Why settle for partnership mediocrity when you can reach superhero partner status? Jordan Gray has three tips to create your most fulfilling relationship.

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If you found your way to this article that means that you are automatically a phenomenal person.

Seriously.

What kind of person takes time out of their day to try and become an even better boyfriend/husband/partner to their significant other? An awesome person, that’s who.

By following one or all of the following unique steps I guarantee you will be a better partner than you were for all of the days in your life leading up to this one.

So try one of these on for size. Your partner will thank you.

Here are three unique tricks to make you into the best partner possible.

1. Become an Expert Listener

By far the two most common complaints I hear from my female clients are 1.) their partners don’t take the lead often enough, and 2.) they don’t feel like their partners truly listen to them.

The first step in becoming an expert listener is eliminating all other distractions (TV, cell phone, etc.) in your environment and facing them directly. By angling yourself at them and giving them your complete eye contact and attention, it’s so much easier to hear what they want to share with you.

The second step in becoming an expert listener is in understanding what kind of feedback most women are looking for while speaking with their partners.

Men are prone to conversing in two modes: challenging and problem solving. In a man’s world, guys frequently use communication as a means of saying “I’m thinking this thing because it’s a problem… help me solve it.” So when guys hear their partners talking about their days with them, they assume that she must also want her problems solved.

But she isn’t looking for you to solve her problems (most of the time). She’s looking for you to validate and encourage her emotional reality.

The final tip I will include in this section is if she happens to tell you about certain things that are coming up for her in her life (like, for example, a hair cut) then mentally catalogue it and write it in your calendar as soon as possible. That way, even if she only gets an inch cut off (which you likely wouldn’t have noticed) you’ll remember to comment on it because your calendar reminded you of the special day.

“Why yes I did get my hair cut! Well aren’t you an attentive and detail-oriented guy!”

2. Become a Random Acts of Kindness-Ninja

If you’ve been following my website for a while, you know that I’m a huge fan of random acts of kindness within the context of your relationship. That is to say, injecting little romantic gestures into your relationship at unexpected intervals can work wonders for greasing the wheels of your overall mutual relationship satisfaction.

Celebrating her birthday or holidays with sweet gestures is one thing, but doing them when she doesn’t expect them? That stuff is golden. Half of the fun is the fact that it’s a complete surprise.

Want some simple tips and ideas?

• Throw her towel in the dryer when she’s in the shower and hand it to her when she’s done so that she has a warm towel to dry off with.
• Stock your fridge with a sampling of her favorite drinks
• Cook her her favorite meal
• Write up a list of 50 things that you love about her and leave it for her somewhere she wouldn’t expect it
• Take her out to an unexpected event that you think she might like (concert, improv, theatre, ballet, etc.)

Whatever the random act of kindness is, make sure that you calibrate it to your partner for maximum effect.

3. Add Value to Her Life, & The Lives of Those She Loves

A mature, emotionally attuned man is aware of himself, his immediate environment, and his community at large.

Take this mindset into becoming the ultimate partner by consciously looking for ways to add value to the life of your partner, and those that she holds dearest to her.

It’s one thing if you score some brownie points close to home by making your partner a romantic dinner out of nowhere, but it’s a whole other level of “Wow, you really didn’t have to” if you offer to babysit her new niece, or fix her parents’ lighting fixtures.

If the emotional reality of your partners extended network (best friends, family members, etc.) matters to your partner, then it matters to you.

Show you care by not just adding value selectively to her life, but to those of the people she cares about and get ready for a whirlwind of gratitude (don’t do it simply for the approval/validation, but rather because you genuinely like making her happier and more stress free).

Try it out, and see how it makes you feel. My bet… you’ll want to keep doing it just to feel like a deeply generous contributor of value to the world. Her happiness will just be an added bonus.

Want to Be the Ultimate Relationship Partner?

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from 15 years of monogamy it’s this… you can stand out from the crowd so easily with just a little bit of intentional energy focused towards your relationship.

But it isn’t satisfying on an internal level to just barely squeeze by the competition… you want to run laps around them!

So do it.

 

This post originally appeared at JordanGrayConsulting.com in partnership with the Good Men Project. 

[image: via Gareth Simpson on flickr]