18 Nonnegotiable Things Every Woman Should Expect Her Life Partner To Have

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1. Enough self-confidence to not feel threatened or intimidated by her ambitions and her success.

2. The desire to build a life with, rather than to build a life for, her.

3. The ability to balance between leaning on her and giving her someone to lean on.

4. The understanding that they don’t need to have a solution for every one of her problems – they just need to be able to listen to her. Sometimes, all a person needs is to know that someone gets what they’re going through.

5. An instinct to challenge her – not in the sense that they want her to change who she is, but that they can sense the potential within her and they know that as her partner, it’s their job to challenge her to grow every single day.  

6. The strength to admit when they need her

7. The strength to be there when she needs them.

8. An unshakable respect for her, and the expectation that she should have an unshakeable respect for them too.

9. An understanding of the fact that arguing can be okay – and even healthy – in a relationship if you learn how to communicate the right way.

10. The ability to apologize after they’ve screwed up and to take responsibility for their actions.

11. And the ability to forgive her after she’s screwed up and apologized and taken responsibility for her actions.

12. And then to forget about it either way and move on, because keeping score in a relationship is a death sentence.

13. The understanding that putting their relationship first does not mean they are giving up their sense of independence.

14. A desire to always compromise, in order for both people to be happy.

15. And the knowledge that trying to ‘win’ an argument will only ever end in disaster.

16. A strong sense of family. Whether that’s blood relatives or best friends or whomever else, what’s important is that they make their loved ones one of the biggest priorities in their life – if not the biggest.

17. A kind heart and a strong sense of respect towards everyone, no matter what their ‘status’ is.

18. The desire for a strong, steady, loving, lifelong companionship – and the readiness to put forth whatever effort is required to maintain it. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

I’m a staff writer for Thought Catalog. I like comedy and improv. I live in Chicago. My Uber rating is just okay.

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