Relationship Tips for Men That Keep Messing It Up

Wading through the enormous amount of relationship tips for men on the internet can be exhausting. On the one hand, there are the painfully cliché tips, like “don’t go to bed angry”. On the other hand, there are the tips that seem to be deliberately vague and confusing, like “make sure your hearts beat to the same song.”

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Here, we want to give you some clear, honest advice about things you can do to stop messing things up. It’s important to us that our readers are happy in their relationships, and we want to do everything we can to help out with that. Here, we’ll break down the clichés and bring you actionable ways you can boost your relationship.

Communication and Honesty

After saying that we’ll move away from clichés, let’s immediately talk about a big one: it’s all about communication. This sounds tired and overwrought because it’s been used by relationship coaches for a very long time. Annoyingly, it’s been used because it’s entirely true. Relationships really are all about communicating openly and honestly.

Eton Wick, a leading relationship coach, breaks down a number of common difficulties on his site. A running theme through all of these difficulties is a lack of communication: one is a quote from a client who’s trying to avoid speaking to their partner, one is a client who wants more sex but doesn’t turn to their partner, and another is a client expressing their confusion over what their partner truly wants.

The way to address a huge number of issues is simply to say what’s on your mind. The reason people often don’t do this is fear: they don’t want to say the wrong thing and end up arguing with their partner. That’s entirely understandable, but consider this rare tip among relationship tips for men: you don’t actually know how your partner will respond to your thoughts. You may expect an argument, only to find they agree with you wholeheartedly.

One of the best communication-based relationship tips for men is to deliberately overdo it. Tell your partner what’s on your mind without “translating” or altering because you think they’d like that. If there are things your partner doesn’t want to know, they’ll tell you, and that’s something you can cross off your mental list. In essence, this is simple: communicate everything, and “blacklist” certain topics if your partner doesn’t actually care about them. This opt-out system ensures you’re sharing plenty.

Remembering Things

First things first: we totally understand if you forget something. Forgetting stuff is one of the more annoying faults of the human brain, but if you know you’re likely to forget stuff, write it down!

It’s tempting to think that just because it’s something small, like forgetting to buy a loaf of bread on the way home from work, that it’s not worth trying super hard to remember. However, this isn’t true at all. As Mark Manson says on his site, “the little things add up to the big things.”

While you’re right that a loaf of bread doesn’t actually mean much in the great scheme of things, an important take-home message on our relationship tips for men list is this: forgetting something once is fine, but continually forgetting it can become hurtful and upsetting.

Make the extra effort to put a reminder on your calendar, in a notebook, or on your phone, and you’ll see the difference before you know it. Plus, once you’ve gotten into the habit of remembering things, you can remember some extra things too. While it’s a common entry on lists of relationship tips for men, you could remember to buy your partner some flowers or take them for a coffee every now and then. These small gestures, when remembered, add up to be a big, important, and lovely thing.

Rapid-Fire Relationship Tips for Men

There are far more relationship tips in the world than we can fit into one article, but here are some rapid-fire tips that can help you a lot.

• It’s not “me vs you”, it’s “us vs the problem”. Working together in a tough spot can bring you closer together.
• The ideal relationship isn’t 50/50. It’s 60/40, and you’re both trying hard to be the 60. When you’re both putting in lots of effort, you’ll both feel happier and more fulfilled.
• Don’t let things fester. Nothing can be gained by stewing on something that’s frustrating you. Kindly and gently speaking your mind can be very helpful to you both.
• Sometimes, the problem is you. Identify how things in your life alter your mood and outlook. If you’re being snappy and you know it, apologize and explain that you’re tired, hungry, or overworked, then you and your partner can work together to solve the problem.

Now that we’ve broken down some great relationship tips for men, we hope that you can use some to give your love life a boost!