It is better to relate with a new person with a clear, unjaded mind; willing and open to learning about them from the scratch.
To go into a relationship with anyone in 2018, one would first have to unlearn some of the things he or she must have heard about the other gender and about relationships in general.
It is better to enter into the new relationship on a clean slate, and with a clear, unjaded mind which is willing and open to learning about the other person without any prejudice and or misinformation.
This unlearning process is absolutely necessary given how there are many falsehoods, half-truths and misleading opinions about men, women, relationships and marriages everywhere one turns.
Five of these opinions, which need to be discarded immediately are busted below:
1. Money is compulsory
You don’t need to give your partner for your relationship to thrive. You don’t need to give sex for the relationship to work.
This may sound weird but it is true. These things are present in almost every happy relationship [not marriage] but they are not on the same level of importance as other things such as commitment, faithfulness, etc.
Don’t ever feel compelled to give either of this in a relationship. It is fine if you are cool with doing it but if you aren’t, don't.
Although it is advisable that you share everything you have with your partner, including money, as a foreshadowing of what to come when you get married.
2. Love is proven by sex
If anyone ever tries to sell you an opposite idea, reject it flat down. There are sexless relationships brimming with love, contentment and all the happiness imaginable, just as there are relationships filled with sex and nothing more.
While sex is great and one of the biggest components of relationships, it doesn’t prove love.
ALSO READ: Do guys even know what a good woman truly looks like?
3. Universal ways of relationships
It’s fine to have a relationship that doesn’t toe the line of traditional relationships. It is fine to not style your relationship after what you see around you, or what social media relationship advisers tell you.
The best way, and probably the only way, is to tailor your relationship needs and demands in accordance with the person you’re with.
If they don’t like it, don’t do it. It does not matter that your favourite couple on social media does it.
4. Tribal attitudes
Calabar girls like sex. Yoruba women are dirty. Igbo women are promiscuous, etc. Please get rid of this mentality and judge everybody on their respective behaviours and not on the penchants ascribed to people of their type.
5. All men cheat
If you hold on to this outlook on life, not only would you be shortchanging yourself, you would be leading life on a bed of thorny lies.
There are men who would never cheat on you. Refusing to believe this is to limit yourself to only scum men in the belief that there isn’t better out there.
Actually, you can do better than a philandering man. And you should.