Here’s another great insight about relationship maintenance. Comes from Sherrie Rose.
She came up with the concept of a “Love Bucket.”
Her idea: Every woman desires 7 things to feel happy in a relationship. You don’t need to meet all 7. Just find the 3 – 5 most important to her and meet those.
If you do this, you’ll raise her femininity, and she won’t want to leave you. You’ll get respect from her, intimacy, more freedom, admiration, she’ll support you on your terms, and love.
I came across Sherrie, again, through DeAngelo’s Interviews With Dating Gurus series. When I had first heard it, it had helped me understand what I did wrong and right in my relationships.
Let me just say here at the outset, these apply to when you’re in a monogamous relationship… and you want to keep it alive. Before you get into a relationship, though, it’s important to create attraction. That’s where game comes in. You know, being a challenge. I wrote a post about that called: “Game.” Check it out, if you’d like.
In the meantime, here are the 7 rings:
- Sex: Give her sex and orgasms.
- Contact: a) Physical Contact, like: hugs, caresses, hold hands. b) Non-Physical Proximity Contact, like: phone, text, email.
- Recognition: Acknowledge her, appreciate her, compliment her, pay attention to her, see the good in her, find out what makes her tick, connect emotionally with her.
- Provisions: a) Provide for her financially. For example, paying for dinner. b) giving her gifts: flowers, jewelry, clothes. c) giving her exciting experiences: concerts, trip to the mountains, and so on
- Do For, like: a) doing a chore for her: taking out the trash, making a lunch for her, doing her laundry, making her dinner. b) using your talents to help her: fix things, fix software, read her manuscripts.
- Do With, like: a) doing day-today things together: shop together, wash dishes together. b) or doing core activities together: playing golf together, traveling together, going on dates together.
- Lifestyle: Having personal values in common and how you live together. For example, how you are in the home, with family. How you maintain your health, hygenie. What moral and spiritual values you have in common.
Of the 7, the two most crucial are probably sex and lifestyle. If the sex goes, the relationship goes. And if you don’t have deepest values in common, it’s gonna be hard to see eye-to-eye and keep the relationship going.
Speaking of keeping the relationship going, Sherrie has another great concept called “Lovematism.”
She says it’s the basis for enduring love. Or, as she puts it, it’s “love on steroids.”
She said she came up with the concept when looking back on her best relationships. She realized she had felt connected with a man on four levels. Here they are:
- Sexual Magnetism of Body: attracted physically, sexual connection
- Mental Hypnotism of Mind: intellectual connection, attitude, confidence, how the person thinks
- Emotional Rhythm of Heart: Emotional connection, empathy, opening your heart to each other
- Spiritual Mysticism of Soul: spiritual beliefs in common, connecting on a spiritual level, do spiritual activities together.
They’re like four pistons of an engine. Never all up at the same time. But the more pistons you have working, the stronger the bond and love. Great concept to help understand the success of a relationship.
Finally, she argues there are 3 basic mind-states.
Here they are:
- Base Mindset: Physical, survival drive. Drive for food, sex, safety. Where the emotions live. We spend most of our time here.
- Conscious Mindset: Where logic fits in. Stands outside of emotions to look at the bigger picture.
- Omni Mindset: Where logic and emotion integrate. Going beyond the “me” mode to serve a higher purpose. Where love and freedom live. What’s best for the greater good. The spiritual level.
She argues men tend to be more logical, women more emotional. Women can be logical too and men emotional. We all travel up and down the pyramid.
But she encourages men to be more logical, especially when a woman gets into the survival/emotional mode. We can direct them and help them back on track. You know, be that solid pillar for them. If we do this, she won’t derail us or work against us. Besides, taking the lead is attractive for her. Cause it’s masculine.
Speaking of taking the lead, she encourages us to take the lead in filling her love bucket, too. Fill hers first, and she’ll fill yours in return.