If you’ve had more than a few failed relationships, it may be time to stop blaming your exes for things going sour. Instead, why not take an objective look at yourself and figure out how TF things got so bad in your love life in the first place? If you’re constantly getting screwed over in relationships, now’s the time to make some adjustments and start living by these 10 rules:
- Put Yourself First. The second you start to bend over backward for a guy is the second you’ll slowly start to lose yourself in the relationship. If you don’t look out for yourself and prioritize your own happiness and well-being, how do you expect anyone else to treat you accordingly? If a guy sees that you value yourself and you demand respect from him in all areas of your life, he’ll treat you like the MF’n princess that you are.
- Don’t Let Him In So Easily. The only way to stop getting discarded like the leftover lettuce in a Chipotle chicken bowl is by not letting guys into your world so quickly. Not everyone deserves to be a part of your life, and not everyone deserves to know your life stories, your hopes, your dreams, and your fears. If you properly vet potential mates before allowing them into your world, you can get rid of the no good ones before they claw their way into your life and wreak havoc.
- Take It One Day at a Time. One of the main reasons women get screwed over is because we tend to jump ahead before a relationship has the time to develop. After a couple of months, we’re already picking out china and filling up our Pinterest wedding board. When the guy flips the script and dumps us two weeks later, we feel like our whole world is coming to an end. Some of us just get so caught up in relationships that we don’t even realize that things were about to come to an end. If you take your relationship one day at a time instead of mentally transporting yourself five years into the future, you’ll be much better off if things don’t work out.
- Don’t let guys control the pace of your relationship. I feel like if it were left up to most men, we’d all be having sex within an hour of meeting for the first time. When you take control of the pace instead of letting him dictate how things go, you’re holding on tight to your own life and ensuring your own mental and emotional well-being. If a guy tries to make the moves on you after the first night and you’re really not feeling it, remain gracious and respectful but tell him you want to hold off on the physical side of things. If he wants to see you three days in a row but you feel like things are going too fast, pump the brakes and take some space. Your life, your rules.
- Ignore Words — Pay Attention to Actions. This one might take some practice, but once you realize that 99.9 percent of what some guys say is BS, you’ll be much better off in the long run. If he’s not backing up his words with the appropriate actions, what does that tell you? Once you practice tuning out his words in favor of concentrating on the things he does, your dating life will get way better. You’ll no longer find time for the guys who say they can’t wait to see you but they never ask you out on a date. Slowly, your days of getting screwed over will slowly come to an end.
- Listen to Your Gut. Your gut is trying to tell you something — why do you keep ignoring it? Your instincts are there to guide you for a reason. They don’t only speak up when you’re in danger, they try to knock some sense into you when you’re about to get played like a fiddle by a jerk too. The next time you’re in a situation with a guy and your inner voice tells you to run for the hills, do it!
- Develop healthier habits and break the crappy ones. If you realize that you keep making mistakes in love, it could be a sign that something in your life needs a major rehaul. For instance, if you keep meeting jerks on a particular dating website, then maybe it’s time to log off. If you keep running into jerks every time you go to bars and nightclubs, perhaps it’s time to find another Saturday night hangout. Changing the places you go to will put you in contact with different types of people from all walks of life. Who knows, the cutie staring at the Claude Monet painting at your local museum just might be the man of your dreams.
- Avoid rebound “relationships.” They usually occur immediately following a breakup, which means you haven’t even given yourself the proper amount of time to heal. People say that the easiest way to get over someone is to get underneath someone else, but that’s terrible advice. You’re only trying to avoid the hurt of your past relationship by pretending everything’s all cool with your new partner. The walls will come tumbling down soon enough when your new guy realizes you haven’t gotten over the last jerk who did you dirty. So what’s the solution? Spend a bit of time with yourself. Heal your wounds. When you can finally go a few months without checking in on your ex or stalking his social media accounts, you’re just about ready to head back out into the dating world.
- Stop Ignoring Red Flags. When red flags start popping up, don’t make excuses for the guy. We all make mistakes and we all have our quirks, but if something is bothering you about your new partner, you definitely shouldn’t ignore it. Think back to all of your past relationships and all the red flags that you brushed off, only to get treated like crap by a guy who didn’t deserve you in the first place. Do you really want to go through that feeling again? Of course not. That’s why you should take red flags seriously. They’re a sign that impending danger to your heart is right around the corner!