When Roommates Happens

affection, apart, drifting, dynamic, happening, happens, hard, human interest, lover, relationship, roomates, roommate, stale, william harley - By Better Sex on Thursday, June 17, 2010 - 16:04

This article stems from a question we received...

When a relationship becomes stale, and you can start to feel like just a roommate instead of a desired lover, and it can be fatal.

One of you has to take a stand, and if you're willing, that will probably be you.

It's easy to resign yourself to a less-than-awesome relationship, because fixing it is A LOT of work.

Here's some advice that is easy to give, but a bit harder to accept, and much harder to implement. The reason it's hard to accept is that you've already decided that you're doing a bunch of extra work, and you'll be damned if you're going to keep putting in all this work if he's not going to even try!

The reason it's even harder to implement is because on top of already feeling like you're doing all you can, you have to take a hard look at yourself and admit that you're doing it wrong. We all hate to admit that.

1: Figure out what your "roommate" values as a true sign of love and affection?

For example, some people like to cuddle and smooch, it makes them feel loved and special. Other people like to have hot wild sex, that what makes them feel special. Some people like when you help them out with projects, it shows them that you care.

So ask yourself, what does he really like - not, what do you like, but what action can I do that he really values as a way of showing him how much I love and appreciate him?

There's a great book called "His Needs, Her Needs" which goes into detail about this. The idea of the book is that everyone has a set of needs that must be met in order for them to feel satisfied and happy in a relationship.

So the author, William Harley, says that for most men, the needs they want fulfilled are: Sexual Fulfillment, Recreational Companionship, An Attractive Spouse, Domestic Support, Admiration.

He goes on to say that for most women they are: Affection, Conversation, Honesty and Openness, Family Commitment, Financial Support.

As you can see, not very much overlap :-(

So the key is to meet the needs of your spouse in a way that they want, not in a way that you want.

Here's a real life example. At a cookout a few weeks ago, a neighbor was telling everyone how proud she was of her husband being asked to speak at a big industry event. Everyone also thought it was great and shook his hand and slapped him on the back, but in his heart, the admiration of his wife meant more to him than anything else.

My guess is that he is much more likely to give her the affection and conversation she wants on a day like that.

Hopefully you see where I'm going with this... All people in a relationship need to give to get, and the more you give, the more you get. It may seem like you're already giving all you can, and if that's the case - take a minute and see what and how you're giving. Maybe you're not giving anything the other person wants, in which case it goes unnoticed and under-appreciated.

I know some of you have been through this, please take a minute and leave a comment that might help others.

Photo by: f_mafra