Relationship 101

There are some things you just don’t want to let a girlfriend or wife do. Depending on how bad what she wants to do is, however, you’ll need to do that in different ways.

Sometimes even the most wonderful girl will try to do things you don’t want her to do.

What you do then – and how you handle that – is what this article is for.

After all, you can’t just stand by and do nothing while a woman runs slipshod over your relationship rules. Neither can you keep her caged and in chains. You’re probably not going to have her chaperoned everywhere.

You need means to effectively put a stop to bad behavior and rule-flouting by a woman partner – and those means will depend on the severity of the upcoming (or already committed) infraction.

Your behavior with a woman sets expectations for the relationship that is to come. Erratic behavior works against you. But consistent behavior makes things smooth.

We’ve talked on Girls Chase before about setting semi-explicit relationship expectations.

So, your woman caught you red-handed. What can you do? Cry? Beg? Return fire? Don’t do any of that. Follow this 6-step process instead to handle it with minimal casualties.

Here's a fun topic!

Sooner or later, you're going to do something naughty, and some girl somewhere will catch you.

What should you do?

Should you:

• Beg?
• Cry?
• Plead?
• Fly into a rage?
• Something else dramatic?

No! None of those things.

Instead, you must own it, remain chill, and wait for emotion to subside.

If you’ve broken a girl’s heart, it’s easy to feel guilty. There are reasons not to let that feeling linger, though, because all things mend – broken hearts included.

On my article "How to Be the Best Guy a Girl's Ever Dated", reader 90210 comments:

Chase,

I had a wonderful two years relationshp with this amazing girl. We eventually broke up after a big fight and ended on good terms.

I got hold of her journal (we had a shared Google account, I think she forgot about it)

And what I read broke my heart. I saw the relationship from her perspective. All her hopes and dreams on me. She was convinced I was the one. She wanted to marry me and have kids together. Our fights hurt her deeply and she used the journal as an escape.

I saw her raw, unfiltered thoughts. How she thought I was the greatest guy she's ever met. How she was not sure about how serious I was with the relationship. How she would do anything for me. How she would be my greatest supporter in my mission. How she was so madly in love with me that she couldn't stop thinking about me.

She never told me about the marriage thing nor did I set the wrong expectations.

But I gave her the best relationship she's ever had. She never failed to mention it. She invester so much in that relationship. The gifts she gave me were so expensive that I had to swerve by my no gift policy.

She's a great gal but not a perfect girl, if you know what I mean. Focussing on pick up and bringing more beautiful girls in my life is something I really want. So the breakup worked in my favour.

She hasn't chased me down. While we ended on good terms, she's still very cold and distant.

But I just can't shake this feeling of sadness for her. That I might have broken her hopes of finding a decent guy.

I feel so much regret for unknowingly leading her on. I feel so much regret for giving her hopes and then shattering that promise of a shared future.

At this point, if I could pair her up with a guy suitable for her, who would give her what she wants and make her happy, I would do it in a heartbeat.

I just want her to be happy.

I know she isn't in my life anymore and I'm not responsible for her life choices. But she is such an amazing person, she did so much for me, I'm filled with so much pain and regret for what happened.

I certainly commiserate.

I've gone through the same thing (repeatedly).

It's gut-wrenching to see a girl you care about with a broken heart after you leave.

I've even done what 90210 talks about, working to fix past lovers up with guys I think are a match for them, to get them smiling again (and ease my troubled conscience).

Not every guy goes through this.

Maybe women don't attach to you too strongly. Perhaps your relationships end before they can get that deep. Or you might regularly leave your women on equal terms, the investment balance in the relationship never having become all that lopsided.

However, if you have experienced being a heartbreaker, you have probably also experienced the guilt that comes with it -- and the soul-searching that guilt kicks off:

• "Did I do something wrong?"

• "Have I ruined romance for her?"

• "Am I just not cut out for relationships?"

It's more common than you might think, people with troubled consciences over relationships they left where the other partner was hurt and pining for them. There are a lot of folks who swear off relationships to greater or lesser extent as a result of this.

You just don't want to be causing that kind of hurt; you don't want to have that kind of responsibility for someone else's feelings.

Well today, we're going to look at how to ease the heartbreaker's troubled conscience -- and what duty you have to a broken-hearted ex, plus whether you really need to swear off relationships (or not).

Healthy relationships have boundaries. But what should you forbid a serious girlfriend (or your wife) from? The answer’s not “nothing”; in fact, it’s 10 things.

Let's get a little old fashioned!

That's the thing, right? Serious relationships that aren't whimsical temporary egalitarian restriction-free pairings are old "old fashioned", aren't they?

I joke, but that does seem to be a popular position.

Why that is is a matter for another article. This article will be focused on what to forbid a serious girlfriend or wife from doing if you have one.

This article is in response to commenter Anish, remarking on my article "Should Men Have Open Relationships?", where he says:

Hey Chase, you have never written an article on how to stop girlfriends from hanging out with male friends!! At least you should write one on what kind of boundaries you should set up and how!!

Boundaries. Rules. Forbidden activities and proclivities.

That'll be our topic for today.

Put succinctly: what is your committed girlfriend or wife NOT to do?

Before we list forbidden items, though, first we must define what relationships these strictures apply to, and why we have them in the first place.

If you want to be the best guy a girl has ever dated, you need more than “hope.” Instead, follow these 8 recommendations – yet watch out for “alpha widows.”

Commenting on my article about the Feminine Interest Spectrum, reader Fanfun asks:

[What] could we do if [a girl] already has many experiences connected to a guy to make us love more or / and forget others?

What he's talking about of course is how to be the best guy a girl's ever dated.

Most hardened playboys might chuckle sensibly at a question like this, but we allll care about it.

Sure, some of us are more confident in our ability to enter a new girl's life and immediately be the best guy she's ever dated... but if we found out we weren't, well, it would sure throw us for a loop.

No one wants to be second-best with someone of great personal importance to him. We all want to be the best.

It's not just about ego, either. It's a practical thing.

If there's some guy out there she likes better than you, she is never really going to be all the way 'both feet into the relationship'.

Girls care about this as much as guys do. I can't tell you how some of my girlfriends have drilled me on past girlfriends, trying to find out if I cared about those girls more than I care about the ones doing the drilling.

This is a human thing: if we're with someone, we'd much prefer to be #1 in that person's heart than we would #2, #3, or some other lower rank.

In this article, we'll talk about how to be that.

Yet before we do, first we need to talk about whether it's worth trying to be that with this particular girl.

Is it normal for a girlfriend to keep pics and other reminders of her ex-boyfriend? To some degree, but if she’s always looking at them or bringing him up, it’s a problem.

Commenting on my recent article about the Feminine Interest Spectrum, reader Fanfun asked about what to do when a girlfriend has pictures of her ex-boyfriend (or other past lovers).

He says:

Will you make an article on how to behave when the girl you are with has archived photos with her ex or old photos or otherwise things prior to the relationship that she says she keeps as a memory but that still convey a public message and one of respect towards you? How to deal with you in this regard?

I asked for a little more detail on the issue, and he expanded:

My thought is that if he still has photos with him both on social media and in the gallery he still has some relevance and danger like any other memory like a song connected to him, it would be interesting an article about how to deal with it even if we do not catch it (and that therefore means that he could or could not think about it or review any type of memory such as photos keep t-shirts etc)) the fact of still having of the material, how to act? And how could we do if if he already has many experiences connected to a guy to make us love more or / and forget others?

My first response was that this isn't really worth worrying about.

But I considered it a bit more, and the reality is that it really does depend.

It depends on how attached she is to the ex in question. It depends on how romantic/nostalgic she is. It depends, too, on how likely a threat this man from the past is to your current relationship with her.