How do you avoid boredom in your relationship?
What do you do when your partner accuses you of cheating when you haven't been and was
breaking up with the guy the right decision?
Welcome to Ask Mark.
It's week number 71 and I'm here for my final video in Manila.
What an amazing place.
It's been so great being here.
The people have been simply beautiful to me and my team that's been here.
Let's get into the questions for the week.
They are good ones and the first one is one you're going to love.
Simple, but so important.
Lahuna, Lahama says hello, Mark.
Excellent.
I have to say I've learned a lot after watching your videos.
Thank you, Lahama.
That's amazing to hear.
I would like to know how to avoid boredom in a relationship and make it happening even
after the long years?
Great question and I'm going to answer it with an example that I came across recently
when I was running a workshop here in Sydney or back in Sydney.
We're out at The Secrets of Men and we were making some friends and we happen to wander
into a group who was celebrating a party.
So I got to know some of this group.
We were chatting to different people there and it turned out it was a 50th party and
I met the guy whose 50th it was and I met his wife.
I said, how long have you been married?
He said, 24 years.
I said, right, wow, impressive.
And then I met one of their friends, his wife.
How long have you been married?
22 years.
Met another couple, 27 years, met another couple, 24 years.
This entire party was made up of couples who've been together more than 20 years.
So of course I took the opportunity to say, what's your secret?
What do you, what's your, what keeps you together?
And you know, they said a lot of the usual things that we talk about, which is communication.
We talked about this in the last Ask Mark.
May have been the one before we talked about respect.
They, they made that clear.
They talked about importance and certainty.
And and being there for their partner when they needed them
And they talked about space.
And all four couples made this point about how important was space and not just physical
space, not just with these couples occasionally take holidays on their own, but mental space,
emotional space, social space, career space.
Spaces, uncertainty.
Boredom comes because of certainty.
The two are linked.
We'd been staying at beautiful Okada the last three days and it is the most incredible buffet
I've ever been to in my life.
And even after just a few days, I'm getting pretty used to it.
I wake up every morning and go, what am I grateful for?
That incredible buffet.
But even now the is pretty similar each day start to get bored of it.
But you know, the interesting thing, if I woke up one morning and that buffet wasn't
there, well all I would want was that buffet.
All I would need to appreciate that buffet even more is space from the buffet.
It's the same with relationships.
You must build uncertainty in your relationships by building space into your relationships.
This space can be through keeping consistent, longterm friends that have nothing to do with
your partner or that have little to do with your partner.
This space can be through your own hobbies and your own interests.
This space can be whatever holiday you go on, on your own.
This space can be what next career goal you're checking or what next thing you want to tick
off in your own life.
You want unpredictability.
It's so important.
Uncertainty, variety unpredictability, whatever, you want to call it.
That's what creates excitement when your partner doesn't know something about you, when your partner
has something new to learn about you, when your partner has something new to find out.
That's what creates excitement.
The more space you can generate without obviously going too far, too much space, your person
floats away, but by balancing space, with connection, respect, all the other things.
That is how in whatever way you choose to do it and that's a much bigger video series
that I'll do at some point, but whatever way you choose to do it, you're going to create
that interest, that uncertainty, that excitement and that draw for your partner to come back
into you.
Banger question.
Next one is from Jennifer.
Jennifer says, how do I deal with a man that's constantly accusing you of cheating and you're
not?
Wow, okay.
I would literally say, look him in the eyes and say
I'm not cheating
You can go through my phone if you want me to, but if you do then we're going to have
to have a more serious conversation about trust and if you can't trust me then you need
to go
because I want to build a relationship based on trust
You just tell it like it is and then let him make the decision. It's not on you to convince
him.
You told him the truth.
Final question is from Rachel, and Rachel says, Hey Mark, how do you know if breaking
up with someone was the right decision?
I was in a relationship with someone for three years and stayed with him because of the potential
I saw in him.
However, because the relationship was emotionally abusive, I decided to end things.
Do you think because we were so young, we were when we were together, he has the potential
to change? Rachel,
number one, never date someone for their potential.
Always date them for who they are right now.
And number two, based on everything you've said, no, I think you made the right decision.
You're away now
It was emotionally abusive.
Get out and meet someone who's not, Rachel.
Don't doubt yourself.
You did the right thing.
That's it.
That's it for Ask Mark.
That's from Manila
I'm so grateful.
So grateful to be here.
I can't even, can't even explain it.
It's just been such a beautiful little trip here.
The Filipino people.
Uh wow.
So lovely.
I just, yeah, I want to thank you so much for having me.
Manila
Uh, I will be on the next Ask Mark very soon.
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I will see you in the next Ask Mark very soon.
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