Introduction
Relationship types
Why ladies get hurt in relationships
Introduction
Everyone loves to be in a relationship especially ladies. So many ladies right from puberty, when female hormones begin to kick in, develop a longing for a relationship with a member of the opposite sex. This longing, which is actually a need, forms a major part of a woman’s psychological makeup. She is wired to nurture (care for) someone, and while this aspect of her nature grows it runs in tandem with another deeply felt need. The need to not just love someone, but to be loved in return by someone. This person is usually the object of her attention. A lady wants someone to lavish her affections on, and in return to have that particular person make her the center of his world. There is no doubt that the need to be loved is universal for all and sundry, but this manifests in a much greater degree in the lives of ladies.
This is the foundation or the bedrock that defines the way a lady views relationships. As far as she is concerned, this is the underlying reason for starting a relationship. This female perspective is the way relationships are defined for women. To a woman, it is an emotional issue that encompasses her feelings and is seen as an “emotional investment”.
This emotional investment in the object of her love makes her to bond to him emotionally. A lady goes into a relationship with an all or nothing attitude. This explains why you hear a lot of ladies make statements like “I gave him my heart and he broke my heart”, “I have spent the last 15 years of my life on you and this ill treatment is what I get in return”, “I loved you with my entire being and you chose to abandon me?” Stories that touch the heart like this is the reason why a lot of women have built up stereotypes of the menfolk. It is commonplace to hear women say things like “All men are liars, cheats and unfaithful”, All men are wicked”, “Men will just use and dump you”.
Relationship types
All relationships tend to fall within categories. Findings, supported by empirical evidence, carried out by researchers who major in the study of human relationships, have discovered that all relationships tend to exhibit recurring patterns. What is even more interesting, is that these patterns or categories, tend to match the personality profiles of the people involved in those relationships, in practically the majority of cases. There is a clear nexus between relationship patterns and people’s personality types. The good news about this is that it can help a lady determine the suitability of a would-be suitor or boyfriend.
However, for a lady to be able to successfully do this she must acquire general knowledge about human personality types and then apply it as a filter to prospective candidates. The point is this, a human being’s personality is the person’s true self. At every point in time, and even over a period of time, that person will manifest the traits or behavioural patterns that are embedded in his personality, both positive or negative, good or bad.
The following are key relationship types:
1- A master-slave relationship: In this kind of relationship the lady is relegated to the position of a slave while her man projects the image of a master. The lady is expected to pander to all the whims and caprices of the man no matter how foolish or unreasonable they may be. The man paints a picture to the woman, that her very reason for existence, is to serve him in any capacity he deems fit whatsoever. Obviously, this is not an ideal type of relationship because the lady will feel used, worthless and sad. She can never be happy as long as she is with this kind of man.
2- A father-daughter relationship: In this case, what usually plays out is a scenario where the man is far older than the lady. She may be 25 or even 30 years younger than the man she loves. Since the man can practically father the lady biologically, certain differences begin to show up almost from the onset. The man though in an intimate relationship with the woman, tends to treat her like a daughter. Definitely, the man’s friends and acquaintances also fall within his age bracket so the lady no doubt will find it difficult to relate with them, just as they would also feel uncomfortable taking one so young into their inner circles. This is also not an ideal setup, at some point in the relationship the man may develop a patronizing condescending attitude towards the lady. He may even make statements like “after all what do you know, you are just a small girl”. He may see the lady as a toy that satisfies him sexually, and showcase her to the world as a trophy he had acquired. Even in terms of intimacy, the lady while still in her prime would have to contend with the inability of the man to satisfy her, which may end up causing her to cheat on her partner with a younger more virile man.
3- A superior-inferior relationship: This is one of the worst relationship types. Can you imagine as a lady having to struggle to prove to your partner your worth. In cases like this the lady’s self-esteem takes a hit. Men like this, see themselves as being superior to the lady in every way imaginable. The man from his lofty vantage point, arrogates to himself the prerogative of taking all decisions without any consideration whatsoever to the lady. He never apologies for the ills he does, the harsh words he speaks and believes he can never be wrong, after all the lady lacks the intellectual capacity to think on his level. No lady in such a relationship can ever be happy or fulfilled.
4-A “loving partnership” relationship: This model is the ideal kind of relationship ladies should aim at initiating, promoting and sustaining. Imagine a situation where your man sees you as a partner, a helper, a supporter and a team player. The lady’s self-esteem and self-worth will be extremely healthy, she will bloom and shine and her best graces will tend to surface and be brought to the fore. The lady practically lives in bliss, something akin to “heaven on earth” so to speak. Here both parties absorb the best from each other, have their self-esteem intact ,grow and become even more bonded over time across all the planes of human existence namely the emotional, sexual, financial, physical, spiritual and psychological planes. People who are able to work hard at their relationships, and attain this state are often referred to as “SOUL MATES”.
Why ladies get hurt in relationships
We now come to the crux of the matter namely why ladies get hurt in relationships. The following are key reasons why this unfortunate set of circumstances occur:
1-Unrealistic expectations: Every lady starts a relationship with certain expectations and actually, nothing is wrong with that. The problem is when the lady has unrealistic expectations. All humans are flawed with defects that predisposes them to peculiar weaknesses from birth. Apart from this, environmental conditioning, nurture and upbringing play a major role in how an individual develops and the kind of personality the person eventually has. Failure to take this into consideration, has spelt doom and usually leads to the lady getting hurt in the relationship. It is unrealistic for a lady to exhibit perfectionist tendencies and expect her man not to make mistakes, offend her accidentally and generally not respond as she would expect in every situation.
2- The sex-love conundrum: Ah, this is a serious one. The sex-love conundrum is as age old as the species of man on planet earth. The cardinal thing to remember is that in a vast majority of cases “men give love for sex while a lady tends to give sex for love”. Careful observation shows that quite a lot of men are players in this regard. The lady wants to be loved and as a result gives in to pressure from the man for sex very early in the relationship, based on his apparent portrayals of love. Once the man has had his way several times, he eventually grows tired of the lady and dumps her leading to her heart getting broken.
There is no doubt whatsoever that the lady will get hurt in the relationship. This explains the occurrence, which is getting commonplace these days, where a man dates a lady for years, raises her hopes and dashes them at the last minute by breaking up with her and going on to marry another lady. Men like this will do anything, literally anything to get into a lady’s pants so to speak.
3- Male-female differences: The hard fact is this, males and females are wired differently. Infact, differences between the sexes goes beyond being just biological or anatomical. At the psychological and mental level men and women are fundamentally different. Men are visual in nature and tend to be moved by what they see while women are more auditory in nature and are moved by what they hear. This is why men respond to visual stimuli much more than women, which is a major reason why the pornographic industry is thriving.
A woman finds it almost impossible to understand, why a man she is in a relationship with would stare at or want to look at other women. It takes great self-discipline (which unfortunately a great many men lack), for a man to keep his eyes on his one and only. On the mental level it is even more complicated, men are not as talkative as women, do not usually communicate as well as them and tend to bury rather than express their feelings.
All of this is diametrically opposite to the way the woman reacts, responds and expresses. Things that matter to ladies are often overlooked by the man because he is too “blind” to see them. This is a very major reason why ladies get hurt in relationships.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is important for ladies to step back, and understand the fundamental reason why they are driven to want to engage in relationships. Ladies must also know the various relationship types, as well as reflect on reasons why ladies get hurt in relationships, in other to protect themselves from heartbreak.