren’t really any good reasons. Are you worried that she’s damaged from her ex? The chances aren’t any more likely than with any other woman. Are you worried her kids will come first in her life? They will – but this gives you time to focus on yourself, too. Are you worried that she’s not going to be in it with all she has? If she loves you, and you accept her kids, she’s not going anywhere until something big happens.

10. She doesn’t run from her responsibilities.

It’s always a good sign when your girlfriend is ambitious and responsible – and the fact that you know she has kids means she’s going to pick responsibility over impulse (even if the responsibilities came from being impulsive). This means that she’s not going to run away at the first sign of a problem, because she knows that – once there are kids involved – there’s no such thing as “no strings attached”.

11. Her kids are worth getting to know.

Maybe I’m in the minority here, but all kids are worth getting to know. The opportunity to help shape a child’s life is a huge responsibility, but it also comes with a huge reward. No matter how bratty they may be now, you’ll always look back fondly on the time you spent learning and playing with them, even if the relationship doesn’t last long.

12. She’s just like any other woman – but with a few new friends included.

Most likely, she’s into the same sort of things as the other women you’ve dated, but possibly with an earlier curfew. She enjoys going to movies, going out to picnics, and having a nice dinner just like the next woman. But if you get accepted into her life, you’ll be joining a family, rather than starting one new – so there’s more love to go around.

13. It’s not baggage, it’s life.

There’s a huge stigma surrounding single moms (and dads!), but the truth is, her past doesn’t have anything to do with you, until you’re actually involved with it – and, even still, it’s her past – not yours. If she lets you see the parts of her life that some may have judged her for, and you give a negative reaction, you’re killing your chances with what could be the best relationship of your life.

Most of us regard ourselves as honest, faithful people. We would never cheat on our partners, and we would never go out of our way to give another woman the attention that belongs to our partner. But where does the line really lie when it comes to cheating?

Just like most of us are faithful, committed partners, most of us are also unintentional flirts. These simple interactions mean nothing to us, and they’re just a fact of life in certain settings. Your waiter, for example, is going to flirt a little, in order to get a better tip. Your checker at the grocery store might give you a little extra special attention, and because you like the attention, you give it right back. It’s not until the subject of your actual intent comes up that you realize you’ve been sending unwanted signals, and the person on the receiving end thinks you meant something that wasn’t so innocent.

The signals we send in our everyday social interaction are encoded to mean different things, and these things are widely understood by most people. (Especially people who specifically read about those signs, so go you!) The problem is that they aren’t very specific. Many of the “friendship cues” we send out are very similar to the cues we send out when there’s romantic or sexual interest. In some cases, the lines between “friendship cues” and “enemy cues” may be subtle, too. Just because we have one thing in mind, that’s not necessarily what our conversation partner is reading.

In crowds, this can get even more complicated, because it’s not really clear who the subject of your cues is. Sure, you could assume that someone is sending signals to the person seated directly across from them – but what about the person they keep making eye contact with? What about the person who made them blush when they walked in? What about the bar tender? It’s easy to see how signals can get misinterpreted and attributed to the wrong person.

When it comes to the people you see regularly, such as the barista at the local coffee shop, or the coworker in the cubicle next to you, the flirtation is often even more complex than with strangers at the bar. In these situations, your mind subconsciously plays with the idea of something happening with this person. At socially-appropriate points of physical contact, such as hugs and handshakes, you’re tempted to linger just a little longer than what’s acceptable. You don’t do it, but you think about it.

As humans, we like to leave our options open, even if we’re certain of the choices we’ve made. We like knowing that we have an escape strategy, even if we tell ourselves we thrive on not having one. It’s just the way we work – we like choices. The issue here is that the signals we send aren’t as subtle as we think they are, so the people who are constantly exposed to our seemingly-insignificant cues will be better equipped to notice them, and they may respond accordingly. If you’re in a relationship and didn’t intend for this flirting to go anywhere, this can be a very complicated situation.

According to Jeffrey Hall and Chong Xing, Communications Studies at the University of Kansas (2015), your personality plays a part in the way you flirt. Hall and Xing examined the “5 basic flirting styles” that they attribute to different personality types. Everyone flirts, they say, but the way that we flirt is influenced by our personality, as well as whether we’re comfortable with having sex with someone other than our partner. Since these parts of the cues aren’t as widely known, the people who experience our flirting styles might not notice the differences as much.

In a different study, Hall and some colleagues used a self-reporting measurement for rating a person’s flirting style, but in the study with Xing, the participants were “graded” by complete strangers. 51 pairs of undergraduates, none of whom were in a relationship, were given a list of things to talk about, with their assigned partner. Each participant would then answer questions about the attractiveness of their conversation partner – a metric that’s largely influenced by flirting.

In the 10-minute interaction time, researchers obtained substantial data about the verbal and non-verbal interaction between the participants. They split this data into several categories, including arm and leg crossing, head nodding, licking the lips, teasing, and self-disclosure. They were able to identify behavioral differences between the different self-reported flirting personalities, and they developed a more specific and detailed look at the flirting styles. Which one are you?

The Physical Flirt

People who flirt physically tend to subtly touch people they’re attracted to. In Hall and Xing’s study, women who self-identify as physical flirts tend to be more open with their body movements. These women move their hands to the side of their body, rather than between themselves and their conversation partner while they talk. Self-identified male physical flirts tend to look away from their conversation partner more, and rarely give out compliments.

The Traditional Flirt

Those with more of a traditional flirting style think that the man should make the first move. (This study was done with heterosexual participants, so we’re not sure exactly how this would translate to same-sex relationships, but I speculate that it would be the more masculine-presenting of the two women involved.) Women who identify as traditional tend to use verbal teasing more, while the men who identified as traditional were more likely to lean in toward their conversation partner.

The Sincere Flirt

Sincere flirts are genuinely interested in the other person. These people inspire others to open up to them, and they rarely use verbal teasing as a conversation starter. Both men and women who identify as sincere flirts are more likely to exchange flirtatious glances with strangers when meeting.

The Polite Flirt

Those who don’t think they flirt with strangers are, most likely, a polite flirt. This flirting type doesn’t exactly like the idea of flirting, but does like the idea of getting to know a person better. People who self-identify as the polite flirting type won’t engage in teasing and won’t inch in closer to their partner. Women who identified with the polite flirting style didn’t ask as many questions as the other flirting styles, either.

The Playful Flirt

Playful flirts are the ones we think of most when we hear the term “a flirt”. This person thrives on the attention exchanged, but isn’t really looking for anything more serious than a conversation. In some cases, the playful flirt might even be trying to get something else out of the interaction, like a favor or gift. Men and women who identified as playful flirts were more likely to show physical signals, such as pushing out their chests. Flirtatious glances are also more likely, especially in women.

Regardless of which flirting style you personally identify with, this study found that there were certain behaviors that reached across all groups. Attraction to a person results in you touching your own body less frequently, and dishing out compliments (with the exception of male physical flirts).

Toward the end of the interaction, verbal teasing slows down. Understanding all the subtle signals that your body sends out when you’re attracted to someone is hard, but it’s worth knowing what messages you’re sending, so you can try to manage them when necessary.

My teens and early twenties consisted of a string of relationships that spanned a pretty big spectrum. There were girls I dated for a few weeks, then bailed at the first sign of trouble. There was the first woman I dated for over a year, who ended up being a hugely complicated piece of my past. There were a few girls who moved in with me before we officially started dating, and there were a few girls who I wasn’t even sure were totally into girls. (And don’t even get me started on the “situationships”.)

Let’s face it, there’s no “one size fits all” when it comes to dating, and I think I’ve tried on almost every size there is. I tend to think of things in very temporary terms, so I’ve never really felt stuck in any position. I know that anything can change, at any time, and each day is completely different – even if the framework is all the same.

Then, right about the time I was finally ready to focus on myself for a while and fix all the problems my first big-girl breakup taught me, I met someone who totally changed my life… At the worst possible time. (Of course.)

Right from the very first time we talked, things were different. I was kinda-sorta dating someone else at the time, and she politely backed off, while making sure I knew she was there if I changed my mind. After a few months, my situation changed, and I decided to give it a shot.

After all, she’d been a pretty good friend the last few months. Any time I needed her, she was there, which is more than I can say for the person I was kinda-sorta dating when we met. I could tell something was different, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.

When we met, I had convinced myself that I wasn’t going to let anything get serious. I had recently lost a lot of weight, and a good chunk of my self-control, and I was mostly looking for validation from some outside source. When we were together, though, I felt much more than validated – I felt welcomed.

I felt like I was home when I was with her, although I refused to keep any of my stuff at her place. I was starting to catch feelings – and it scared the shit out of me. I was so broken from my last relationship, I was terrified of letting myself be vulnerable.

But she convinced me to give her a chance, so I did. I refused to let her know how I felt. What if it was all a game? What if she was just leading me on? I had never been so afraid that something wasn’t going to work out. Sure, I’d broken up with exes and gotten back together later, but I never felt afraid about it. This feeling was new, and I didn’t really like it.

After a while, she started coming to my place, too. I was afraid of how she’d react to my roommates. I used to date one of them, and now she was dating my brother.

I knew the situation was weird, and I was worried that she’d read too much into me living with an ex. I was afraid of what she’d think once she heard what they had to say about me. I was afraid that her impression of me would change because of things she found out at my place.

But she started coming by more and more often – and she told me when my roommates were saying bad things about me. I ended up spending time with her family, and she came to my family’s barbecues.

And I was afraid that I’d do something to embarrass myself in front of her family – or worse, that my family would do something to embarrass me.

My family accepted her almost instantly, and they started bringing her along when they did stuff with me. She met my little sister, and I was afraid that she wouldn’t like my new girlfriend.

My sister had always been quite vocal about the choices I make in my love life, and I knew she really liked my ex. The two of them hit it off immediately.

The more time went on, the more I found to like about the woman I was with. It turns out that we had a lot more in common than I’d expected when we first talked, and she really knew how to treat a woman. In fact, she’s the first person I’ve ever been with who’s made me feel completely valid, from the very first day. Even though I wasn’t ready for her when she came into my life, somehow, my life had grown around her.

I’ve never been the type of person to build my life around someone – so it scared the hell out of me. Suddenly, I was living in someone else’s place. In my past relationships, it had always been someone else moving in with me in my place. (For some reason, the difference feels huge.) I didn’t have anyone to lean on – I was the newcomer in a strange new territory.

My work was just a few blocks away from her place, so it made sense that I would move in with her. No matter how many times I repeated it to myself, I was still scared – and the relationship still scares me, almost every single day.

But that’s how I know we have what it takes to last – because I’m afraid of each new step, instead of following a strict game plan. Here’s why your best relationship is going to scare you, too.

Your relationship is built on respect – for yourself, your relationship, and each other.

In a relationship that’s built on convenience, you’re probably less likely to be afraid of losing it. However, a relationship built on a solid foundation of respect is really hard to risk losing, so you’re more afraid that something is going to screw it up. You try harder not to lose it, because you’re afraid of how it’ll affect you if you do.

For once, you have something to lose – your happiness is tied to this person.

You believe in the relationship, and you see the future with this person. Let’s all be honest here, you don’t see a future with every person you ever date. Once you’re emotionally invested in the person, you’re afraid of losing something you worked so hard to build.

This person makes you feel safer than you feel when you’re alone.

When the right person comes along, you feel invincible – and the thought of reclaiming your vulnerability terrifies you. You’ve never felt particularly weak, but now that you know how true strength feels, you can’t imagine going back to how it used to be.

Your self-esteem is tied to them, too.

The right person teaches you how to fully love yourself – even the parts that others have made you feel guilty about. Instead of putting the relationship first, they’ve taught you that it’s okay to follow your happiness – they’ll be right there beside you. The thought of not having them beside you is suddenly unbearable.

They make you feel like the best version of yourself.

Your best relationship is going to bring out the things you never thought you could feel about yourself, and you feel like those things may be somehow related to this person. While we know that this is really just a part of ourselves we never saw before, we’re afraid that we’ll lose that part of ourselves if we lose them. We’re afraid that we can’t be that person without their help.

You’re trusting her not to break your heart.

And if that’s not a scary thought, I don’t know what is. Especially if you’re not used to feeling that close to someone – falling in love can be a whirlwind of emotions. It’s important that you keep your emotions in perspective and remember the worth you have on your own. If you suspect that your relationship might be abusive or manipulative, please do seek help.

We, as humans, tend to put a lot of value into “the signs”. Articles like “if she does this, she’s cheating on you” and “if she does that, she’s a psycho” get so much attention that it’s almost funny – but it’s often not quite as easy to see the signs that everything is going great. (But, to be clear, they’re definitely there.)

We don’t really notice how great something is until we don’t have it anymore – and I’d like to help change that.

Here is our list of 30 things that mean your girlfriend is probably in love with you – even if she hasn’t gotten up the courage to say it yet.

1. She does your laundry – without you asking her to.

Household chores are something no one wants to do, so if she does yours for you, it’s probably not just for fun.

2. She surprises you with coffee in the morning.

This is assuming you like coffee. If you prefer tea or Gatorade, she probably knows that, too.

3. She lets you see her cry.

We’re societally conditioned to not cry in front of people we’re not attached to. Just saying.

4. She touches your butt, especially when it’s inconvenient for you.

So what if you’re cooking dinner or trying to read a book – it’s always butt-touching time.

5. She listens when you talk, and she tries to understand your side of the situation.

Instead of arguing with you and interrupting, she listens and tries to comprehend – thinking completely before she responds.

6. She encourages you to do what makes you happy.

Even if your happiness could cost the relationship, she wants what’s best for you.

7. She reminds you to call your friends and family.

Especially if it’s your aunt’s 75^th birthday, and you haven’t talked to her since her last birthday.

8. She makes a big deal out of your anniversary (or 6-month-iversary).

It’s not just cards and flowers – she wants to make a big deal out of it.

9. She falls asleep cuddling with you – regularly.

Fun fact: Falling asleep while cuddling actually increases the chances of falling in love in the first place.

10. She knows what foods you’re really allergic to, and which ones you say you’re allergic to because you just don’t like them.

She knows to keep an eye out for pineapple – but that onions are fine, as long as she can’t see them.

11. She keeps stocked up on all your favorite drinks.

If you live apart, she’ll make sure there’s always at least a bottle or two in the fridge. If you live together, she’ll make sure you don’t run out.

12. She sometimes borrows your clothing – but always returns it in pristine condition.

She wears it because she wants to feel close to you – not because she wants to control you.

13. She’s ever made you a mix tape or playlist.

Songs are linked deeply with human emotion, so the songs she picks for you will give a glimpse into her feelings about you.

14. She introduces you as her partner, her other half, or – extra credit – her better half.

“Girlfriend” just seems so… mundane. Feelings like hers deserve a real title.

15. She compliments you, out of nowhere, and doesn’t want anything in return.

She’s not calling you gorgeous because she’s horny – she’s saying it because she thinks you are.

16. She surprises you with things you like.

Tickets to the show you’ve been wanting to see, that sketchbook you’ve been eyeballing at the store, or just a really neat rock she found that looks like a heart – she picks out things that will be special to you.

17. She has seen your baby pictures – and asked if she could have one.

As long as she asks, and doesn’t just snag it – that would be weird.

18. If you live separately, you have a “spot” for your things at her place.

Whether it’s a drawer or a corner of the closet, there’s an area set aside just for you.

19. She helps you with your household responsibilities.

If you sleep in a little late, she’ll walk the dog for you – and maybe check the mail.

20. She encourages you to be your best self.

She knows that you have the potential to be amazing, and she wants to see you achieve it.

21. She talks to you about her day, and her feelings.

She wants you to know what’s going on in her life, so she knows she has someone to count on.

22. She sends you messages sometimes, just to make you smile – not to start a conversation.

And even though you’re busy, you make time to check your messages.

23. She appreciates the things you do for her.

She makes a point to say “thank you”, instead of just making more requests.

24. When meeting her friends, they tell you they’ve heard great things about you.

In fact, the more they already know about you, the better (probably).

25. She smiles at you in crowded rooms.

Even if you’re not close enough to talk, she lets you know you make her happy.

26. She kisses you before she leaves.

It doesn’t have to be a full-on makeout session (but that’s totally fine, too).

27. She lets you drive her car.

But she’d never take yours without asking first.

28. She asks to meet your family.

But she won’t push the issue if you’re not ready.

29. She asks you to meet her family.

And, like her friends, they know a lot of great things about you already.

30. She tells you she’s in love with you.

Sometimes, the biggest sign really is the most obvious!

I’ve been in my fair share of bad relationships over the years. Everyone deals with cheaters, clingers, and distant heartbreakers at least once or twice in their dating life, but hopefully most of us won’t have to deal with a seriously bad relationship – one in which someone gets physically or psychologically hurt because of the other person’s anger. These types of relationships cause serious damage for years to come, and to those looking in from the outside, the answers seem so clear.

Get out.

You deserve better.

What do you see in him/her?

But when you’re actually stuck in one of these Seriously Bad Relationships – ones that are built on abuse and control, rather than love and respect – getting out isn’t the easiest option. Often, the abuser will tell the victim that they’re already in the situation they deserve – that the two of them are perfect together, they were made for each other, maybe they were even destined to be together.

To the victim, it’s easy to look past the flaws in their partner – such as violent outbursts – because they know that the good days will make up for the bad. And then one day, the good days stop coming, but the victim keeps waiting, because it can’t always be like this. It’s often easier to stay in a bad situation than to get up the courage to leave it, and potentially escalate things.

If you’re struggling with the complex set of emotions that comes after leaving an abusive relationship, I’m here for you. All of KitschMix is here for you. And we have a few tips to help you move forward into a brighter chapter of your life.

Identify what you’re really afraid of.

Are you afraid that your partner will abuse you further if you leave? Are there kids involved in the situation, who may get hurt if you walk out? Are you afraid that you won’t be able to make ends meet, or that you’ll meet a new partner who treats you even worse? Are you afraid you’ll never find love again?

To start, it’s important to think of all these fears, and identify which ones were put in place by your abusive partner. If there were threats of escalated violence made, seek help from your local police force to get your things out. If you’re worried about the children, get them to a safe place that your partner wouldn’t look. If you’re worried about the way your love life will be once you leave your partner, trust me – there is better, and you do deserve better. But first, you need to get out.

The fears that your partner puts into your head can control the choices you make, and it’s important that you realize that it’s time to deny her control. Give yourself permission to be in charge, and give yourself permission to make the wrong choice. Then, leave – you need to be strong in your convictions. Walking out is a very brave choice, and you owe it to yourself to be brave.

Turn off the switch your abuser controls you with.

The easiest way for someone to get control over you is for you to let them control you. The problem is, abusive relationships rarely start out abusive – that trust and control is built up and earned over time, preying on the things that are good about you and using them against you. You’ll need to remind yourself that bullying behavior comes from a sense of fear – no matter what the abuser tries to tell you. The source of this fear is different from one bully to the next, but that fear is there.

If you can figure out the source of your abuser’s fear, it’ll help you to shut it down – even if only within yourself. If your abuser must be in control at all times, personally identify the lack of control in their lives, and understand how this is unfairly projected onto you. If they’re possessive and won’t let you be by yourself, understand that they fear being alone, and they need you more than they project. If they refuse to show any fears, it’s likely that they’re afraid of being afraid – which means that they’re very childlike on the inside, and they may be lashing out in a way similar to a child throwing a temper tantrum.

While picturing your abuser like a child won’t completely disable their power over you, it can help you to take them less seriously. You don’t have to be the bravest person on the planet – but you do need to be braver than that codependent toddler hiding inside your abuser’s body. If you can be braver than your abuser’s inner child, you can find the strength to walk out.

Don’t engage the childish behavior.

Now that you’ve realized that your abuser is really just a child, you can respond as if they were a child. Use direct language when talking to them, but be careful not to be condescending, as this may fuel their anger. Try to remind yourself that there is a developmental issue in play here, and that they never learned how to behave like an adult. It’s not your fault.

Try to be assertive, as much as possible, without putting yourself in unnecessarily risky situations. Speak to someone about what’s going on – someone in a trusted position. Keep detailed notes about the abuse, so that you have a record, and make sure that someone trusted has access to these notes – these can make all the difference if your situation progresses to the court.

Forgive your own guilt.

Particularly if there are children (or even pets) involved in the situation, it’s completely normal to feel guilty. You need to examine your guilt, and decide that you owe it to yourself to give up on this situation. Even if the previous steps have resulted in a decrease in the abuse, it’s important that you still work to move out of the situation as soon as possible. It’s not fair to you or your abuser if you stay.

Examine your guilt, and be sure you fully understand what you’re feeling guilty about. Are you feeling guilty because you couldn’t see through your partner’s charming behavior? Is your guilt from putting your child(ren) at risk? Do you feel guilty about what you could have done differently to lead to a different outcome? Let it go.

Almost all of us start relationships with the best of intentions – probably including your abusive partner. It’s hard to see through the pretty surface and into the deeper underlying issues, so you shouldn’t blame yourself if you didn’t see it coming. You can’t change the road you’ve already traveled, but you can make the best choice for yourself and move on to a happier future.

Look deeper, find your anger, and use it to your advantage.

In an abusive relationship, you learn how to control your anger to compensate for your partner not controlling hers. This is such a great skill to have, and it may have even helped you calm her down in the past, but I’m going to need you to harness that built-in anger. The emotion itself isn’t a bad thing – it’s just an emotion. What you do with it makes all the difference.

Instead of focusing on the reasons you feel guilty about wanting to leave, think of all the things you’re angry about. You’re not going to confront your partner directly, but you are going to use that anger to propel you toward the door. You are allowed, and even encouraged, to place the blame on your partner for the things she did to you. You didn’t ask to be abused, whether she told you that you did or not.

Once you’re out of the situation, you’re free to explore the entire range of human emotions that may be attached to leaving your partner. You’re allowed to look back fondly on the good times, and you’re allowed to be hurt about the bad times. By letting yourself feel these emotions, instead of repressing them to deal with later, you give yourself room to fully heal, without restricting you to one particular path of healing.

Learn to love yourself again.

Now that you’ve moved out of the bad situation, your situation still isn’t going to be great – it’s important to remember how important (and huge) of a step that first one was. You’ll need to mend a lot of cracks along the way, and it can be tempting to jump into a new relationship before you’ve let yourself feel the pain from the last one. After all, you’re not only losing your abusive partner – you’re losing who they used to be, too. Don’t give yourself a time limit.

Start to take yourself out on dates. Go to the mall, just because you can. Go to the river, just you and your dog (and your kids, if you have children). This is going to be a long process, but you can rebuild yourself – one brick at a time. Learn to love yourself on the inside, too – give your spiritual health the attention it deserves, and maybe even pick up a new hobby. Start exercising and eating better – not because you want to look good for your next girlfriend, but because you want to feel good, for you.

It’s a long road to recovery, no matter which way you go – but it’s going to take a lot longer if you’re standing still. Be the brave woman I know you can be, and live the life you deserve – not the life your abusive ex trapped you into.

I spent a really long time feeling like I didn’t deserve the type of love that happened in the movies. I chased all the wrong people – those catastrophically unavailable people – and then got upset with myself when it didn’t pan out (or just didn’t pan out as well as I’d like). I told myself, “I like a good challenge, but dating isn’t a good challenge. Dating is a struggle.”

Looking back, there were a number of untrue statements in that thought process.

I did like challenges, but only very specific types of challenges. I was good at math, so I didn’t like being challenged there – I expected it to come easy. I wasn’t very good at video games, and the challenge was greater than the reward, so I just never played. I struggled with my handwriting, so I challenged myself to improve it – and, eventually, to be able to “steal” the handwriting of others. Hey, it wasn’t a very useful skill most of the time (save when I really wanted to get out of gym class) but it was something that intrigued me, so I willingly challenged myself (and actually, I still continue to do so).

Dating, on the other hand, I had perceived as an unpleasant challenge. For the first several years of my dating life, I presumed heteronormativity – so finding a way to feel emotional about the guys I dated was a drag. I thought that, since I hadn’t “figured it out” after the first few boyfriends – I never got that “click” that many of my friends did – that there must be something wrong with me.

(Okay, maybe the problem was that I was trying to squeeze myself into a heterosexual mold I didn’t actually fit in, but for the sake of argument, we’re not going to consider that a “real problem”.)

I kept trying, but I got more and more discouraged. After a while, I figured out I was dating the wrong people for me – purely on the basis of gender. I started dating girls instead (yes, girls, because I was a teenager at the time) and immediately felt a change. These girls, who didn’t act much different than the guys I’d been dating the year before, somehow “clicked” with me in a different way. I finally felt that connection that I’d heard my friends talk about a thousand times (not per friend, of course, but overall). I was finally starting to get it.

Still, there was something wrong, and I couldn’t quite place what it was. The girls I was dating were great, in theory – they had jobs, they had decent grades, and they were pretty cute, too. (Okay, for the most part, I ended up with some combination of those three things, but there was never a single girl who didn’t at least check off one of those categories.) Still, these girls left me hoping for more.

At the time, I never attributed it to how I’d always been told I was “wise beyond my years”. I never gave any attention to the notion that maybe I just wasn’t ready for the type of love I wanted. While I was still pretty young, in body, I had been dealing with adult situations since I was still pretty young (an unfortunate consequence of my childhood). I was (and am still) in my 20s, but I felt (and still do) like I was at least ten years older. Over the course of my adult life, these circumstances have been both good and bad, but when it came to dating, they were pretty bad.

My mother was a teenager when she had my oldest brother, and she was almost 30 by the time she had me. This huge difference in our ages put me at a dating disadvantage compared to my peers, because their brothers and sisters were only a year or two older than they were. Mine were married before I finished puberty. These close examples of marriage and commitment – and, subsequently, a few broken commitments and divorces – showed me the side of relationships that didn’t feel as “close” to my friends and classmates. I’d seen so much heartbreak in my immediate circle that I was convinced – that wasn’t going to happen to me, no matter what.

It probably sounds silly that I came to this conclusion in my early 20s, but it’s really not too different from someone who comes to that conclusion at any point in life. Love isn’t about the specific steps it takes to find a partner, or the amount of time you’ll have to wait, or really any quantifying factors that we think about when we’re feeling distraught about our situation. Love doesn’t work out the way we plan – and it’s not supposed to. Even as I’m coming closer to 30, it’s still anyone’s guess what the future will hold. And that’s okay.

All the insecurities that we have about the love we want (and deserve), everything our brain tells us we’re not doing well enough, every doubt that crosses our mind telling us we’re going to be alone for the rest of our lives… None of that matters. Humans are, by design, impatient and lazy, unless they have a reason to be otherwise. It’s speculated that this probably dates back to when we had to survive without modern technology – after all, if tomorrow isn’t promised, you’ll want to do the things that matter most to you, the earliest. On a psychological level, that’s still true, too – you make room for the things you want to do much easier than the things you have to do, unless what you want to do is accomplish some future goal at a predetermined time.

(If you think you don’t prioritize your day, try going without something you normally do every single day – and see how much it effects your overall mood. Chances are, you’ll be frustrated if it’s something you did for fun, or refreshed if it felt like a “have-to-do”.)

Most of the time, focusing on your long-term goals is a good thing. As long as your goal is something you’re committed to, and you’re taking the appropriate steps to make it happen, you’re going to feel a tremendous amount of satisfaction. The problem with translating that to our love lives, however, is that we aren’t usually prioritizing the right steps – we’re prioritizing the things we hope will be attractive to another partner, instead of the things that actually attract the partner we want most of all.

People say, “Just be yourself” – so often, in fact, that we become desensitized to the phrase. It’s easy to write it off as just another cliché. After all, we speculate, I’ve been myself for this long, and it hasn’t gotten me anywhere. The problem isn’t that we’re inadequate – it’s that we’re impatient. We expect our hard work to pay off as soon as we put it out into the world. And, if we go back to the idea that it used to be necessary for survival, it’s easy to see why so many of us can’t seem to shake the habit. It’s coded into who we are. It’s just as much a part of us as our eye color or our fingerprints. You can change them, but it’s going to be pretty uncomfortable. (You see what I did there?)

If you’re really trying to look for a solution to your love woes, the answer is a bit counterintuitive: You need to focus on yourself. Even if you find that perfect happily-ever-after early on in life, you can’t appreciate what you have until you’ve had the time to feel a bit of bad love. You’re going to have to kiss a lot of frogs, so to speak – but you’ll appreciate your eventual love more than the people who feel everything when they first start dating.

I’m not saying that those initial feelings of “love” are to be ignored, though – in fact, quite the opposite. In order to be ready for the love we want, we have to be fully open to the way that our partner shows affection. We have to understand their love style, even if it’s not the same as ours. We have to be ready to face the challenges we face – even if that means working to get the love up to the levels we actually deserve.

In conclusion, if you haven’t found the love you deserve, it’s because you have to create it – so go out there and earn the best love you’ve ever felt.

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I love the idea of forming a friendship before starting a relationship with someone. I like to know all the potentially-deal-breaking details as early on as possible, and if those details make me uncertain, it’s nice to have that “buffer room” that the so-called friend zone provides. There’s only one big problem with this idea: Once you break up, it’s going to be really awkward because you’re still going to see each other on a fairly regular basis. The realities of being in the same friend group as your ex are difficult, painful, and of course, sucky.

(As a side note, these are often the same reasons why I advise against dating a coworker – things can get weird, really fast.)

Wondering what the specific reasons that make up that bigger problem might be? We made a list.

Your friends are going to talk to her.

And of course, she should still talk to your friends, if you were all friends together. In fact, it’s highly unethical to ask your friends to choose between you and your ex – especially if you guys met through them. (I know, it’ll be tempting to ask, if she did you really dirty – but if you actually care about your friends at all, you’ve got to leave them to their own opinions of her.)

Your friends are going to talk about her.

Whether your friends still talk to your ex or not, you better believe that – if they met her – they’re probably going to talk about her. In most cases, there are two categories of talking about a friend’s ex: Either they remind you of funny stories, or they trash talk her. Either way, she’s going to be on your mind quite a bit.

You’ll be tempted to check up on her.

As much as we’d like to pride ourselves in our ability to keep our distance, it’ll be a whole lot harder if you know that you can ask your friends what’s going on in her life. Even if you never do actually ask, the temptation will make you feel guilty, and there may come a time when you’re not able to resist.

She’s got an “in” to keep tabs on you.

If your friends are friends with your ex, and they’re telling you what’s going on in her life, chances are it goes both ways. Of course, we’d like to hope our friends wouldn’t gossip about us, but in many cases, someone who gives into the pressure to gossip will give in more than once.

You’ve got an “easy out” when it comes to being anti-social.

Most of us are pretty bad about falling out of touch with our friends when we’re seeing someone. But if your ex is in your friend group, this antisocial behavior can continue even after you’ve broken up. In an attempt to not see her (thereby avoiding your feelings), you also don’t see your friends, because she might be there. You rely on your friends coming to you all the time – and that’s not a very fair expectation to them.

You’re still going to see her.

It’s psychologically impossible to get over someone if you’re looking at their face three times a week, but you’re going to want to spend more time with your friends after a break-up. Most of the time, your friends are probably going to try to keep the overlap to a minimum, but it’s not really fair to push your friends to choose one of you over the other. (Personally, I tend to side with whichever friend didn’t make me choose.)

You’ll probably end up hooking up.

If the two of you are hanging out together on a regular basis, you’re probably going to end up having “ex sex”. You tell yourself it’s just to get some closure, or maybe for old time’s sake, but you end up destroying whatever progress you’d made in moving on. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, but if it hasn’t been long enough for you to fix the compatibility issues you had, you’re just prolonging the inevitable heartbreak.

It’s going to be more difficult to move on.

Even if none of the other factors involved end up being appropriate here, the pain of the break-up is going to be extra tough, because you’re losing not only a lover, but also a friend. Break-ups within the friend circle can be incredibly awkward and painful, but that alone shouldn’t deter you from dating a friend. If the connection is there, and the feelings are mutual, you know what they say – it’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all!

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Sometimes, the lines between clingy and crazy stalker are a little blurred. In fact, they’re usually a little blurred. But did you know there are actually a few good reasons to be a clingy girlfriend?

1. You want to make sure everyone knows she’s your girlfriend.

This works out pretty well, until you smother her and she leaves you. Really, the occasional “us-ie”, coupled with changing your respective relationship statuses on Facebook, is plenty. If she isn’t making it clear to other women (or men) that she’s taken when they make a pass at her, it’s not that you’re not open enough about things – it’s that she’s not monogamous. If you can’t accept this, you need to move onto something who’s good with monogamy.

2. You don’t need any personal space, and you want to make sure your partner doesn’t have any, either.

Some people have really low “personal space” demands. That’s fine. But most people need their own space, and even for those who don’t think they need it, they do need some. If she can’t even pee by herself, there’s a problem.

3. You have unlimited texting and no friends.

In this situation, it makes sense that you’d be texting your girlfriend all the time… Sort of. It’ll probably irritate the hell out of her, though. You should probably not do this. Instead, you should try to find some friends – trust me on this one.

4. You don’t like spending special, quality time together.

Realistically, if you spend all of your time together, you’re not going to appreciate it as much. Think about it: If you love your job, are you still going to love it if you have to work 60+ hours in a single week? Probably not. It’s the same with your relationship. I know somewhere (years ago) I heard a joke about this: “How can I miss you if you never leave?” It sounds mean, but it really is true.

5. You’re arrogant.

It’s a bit selfish to expect to get all (or even most) of someone’s attention. This doesn’t matter who you are, why you want their full attention at all times, or any of that nonsense. It’s self-centered.

6. You’re insecure, and you don’t care who knows it.

As selfish as clinginess is, it’s also a sign of insecurity – especially if you’re worried about what will happen if you’re not attached to your girlfriend’s hip. Give her some breathing room and some trust – if you can’t do that, you don’t belong together. (And yes, it’s completely possible to be arrogant and insecure at the same time.)

7. You get happy when she does drop everything for you – so you do the same.

It seems pretty romantic if you choose your partner over any other priorities. Sometimes, it is. But if it’s happening more and more frequently, there’s an unhealthy level of codependence. You should each be a priority to each other, but you shouldn’t be the only priority.

8. You’re controlling.

If you’re making plans that pertain to both of you, without checking with her first, this is not a sign of love and symbiosis. It’s a sign of an unhealthy level of control and manipulation, and you need to stop – preferably before it becomes a habit. Even if you’re pretty sure she’d agree, it’s always a good idea to double check.

9. You don’t want to be seen as your own person.

I sort of understand this one. There’s something special about being a part of a we. But you must remember to be your own person first, and her girlfriend second. There is a right time and a wrong time for being a part of a couple, and if you’re always half of a package deal, people may forget who you are – and we don’t want that!

(As a little point of reference for this one, after my break-up with Big Codependent Ex, I had a number of friends who apparently didn’t know my name – they knew us and guessed the names wrong! That was an uncomfortable few weeks while they had to re-learn my name. Do yourself a favor and prevent this from happening, if at all possible.)

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Most of us have been in this position before: You start talking to a woman who seems absolutely perfect for you. You get along so well, you like all the same things, and you couldn’t possibly imagine your life without her in it. She’s everything you ever wanted out of life.

But then comes the catch.

Maybe she has a girlfriend. Maybe she has a boyfriend. Maybe she has a spouse. Maybe she’s just not interested in dating – whatsoever – or maybe she’s just not into women. No matter what the problem is, it sucks.

So what does it mean if you’re always in this type of situation? Is it bad luck, or are you consciously chasing the women you have no chance with?

If it happens occasionally, chances are, it’s just bad timing. But if it happens more frequently, you’re probably sabotaging yourself. We’ve compiled a few situations that can cause you to chase unavailable women, and some ideas for how to fix the problem(s).

Please note that it’s entirely possible that more than one category applies, but it’s also important that you try to focus on fixing one issue at a time – and effectively pull yourself out of the “dating pool” while you’re figuring things out. Yes, it can take a while – but isn’t your lifelong happiness worth spending some time to work on it?

Problem #1: You’re insecure and self-sabotaging.

If you have low self-esteem, it’s entirely possible that you’re chasing after unavailable women, subconsciously, to “excuse” their rejection of you. It’s not me, you tell yourself. It’s just because she’s unavailable. In some ways, it’s good to find an outlet for these feelings of rejection, instead of placing the blame entirely on yourself – but if you’re seeking out the unavailable women, no matter how unintentional it might seem, your reassurances aren’t going to do anything for your self-esteem. Instead, they’re going to exaggerate the amount of rejection you’d feel if you were just confident in yourself.

Believe me – I know that self-esteem doesn’t come naturally. It’s actually really, really hard for some of us – and it took me a really long time to have a little bit of self-confidence. It seems like someone else is the path to self-esteem – but it’s self-esteem because it comes from within. Instead of trying to find someone right now, you should focus on building yourself up.

For many people, positive affirmations can help. Every day, tell yourself, I am just as worthy of love and respect as anyone else. I will no longer settle for less than what I deserve. If I change my thoughts, I change my world. Of course, the affirmations alone aren’t going to fix everything, especially if you only try them once or twice and then give up. But, if you keep telling yourself positive things for long enough, eventually they’ll become an ingrained part of your thought process – and that is a remarkable feeling.

Problem #2: You’re in denial about your own issues.

For most people, it’s easier to find fault in someone else than to admit to our own shortcomings. As much as we may know that we’re not fulfilling our own potential, that doesn’t make it easier to accept the individual flaws. It can be even more difficult when someone else has been eager to point out your flaws, as we’re programmed to either go on the defensive or to accept their words as pure truth (and, in my experience, it’s never the right one at the right time).

Realistically, the things that people think about you doesn’t exactly matter – but, to some degree, they should be paid attention to. If someone is telling you negative things about how you come across to others, it’s easiest to deny these things and assume that the person was just being mean. But if you want to work on being the best version of yourself (and stop blaming the person who never asked you to fall for them), you need to pay close attention to these things.

I recommend asking the people who are close to you about your top five strengths and weaknesses. They may be afraid of hurting your feelings, so you’ll need to assure them that you’re asking so that you can become a better person. The things they say may really hurt your feelings anyway – but you need to try to take the information as objectively as possible. It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it.

This exercise won’t work unless the people are completely honest with you, so avoid anyone who usually compliments you just for the sake of making you feel good. As wonderful as these people usually are, this is not their time to shine.

Problem #3: You’re after a challenge.

Human nature thrives on challenges. If we don’t challenge ourselves, we never grow. Those struggling to avoid falling for unavailable women are often trying to subconsciously validate themselves through the love of another. We feel that, if we can get them to love us, then we’re worthy – and only if we can convince them that we’re worthy.

This can lead to a negative cycle of challenge, low self-esteem, and even denial all wrapped into one ugly little package. Each of these problems is likely to repeat itself until it’s directly addressed, so the faster you identify the problem and start working toward a solution, the better off you’ll be. That’s not to say that you should rush through the solution – the journey is just as important.

I find that it’s helpful to focus on challenging myself in other areas instead. Find a “substitute habit” that you can challenge yourself with – maybe a new skill you’ve wanted to master, or a new class you want to take. There are a number of challenge prompts available on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter – try searching for #PFSixWordChallenge, #MinimalisticMay, or #RockYourHandwriting, to name a few.

If you need a lot of distraction, try all three – and search for more! Just make sure you’re not punishing yourself if you can’t follow through. These types of challenges are meant to be fun, so if it’s not bringing you joy, drop it.

Problem #4: You have a martyr complex.

It’s not a nice thought, but some people like to make themselves into the victim. It’s not always a conscious effort, but it is a very real possibility that your subconscious is seeking out pity. I promise, I’m saying this to help you – it’s a dangerous place to be in, and for as long as you paint yourself as a victim, you will be a victim. Women with this type of a complex tend to attract people who prey on their vulnerabilities, their insecurities, and even manipulate them into being more of a victim.

There might be something more to your victim complex, though – it’s not even necessarily about the women themselves. Some people are able to paint themselves as the victim in almost any situation, and it is a narcissistic behavior (which is a mental health issue that should be evaluated by a psychiatric professional).

Realistically, I fell into this category for a long time. I had always been told that true love causes pain, which I took to mean that, if I wasn’t hurting, I couldn’t possibly be in love. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Real love makes you feel better, not worse. If someone is causing you pain, it’s not love that you’re feeling.

I recommend speaking with a counselor or trusted friend to sort these feelings out. But remember, any negative comments they have for you are meant as constructive criticisms and should not be used to intensify your complex – they’re meant to help you move forward.

Problem #5: Your fantasies are your safety net.

Reality can be painful. This is pretty much true for everyone, but some people feel it more strongly than others, and if that’s the case for you, it’s likely that your “situationship” with this unavailable person is built on a need to live in this fantasy world you’ve created. It’s easier to say that the problem is this woman who doesn’t want you, even if she made it clear she wasn’t interested in – and, in fact, especially if she made that clear from the start.

As comfortable as it can be to live inside our fantasies, it’s not healthy in all situations. Generally, if it gets to the point that you can’t separate the facts from the fantasies, it’s dangerous and it helps to create this alternate world where you’re the victim – see problem #4. It can also damage your self-esteem (#1) and help perpetuate the denial of your personal flaws (#2). This is, of course, a dangerous combination – and it often results in a lot of unnecessary pain.

Instead of holding tight to your fantasy world, you’ll need to separate the two in your mind – completely. Identify where your feelings went astray, and try to find the underlying cause for your false feelings of love for this person. (As possible as it is to love someone who doesn’t return the feelings, the idea that this is a good situation is entirely created in your mind.)

It may be helpful to write in a journal, or to write letters from “fact” you to “fiction” you – just remember that the distinction is the most important part. Don’t journal as if you were really living in your fantasy world, or things will become even more difficult to sort out.

Problem #6: You have unrealistic expectations of control.

There are many people who feel the need to be in control of their situations at all times. As someone who struggles daily with OCD, anxiety, and eating disorders, this is definitely something I can relate to – but there is a difference between the situations you can control and the situations you can’t. Another person should never be on the list of things you try to control – it’s not only going to leave you disappointed, but it’s also highly unethical.

Let’s think about this for a minute: At its simplest, the entire idea of “the friendzone” relies on a sense of entitlement. Reality doesn’t work like that, though. You can’t (or shouldn’t) control someone else. You have no rights over another human being – only the privileges they choose to allow you. If dating/sex are not on that list of privileges, any attempts to sway their opinion are selfish and manipulative.

If a sense of control is that important to you, you should try focusing on the things about yourself that you can control – but if you struggle with any of the issues I mentioned earlier in this section, you’ll need to take extra care to focus on positive changes. I definitely understand that it can be difficult sometimes (and as always, if you need someone to talk to, I’m always here!)

Here’s another journal plug, though: Writing things down gives you a greater likelihood of achieving the success you want – which is all the more reason to make sure things stay positive. Any negativity in your journal will have the power to stick in your mind longer, specifically because you wrote it down. While you shouldn’t fully deny this negativity, you’ll need to try and find a way to frame it more positively. I promise you, you’re worth it.

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Being alone sucks. Okay, maybe not always – there are definitely times when I’d rather be by myself, like when I’m in the bathroom, or when I’m singing. (Yeah, I’m shy – don’t judge me!) But it can be a drag when it feels like you’re always alone – especially if it seems like you’re always trying to find someone and it’s not really getting you anywhere.

It seems so cliché when people tell you, “The right person will come along when you least expect it.” As much as we know they’re probably right, it’s still hard to accept. After all, when you’re feeling lonely, you really just want someone to fix that loneliness for you, even if that’s not how it works.

Are you struggling with keeping your chin up because it seems like you’ll be forever alone? Keep these 21 things in mind.

Most people are born alone, and most people die alone.

Truthfully, there are less than forty “multiple births” for every thousand “single births”, and a great deal of those twins, triplets, and higher were conceived in-vitro. It’s a little sadder that most people die alone, but… hey, at least you won’t be the only one.

There’s a good reason you’re not with your ex anymore.

Either she messed up, or you messed up – but either way, the relationship wasn’t right. Very rarely do people part ways just because they felt like breaking up.

People in relationships will envy your single-ness.

Not all people, of course, but how many times have you heard someone talking about how much they wish they were single? You are single, and you can totally rub it in their faces.

All things are temporary.

In the grand scheme of thing, there’s nothing permanent – besides death and taxes. And, technically, there are ways around doing your taxes (albeit, they are illegal).

Being alone doesn’t have to mean being lonely.

There are happy things about being single – you just have to find them. The upsides are probably on their way to you right now – just be patient!

Booty calls won’t help you find a girlfriend, probably.

If you’re really looking for love, you’re probably not going to find it by hooking up with random strangers or ex-girlfriends. I mean, sometimes it happens – but it doesn’t happen often enough for you to try doing things that way.

You’re not doomed – you’re just impatient.

It’s easy to feel like you’re always going to be alone. But, realistically, you probably won’t.

You have a lot going for you – more than what you don’t have going for you.

It’s highly unlikely that there’s nothing good about you. Or even that there’s not much good about you. It’s easy to feel inadequate, because our brains tell us what’s wrong with us. But other people don’t know these things. Other people can see the beauty that maybe we can’t.

Being selective with your partners is a good thing.

It’s a good thing that you’re not settling for someone who treats you like crap, or who is wrong for you in other ways. If you were truly “desperate”, you’d be settling. But give yourself a pat on the back for not doing that.

You don’t have to share the bed or the TV – savor it!

I’ve had ex-girlfriends who had absolutely terrible taste in television, and they were blanket hogs, too. Since I’m a bit of a blanket hog myself, it would never work out. In fact, even though I’m in a relationship, I cherish the time my girlfriend is away, because I get to cocoon myself in the blankets all. Night. Long. When you’re single, every night can be a blanket cocoon.

It’s better to be alone than to be with someone who makes you feel alone.

I’ve had ex-girlfriends who completely ignored me, too, and let me tell you… That’s the worst. It’s far better to be on your own and learn to enjoy your own company than to be with someone who makes you question yourself.

You don’t ever need to ask permission. For anything.

OK, so you should still probably follow your local laws, and a healthy relationship means you don’t need to ask permission for things anyway because neither of you would dream of doing something the other person wouldn’t like… But you can’t get to that place right away. Getting a new girlfriend means a lot of permission-asking.

Would you rather be in a relationship with no sex (or worse – with bad sex)?

Sure – you hope you’re lucky enough to find a girlfriend who’s an absolute sex goddess. But that’s not always going to be the case. Would you really rather risk bad sex, or feeling guilty for finishing the job yourself? I don’t think so.

Everything happens for a reason.

If the universe sends someone out of your life – whether you feel it was too early or not – there’s probably a good reason for it. More often than not, that reason is that they’re not the person you really need in your life.

Being single is better for your health.

As much as you might think you need someone else to be happy… You probably don’t. In fact, I know you don’t. Scientifically speaking, women in a healthy relationship are no better off emotionally than when they’re single. A bad relationship, on the other hand, will literally destroy your physical and mental health.

The right person will be completely worth the wait.

And she’s not going to come when you’re looking for her. In fact, if you are looking for the Right Person, you’ll probably completely look her over trying to chase after the wrong person. Save yourself the hassle!

Your friends are there to make sure you’re never really alone.

Lesbians in relationships are notorious for ignoring their friends and “nesting”. Go spend some time with your besties, and let them distract you from how long it’s been since you got laid. (Just be sure to thank them for a good time!)

Being single gives you more time for your hobbies.

In fact, when you’re in a relationship (as great as relationships are), you’re probably going to drop more than one hobby. Hopefully it’s because you’ve found a newer, better hobby, but that’s not always the case. You have so much more time for the things you enjoy when you don’t have to worry about getting dressed up for a date.

You are in complete control over your inner circle.

This means you can pick the people who bring out the best in you – not someone who’s just there to fill a vacant spot.

Being single is a perfect excuse to travel.

I’m not sure about you, but I love to travel – and hate having to not travel just because someone else doesn’t want to. When you’re single, you control the itinerary – all on your own.

And besides… You are amazing, all by yourself.

When you focus on being the best person you can be, you’re so much more likely to attract a partner of equal awesomeness. When you’re trying to find someone out of desperation, your choices are pretty much going to be limited to finding someone who is also desperate. And do you really want to be the desperate girlfriend of the desperate girlfriend? I wouldn’t!

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