Did you just twitch your nose after reading the title? Sounds so negative, doesn’t it? But I assure you that by the end of this blog, you would think differently. Get ready to read one of the most informative blogs of your life. First of all, let’s start with why I chose to use the word ‘training’ here. As funny as this might sound, men require to be trained just like dogs. They work on the ‘tricks for treats’ principle. If you want to get something done, you have to train them to get it done right.
Don’t get me wrong. I am all for the ‘never change the one you love’ ideal, but sometimes, when you share your life with another person, you are required to make some changes. And many women would agree with me that there are too many men out there who just don’t realise that they are dating until it completely ruins their relationship. However uncivilised your man is, if you love him, you would fight for him. But you should not have to put up with all his unhealthy habits. Hence, you need some boyfriend training.
So, how do you know if your boyfriend needs to be trained? Here is a list of 15 questions that you should ask to see if your boyfriend requires to be trained. It improved the health of my relationship. Perhaps it will work for you, too!
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1. Does He Help You with Chores?
I think this is one of the first questions you should ask yourself when you start living with your boyfriend. In fact, most of the training begins because boyfriends are usually never interested in sharing the chores. And it is not their fault.
If your boyfriend does not help you with chores, he is ready to be trained!
So, instead of blaming them for not helping you, I suggest you make your peace with the fact that your man is lazy. However, that does not mean you leave him be. This is an excellent opportunity to train him.
This is how I do it –
My boyfriend loves playing board games. But he is the laziest person who will ever come across. So, every time I want to get him to do some work, I invite him to play one of his board games. After playing with him for some time, when he is at his happiest, I strike a deal with him. I tell him if he wants me to play more, he would have to help me finish my chores. I assure him that if we work together, we will be able to play sooner. Now, a person like him who weighs everything with logic; this arrangement is something that he agrees with. And voila! It is done. So your boyfriend is ready for training if he does not help you with chores.
2. Is He Dressing Well?
Men require special attention when it comes to clothing. Not everyone can be Saif Ali Khan or Tom Hiddleston. But everyone can dress well.
Your boyfriend should know the difference between a shirt and a t-shirt. (Don’t be surprised. Many still don’t know the difference). He should also know when to wear trousers and when to wear his chinos. So, if your boyfriend is a lousy dresser, you need to train him, gurl!
Now, there are two ways of doing this. Most men respond to politeness. This way, you teach them how to dress for different occasions without controlling or yelling at them. This is an easier way to get things done. But if you are unfortunate like me and are stuck with someone who only responds to dominance, you have to take the low road.
Your boyfriend should be presentable!
In order to make my boyfriend dress up well, I have to tell him that I feel embarrassed to walk with someone who cannot even match colours. Don’t feel bad for him. He is stubborn. This is the only way I can get him to give a damn about what he wears. He wore a navy blue shirt for my birthday this year. Not bad, right? He wore it on navy blue pants. He also accessorised it with a black belt and wore light blue coloured shoes with that ensemble. And if that was not it, as an alternate, he carried a dark grey coloured shirt, in case I did not approve of the former outfit.
We had dinner reservations in 15 minutes and I had booked a table at a 4-star hotel. And I had no intentions of going with a clown. Fortunately, there was a mall only 5 minutes away from the hotel. I dragged him to one of the stores and got him the cheapest shirt that I could find (I was on a very tight budget). I paid for the shirt and made him feel guilty for making me spend on his fault.
Results? He started paying attention to what he wears! Target achieved.
3. Are His Friends Distracting Him from Reaching His Goals?
His friends are usually better than your friends. And that is why they can distract your man in a fraction of a second. They can even distract him from his goals. And being his girlfriend, it is your job to protect him from diverting from his purpose. Yes, protect him. I say protect because that is what you should do.
I taught my boyfriend about time!
My boyfriend has the best friends in the world. They are the loveliest and the most ambitious lot ever. His friends are all overachieving adults. And they have a specific schedule that they follow every day. However, being a freelancer, my boyfriend is the controller of his own schedule. So, my boyfriend tries to adjust his schedule as per that of his friends’. Even if it means he has to miss his work. Furthermore, every time I would call him, he would be with his friends. Now, I am the kind of person who would never tell his boyfriend what to do and how to live his life. But when I saw him turning this into a habit, I had to step in.
I began to ask him about his day and why he spent so much time doing everything he did. I never told him what he is doing is wrong. But he is a reasonable man. After a few such sessions, he realised his fault. And began to get his life on track. Similar to how you teach kids about money, I taught my boyfriend about time. I trained him to value his time above anything else.
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4. Does He Learn from His Mistakes?
You can have long conversations about this night after night. But that would not change his mind. If you have to make him realise his mistake and wait for him to learn from them, he needs training.
My boyfriend has a habit of holding his ground even when he knows he is wrong. He would keep defending himself even when it is already proven he is wrong. So, one of my biggest challenges was to make him realise that it is okay to be wrong. Therefore, I set out to do exactly that. Every time he was wrong, I gave him a chance to defend himself. And when he would run out of defences, I would calm him down and tell him that it is okay to be wrong. This small trick worked. He began to admit his mistakes, too. Consequently, he also started to learn from his mistakes because it made him feel good about himself.
5. Are You Satisfied In Bed?
I believe this is one of the dangerous territories to walk into. You can hurt too many sentiments. You can do some serious damage to his ego but well, some things need to be addressed. Are you satisfied in bed?
If no, congratulations! If yes, get your diplomat hat on because you are going to be required to be really articulate and sensitive while discussing this topic. Don’t ambush him with your dissatisfaction directly. Build up an atmosphere. See how he is feeling. And then talk to him like it is no big deal. Moreover, ensure that you maintain a casual tone. Constructive criticism would go a long way. Rather than telling him what he is doing wrong, tell him what you would want him to do instead. Make sure that you talk about your needs and not his mistakes. Lastly, good luck with this!
6. Is He Hogging the TV All. The. Time?
I feel like killing my boyfriend when this happens because it drives me crazy. We never want to watch the same things on either TV or online. It is always north and south. So, you know what we end up doing? We spend our entire time switching channels and reciting dialogues from any one of the comic classics from Bollywood. We laugh at the fact of how funny we are and we fall asleep.
Besides, when we are not fighting for the TV, he is the one who always tunes into cricket, which I truly despise. And when it is my turn to watch something, he has to give his opinions and jump to choose what to watch. Hence, I rarely get to watch what I want to watch with him around.
I began to blackmail him!
But not anymore! How did I do that? Well, I began to blackmail him. Every time he did not let me watch something, I switched to my phone, plugged in my earphones and watched what I wanted to on it. A couple of days later his guilt got the better of him and he changed his ways. Now, if we are not able to decide what to watch, we find out what we do want to watch and play it online.
7. Does He Listen to You When You Speak?
He needs to listen! No tricks, no treats in this. If your boyfriend does not listen to you, you need to train him to listen to you. Even if it means you have to engage in numerous quarrels for that matter. If he loves you and wants to be with you, he has to give you his undivided attention.
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8. Is He Challenging You Enough?
Does he question your abilities enough to push you to your ultimate potential?
Being a singer, I always need an audience with the right ear to review my performances. And the fortunate recipient of this honour is my boyfriend. Initially, he supported me and then there was a phase when he always found a flaw in my performances. While I was thinking he was being too picky, it was later that I realised that he had recognised my potential and is now pushing me further to achieve it. And believe me, when I actually began to work on the criticisms that he gave me, I realised I had improved.
So, is your boyfriend challenging you enough or is he giving up on you?
9. Does He Drag Old Issues in Your Current Fights?
My boyfriend had this habit of dragging old issues in the current fights. I know that this is something that usually women do. But there are quite a few men who have this ugly habit. So, if your boyfriend is one of them, it is time for you to train him.
His insecurities were being reflected in our fights!
I had huge fights with my boyfriend because he never understood my perspective on this. There was a time when he kept bringing up the same issues in all our fights for eight months. I was just done with it. However, fortunately, instead of giving up, I thought of trying. There was no rocket science behind what I did. Like most things can be resolved using words, I thought of doing exactly that. I communicated with him. Upon talking to him, I found that the reason he kept bringing up the old issues was that he was insecure about those issues. His insecurities were being reflected in our fights.
10. Is He Volunteering to Share the Load?
Sharing the load is much more than sharing the chores. Are you cooking together? Are you preparing for the festivals together or are you the only one who is concerned about Diwali? Ask these questions and if your boyfriend does not willingly participate in these activities, he is in need of training.
11. Does He Know What True Feminism Is?
This one is non-negotiable. Your boyfriend ought to know what feminism is. This is not for you. He should know about true feminism because it affects his life, Therefore, make sure that you teach him about true feminism if he already does not know about it.
12. Is He Hygenic Enough?
They say men are pigs. And it is true. They are gross. Leaving socks around is just one of the untidy things that they are capable of doing. When I am away, my boyfriend does not even care about shaving for 2 weeks.
If you don’t think this is something that you should focus your training on, I personally request you to really focus on turning your boyfriend into a clean human being. Also, I am sorry. I don’t have tricks to do this. In fact, I am still trying to figure out how to do that! My boyfriend is still a pig.
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13. Does He Know When to be Supportive and When to Question You?
One of my friends broke up with a guy within three months of dating him because he was too supportive. It took me a minute to understand that statement but when I did, it hit me hard. He never challenged her. And she was a feisty woman who missed that. There was no thrill.
M y friend broke up with a guy because he was too supportive!
Well, she broke up with him because she did not think the relationship was worth working on. But if you truly wish to make your relationship work, you can train him to know when to support you and when to challenge you.
Fortunately, my boyfriend already knew when to support me and when to question my stupidity. So, I never had to put him through the training process. However, if your boyfriend does not know the difference, you should train him.
14. Can He Style His Own Hair?
If I had a dollar for every time I saw a guy with a horrendous haircut, I would be Ambani. Therefore, if your boyfriend is also one of those who cannot style their hair, maybe you need to train him.
The biggest mistake that people make when teaching somebody about hairstyles is that they always give them references to celebrities. The advice would always be something like, “Why don’t you go for Virat Kohli’s look? It would suit you!” or “You should tie your hair like Shahrukh Khan.”
I switched his hairdresser!
People forget that these celebrities get their hair done by professionals. They have a different bone structure than others and that is why their haircuts look good on them. Their hairstyles are tailormade for them.
When I first visited my boyfriend’s salon with him, I quickly realised that he was getting his hair done from the wrong person. So, the first thing I did was switch his hairdresser. Then, I taught him about hair with respect to the face. I TAUGHT him! And I also called him a pineapple because he looked like one. Also, I trained him to check his hair’s length during each haircut.
It was the right choice because I know now, he can walk into a salon on his own and get his own hair done without anybody’s help.
15. Is He Scared of Being Responsible?
That is a weird question. I know! But it is a valid question. A sizeable number of men are afraid to take up responsibilities when it comes to relationships. Commitment issues. Yes! You guessed it right. Your man needs some training if he is scared to take your responsibility.
Commitment insecurities stem from novelty. Has he never been in a serious relationship before? Are there any marital complications in his family? Does he have trust issues? It is kind of clear why he is scared of responsibilities if you yes said to all. So, don’t blame him. Talk to him. Reason with him. Tell him what you expect in a relationship and ask him about his expectations. But above all, let him take his time. Understand that you cannot force anybody for commitment. Wait for him. He will come around.
Nobody is perfect. Sometimes, you just need to make the right arrangements to bring out the best in people. Men are more receptive than we give credit. They listen intently when you talk to them about something that they think would benefit them. Therefore, pick the right words, make the right moves. And always remember that every man is unique. Some of these tricks may not work on your man at all whereas, on some, it would work like a charm. It all depends on the guy you are in a relationship with. Feel free to draw inspiration from my experiences. Good luck, babe!