I have a girlfriend. She is a cheerful and upbeat person, but in the last few weeks her behavior and attitude has changed drastically. She has become sleepy and lost, and she has lost weight since she hardly eats at all.

I asked her: “What’s wrong with you? What’s the problem?” And she told me:

I’ve been living with him for over a year. Everything seems fine with us. But his attitude towards me is not serious – during all this time we never once talked about starting a family, getting married, having a child. I’m afraid that he doesn’t love me and this relationship will lead to nothing.

I advised my girlfriend to see a good psychologist. After the psychologist’s session, she came back more confident. It turned out not to be worth the trouble at all. Even in our feminist age, there are three main things a woman should never do first:

1. Offering first intimacy and asking to live together is not a good tactic for a woman

It’s all about sex in one way or another. Indeed, if a girl calls on a first date, she hints that she is not against it in the future. Asking to live together makes intimacy regular and frequent. So it’s also an offer of yourself, only even more explicit.

But such things should be offered first by the man. After all, at all times intimacy with a woman had to be sought. A man risks nothing, but he gets a lot. The main risks here are on the woman’s side. And so it’s logical that it’s up to the man to fight for the right to possess a woman. And he is ready to take it seriously.

And he has the right to choose. And when a woman offers to go on a date, or go to bed, the excitement, the tension of waiting is gone, everything becomes simple and uninteresting for him. He can agree, but then he will be boring, not active and the woman will have to continue to drag this relationship as hard as she can, complaining that the man there was some kind of sluggish, “mama’s boy”.

All the major decisions she has to make herself. And all of her major decisions were about sex. Her boyfriend just did not feel like a man around her, he was not interested in pursuing her, since everything had already been offered. She just couldn’t see that she had long ago devalued herself in his eyes.

But in my girlfriend’s situation, it was just the opposite. Her boyfriend Brandon had made all the major male moves a long time ago. He asked her out on a first date, then wooed her, romantically arranged her first intimate relationship (they went camping, and he was the one who asked her to move in with him). And they had lived practically as a family for over a year.

2. Marriage today is not about bed, it’s about responsibility

A psychologist explained to my friend Amanda that gender no longer plays a big role. The proposal to live in a marriage, no longer about the bedding relationship, they have long been there, but about the economic relationship. And in this relationship, man and woman have long been equal. It is clear that the woman wants more certainty, she dreams of having a child much earlier than the man.

And for a man, on the contrary, marriage is a very serious step, because he understands that financially he will have to invest a lot more than now (especially if the family grows). And, as they say, husbands who at first do not really want children almost always make great fathers. And if we focus on the desire of men in this matter, then our planet would be depopulated very quickly…

So the main point the psychologist made to my Amanda was that you don’t have to wait for a proposal. You need to propose marriage yourself. This is not ashamed and does not humiliate the woman. At least in this situation.

It is clear that when a man is just going out with a woman from time to time, there is no way she can take this step first. First you have to get to the third step. Wait for an offer to move in together and live together. And in Amanda’s situation, she has nothing to lose by proposing, she even gains. Even if he turns her down, he will turn her down with some kind of argument.

You have to listen to those arguments. And most likely, then, after reflection, the man himself will propose. After all, he will realize that his girlfriend is very serious about their relationship. And the girl, after this more likely to grow in his eyes.

And if he refuses at all, with the wording that I’m not ready to have children from you or invest in a family – that’s also good. Why not? You have saved yourself a lot of time, you can now decide whether to continue to live with him, or have to leave.

3. Don’t invent it, ask it

This is another important point:

A girl who is constantly waiting for a marriage proposal from her partner, turns the relationship into some kind of underground battle or vice versa they become sluggish and joyless.

There are so many downsides to the waiting person’s position. He becomes dependent on the other. Called me to a restaurant, oh maybe he’ll tell me everything there! He didn’t! And she sits in that restaurant sad, bored, and her boyfriend can’t figure out what’s wrong.

Everything seems beautiful and romantic. And the evening is gone. And there can be many such moments, and gradually the most beautiful relationships are spoiled, begins “blow your brains out” on any occasion, the truth is scary to say.

That’s why it happens so that to call the first one at home for the first sex is not scary, but to propose to the guy, when you have lived with him for a year, it is scary? It should be the other way around.