I was eighteen once – thought I knew it all. [Laughing hysterically right now] I also thought I knew what I wanted, and how to get what I wanted from a guy. I’m so embarrassed to say this – but there was a time when I thought the only way to get someone to treat me right was to train him on how I wanted to be treated.
Honestly, seriously – what does that sound like?
Like men are dogs – who need to be trained. Ooof.
And this is still something I see so often today – it’s nearly blinding the meaning to what a true relationship consists of! Most often is when women are simply not happy in their relationships – they’re not getting the change they need, the effort they deserve or the respect that is clearly lacking. Basically, the effort to maintain and hold the relationship is very one-sided – though it is likely not done in a positive manner.
Granted, I must also admit I ran into quite a few dogs in my journey – still do in passing from time to time – but the mindset I had was never to trust someone’s ability to treat me with decency. Or that what they had to offer was never good enough – as if they had to prove something, or go the extra mile to make up for the mistakes and hurt from my previous relationships.
Double ooof.
What am I even talking about – training? First of all, know the difference between “training” and “learning“. There will always, always, always be the learning game in every relationship – nonstop learning, if I’m really honest. As a married woman, I – we, I should say – are still learning.
We still don’t even get it right all the time!
But in relationships, and marriage, learning is always a two-way street – that commitment filled with empathy and understanding for one another. Training is the combative side – it is the attitude of teaching, or preaching – and most common in relationships that are very one-sided (as I stated above). This combative side signifies a personal weakness, selfishness or an ulterior motive. So if you’ve ever thought or said anything along the lines of, “He knows nothing – he doesn’t know how to handle a woman like me – there’s no way he’ll ever be able to make me happy – he’s needs to learn what it takes to hold onto this relationship if he really wants it, and I’ll show him” and acted on it – there’s your answer.
Here’s the thing – I’m not saying any of that can’t be true, but there are still perfectly clear reasons as to why you need to stop trying to train him in relationships.
pump the brakes, ladies – stop training him in relationships
He doesn’t need a teacher, and shouldn’t anyway
Because, really – that was his mother’s job – to raise, and teach her son to treat women with decency, love and respect. That’s why you can tell a lot about a man by how he treats his mother. The outcome then comes from choice and self development naturally through relationships and social experiences – not from you.
It’s not to say that every man will get the Book On Women right with every woman, 100% of the time. Plus, we’re no two alike – our needs are all drastically different – but in terms of respect, consideration, loyalty, honesty and basic communication skills, these should be Universal no-brainers.
As I’ve said many, many times – we’re all bound to make mistakes. But he also shouldn’t need your voice of reason in order for him to understand and learn from his mistakes, either.
I remember a time of being there, too – feeling the need to lesson him on my relationship experience (which exceeded his own). By the time I was ready for a real relationship, I would catch myself saying, “Why can’t I find someone who already knows the ins and out of a healthy relationship?” I realized it was because I spent so much of my time feeling like I needed to save those who didn’t, to teach them, school them, and mend them into who I needed in a partner (when that was always a dead end route).
Not only was I becoming the two beams of support in the relationship – I continually tolerated less than I damn-well deserved from the beginning. My way of teaching only resulted in me becoming a naggy, badgering, and annoying know-how. And that’s not who I am. It was simply that I knew what I wanted – I just didn’t know how to walk away when I wasn’t getting it.
If you’re having to “train” your man in any of those black and white areas – well, a relationship isn’t, and won’t be the only place he’ll struggle with in life – guaranteed. But he has to want to do better, and be better, for himself. Maturity is a used and abused word, but if he really has it – it didn’t come from the teaching of someone else, but from upbringing, growth and personal choice.
“Training” him means you’re only masking over the surface
It’s like spreading delicious frosting over a stale, dry cake. Deceiving, mostly. You think you’re salvaging what you have or doing a good thing for the relationship, but once you break through the surface all true colors will just come pouring through – ultimately ruining that delicious icing and cake altogether.
Just because you think it will eventually sink in by constantly telling him, “Do this, do that, be less this, be more that,” it will likely have the opposite effect. And with that, it basically means…
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To “train” means to have control
And isn’t that going against the moral of a relationship? Right now women are rising up their hands in empowerment, that no man has control over who we are, our choices, our emotions, our bodies, our power, our rights – our life. But what are we doing when we flaunt that men need the “training” in relationships – that they simply have no idea how to please, or how to be a man, and require our teaching in how to do so.
Call it what you want – it’s control. And it will bring out its negative side effects with you. If you aren’t aware, with control comes resentment, creating this divide we struggle with today between men and women.
Don’t be surprised when you’re called a “manipulator“
You might say, “I’m doing this for the good of our relationship – for us and him.“
Is it, though? Or is it for getting your way, holding the power and pointing blame to the other side of the fence instead of taking accountability and simply walking away from the relationship?
No offense, but defining “training” as going beyond measurable amounts of “Love” in mending the relationship to your aesthetically pleasing eye isn’t Love at all – that’s manipulation. As the woman going through her significant other’s phone and deleting every other woman’s number in his contacts who says, “I’m doing this for his own good.“
As if that’s going to stop him from cheating. The only way that will ever, ever, ever happen is by him making that choice on his own – alone.
There’s a clear difference between your needs not being met – you verbally making that aware to him – and getting your needs met through the perception to change and control him. With that being said,
Training him won’t change him
The willingness to learn, or changing and improving from our mistakes and faults, has to be a conscious, individual choice – especially in relationships. So when you say that he needs “training“, you actually aren’t helping him achieve his fullest potential in the relationship (no matter if it seems that way). If anything, that is likely what men would called emasculating, or undermining his ability to do right on his own.
And he may not have that ability – point blank. That doesn’t mean it is your problem to fix.
By “training” him, you are not working together to improve the relationship – you are implying he is the sole problem, and have made the initiation for him to change through dictatorship. As for having a solution to the problem, the “my way or the highway” approach is not the answer.
Like nails on a chalkboard, communication like this is still widely used today, “If you’d just learn how to be a man – you’d understand me and know what I need. I need a man.” I can think of so many times I said that, was close to saying it, and wanted to say it.
You’re after change, but you know what that’s not saying? What you actually need. You’re only stating what he is not doing, giving or being. So while you think you can “train” him into becoming the man you need by fueling fire with fire – that way of thinking won’t motivate for change, ever.
[Related Read: 13 Vital Communication Skills That Will Save Your Relationship]
Most of all, that isn’t your job since he’s a grown-ass man
And why should it be? Our lids would be blown to shreds – an apocalypse might literally have erupted – if a man tried to “train” us into being the ideal girlfriend or wife.
Am I right, or am I right?
So let me say it, again – it isn’t your job to train him. That’s not how a relationship works. It’s about working together through support, compassion, respect, open communication and diligence on both ends. If the relationship reaches a point in need of your “training” – you might be up against emotional complacency in the relationship, control issues and have a lack of self worth.
The only duty you have is finding a man who knows your worth, respects it and values it – without your help.
[Related Read: 7 Reasons Why Women With Self Worth Have More Successful Relationships]
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