5 Ways to Trigger His Lasting Devotion

When you meet a man you really REALLY like, you want him to feel the same way.

You don’t just want him to LIKE you.

You want him to feel with you like he’s never felt with ANYONE.

Because you know he’s been with other women.

He’s had girlfriends. He may have even had a wife.

He loved them enough to be with them for years.

It can feel really intimidating.

But that’s just your self-doubt speaking.

This isn’t a competition. You’re not competing against all the women he’s loved before in events like The Best Cook or The Best Looking or The Best in Bed.

People love us not for who we are but for the experiences they have with us.

If he enjoys being with you, he’s not thinking about those other women and whether they’re “better” than you.

He’s thinking about how nice it is to be with you.

So, if you want to trigger his lasting devotion, that’s where you need to start.

#1. Accept his offers of help.

When a guy says, “Hey, how about I do this for you?” you say, “That would be awesome!”

Even if you’re not sure you need it. Even if you’ve already got it under control.

Because what a lot of women do, when a guy offers to help, is to say, “I don’t want you to put yourself out,” or, “Oh, you shouldn’t have.”

They treat his offer as if it implies obligation. Like accepting his help would make things uncomfortable.

What he hears them saying is, “I don’t want anything you have.”

It sounds like rejection.

One of the ways guys test women is to offer to do something for her and see how she responds. If she refuses any help, it’s like she’s refusing them.

Good guys get a lot of pleasure in putting a smile on a woman’s face. They live for those thank-yous. It makes them feel useful. It makes them feel like they can contribute.

So practice the art of receiving. Let him put a smile on your face and shoulder some of your burdens. Don’t let it make things awkward. It’s just what people who care for each other do.

#2. Take him seriously.

One reason guys benefit so much from having a girlfriend is because she helps them express a side of themselves that’s normally hidden away and locked down.

Guys have very different relationships with other guys. It’s all about the art of the put-down. No one is allowed to get too big for his britches or he’ll get cut down to size.

So if a guy wants to talk seriously about heart stuff, he’s got to pick the right people.

That’s usually not his parents, because he doesn’t want his parents to know that anything’s wrong or that he’s thinking about this stuff.

Usually, the best person for a guy to talk to is a woman. Women actually listen. They take him seriously.

It’s hard for us as women to imagine just how much that means to the men in our lives. I mean, we all have girlfriends that we could talk to about anything. But guys don’t always have that kind of relationship. They’re too busy trying to impress people and seem invincible.

So, when he shares something personal and vulnerable with you, treat it as a gift. He’s showing you his underbelly. He doesn’t do that with just anyone.

#3. Teach him something unexpected.

In the classic romantic story, the guy is the one showing his girl a whole new world. Guys feel expected to be more experienced.

But every guy out there gets a tingle of excitement when his girl surprises him by taking him somewhere outside his comfort zone.

Maybe he didn’t know that she was an expert on single malt whiskies. Maybe he didn’t know she could sail.

So take on that teacher role from time to time.

You can play it up and be the sexy teacher, or you can just be the passionate woman sharing this cool thing.

Challenge him a little. Push him beyond his comfort zone. Having a girlfriend that expands his horizons will change his life forever.

#4. LIKE him.

This seems pretty simple, doesn’t it?

But a lot of guys NEVER feel as if they’re liked for who they are.

They believe that women want them for what they can DO for them.

They say things like, “She’s only into him because of his money, or because of his friends, or because she’s hunting for a husband.”

Some guys are VERY suspicious of women’s motives. They’re certain that a woman would drop them like a hot potato if they lost their job or refused to consider marriage.

This has a lot to do with guy culture.

Guys are competitive. They compare themselves to other guys. This guy has bigger muscles, this guy is always dating hot women, this guy makes money hand over fist.

And so they assume that women do the same thing to them. Women must be comparing them to other guys and finding them lacking.

Now, sometimes they’re right.

We all have that catty friend who rips into those poor guys with awful online dating profiles. It’s funny, right? And sometimes we do it ourselves. We can’t help but make fun of certain guys.

But we forget that guys are tender inside, too.

We HATE it when guys judge us. We hate it when they only act interested because they want something from us.

So you can see why one of the greatest gifts you can give a guy is just to like him.

Stop with all that judgment and expectation and comparison, and just LIKE him.

Like him regardless of where things go.

If the possibility of a relationship was taken off the table, would you still want to spend time with this guy?

If the answer is no, then you probably shouldn’t be pushing for a relationship.

A truly great guy will inspire you even if the flirtation between you goes nowhere. You like him for who he is, and that’s separate from your romantic feelings towards him.

Those guys are hard to find, but they’re keepers once you do.

#5. Keep it a safe place for mistakes.

Guys don’t want to make mistakes.

They try hard. But sometimes they mess up.

And when a guy messes up, it makes him 10x feel worse when his girlfriend freaks out.

She starts accusing him of not caring, then she pulls back and goes cold on him. It feels like she’s punishing him, and it makes him feel like dirt.

When he feels like dirt, he doesn’t want to even try anymore. He just wants to get out.

So when a guy does something to you that’s just awful—and you can’t BELIEVE he did that—expect to get upset.

To the best of your ability, take that upsetness somewhere else so you can deal with it and get your head around what just happened without lashing out at him.

Because the immediate instinct is to hurt him for hurting you. You want to make him feel as bad as he made you feel.

Or, if you’re the opposite type, you crumple inside and pretend it didn’t matter, all the while hoping you can hold it in until you find a safe place to cry.

There is a middle ground.

It’s where you process the pain on your own until you’re ready to talk about what happened.

Then you express your hurt, and you talk about what you’d like to do differently going forward.

You make sure he knows that you want this relationship and you love being with him, and to make it work you’ve both got to feel safe together and trust each other. You need to be on the same side.

Now, some guys might clam up at a conversation like that, because they’ve never had a girlfriend who approached it that way.

If you’ve ever noticed how some guys treat you worse after they’ve done something wrong, this is why.

They’re reacting in their head to the way they EXPECT you to treat them.

It doesn’t occur to them that you won’t get mad and strike out. They’ve never had a relationship where conflict was handled in a healthy way.

The way you deal with conflict as a couple is a big deal.

If you can’t deal well with conflict together, there’s not much hope for your relationship.

So try to keep it a safe place for making mistakes.

You’ll make mistakes, too. And you’ll want him to take it well.

We all hate being punished by the person we love. We want the opportunity to fix our mistakes, as long as we’re not shamed for what we did.

So there you have it. The 5 ways to trigger his lasting devotion.

Which of these ways have you used before?

Which one are you going to try next?