![Let Your Mate Pick The Plan! [EXPERT]](http://images.tangomag.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/node-full/images/couple_in_park.jpg "Let Your Mate Pick The Plan! [EXPERT]")
This one requires some stretching on your part. Today's couple building exercise is to focus on your mate's happiness by asking what they'd like to do on your next day off together. Don't let them get away with turning it back on you, or trying to accommodate you. Persist in encouraging your sweetie to pick the itinerary for an entire day. Here are some examples of how to draw your lover out:
Studies show that being a generous partner not only makes for a happier relationship, but actually provides health benefits for both partners. But how can you tell whether you're truly generous? Many people have trouble assessing this personality trait, and tend to overestimate their own generosity. Others are chronic "givers," letting their significant other walk all over them and often not even knowing it.
When I was in my early twenties, I was a notorious "giver" — to the point where I didn't even know what it felt like to have someone return the gesture. I felt that the more I gave, the more the guy would like me and appreciate me. Looking back, it seems as though the more I gave, the more I pushed the guy away.
How do we women stop giving too much of ourselves in our romantic relationships? Not a new question for sure, and I don’t’ know that my advice is startlingly new either. What seems important about this subject and why I bring it up often with the women in my coaching circle is that the only way to make such a monumental change for our gender is to chip away at it little by little. The paradox is that we women are natural givers and it is in our nature to be focused on our romantic relationships. This makes total sense if you look at it from an evolutionary standpoint.
We all give every day—to our partners, friends, family, neighbors, jobs and community. While it's healthy and vital to help the ones we love, many of us struggle to balance these needs with our own. This can lead to trouble: either we become too self-absorbed, or we find it hard to say "No" to others in order to have a little "me" time. As part of our Love Starts Within spotlight, we asked some of our Experts to share their advice on how to grapple with these demands from multiple angles:
In my on going quest for personal growth and my commitment to expanding my consciousness I have been constantly pulled and pushed to challenge myself in looking at how I can shift my perspective. I was having tea with my friend and amazing relationship coach, Orna Walters, not too long ago. We were talking about our journeys and how we got to where we are today. It was like I had run into an old friend, and we were both giddy as we talked about our lives and realized we had so much in common.
A Love Lifestyle Moment of Inspiration
Simple concept. If you aren’t giving from a surplus, it’s not giving. It’s sacrificing. A sacrifice has a very different energy. It’s tight, constricted, and anxious. It may be done in love, but it’s sacrifice just the same.
You think you've gotten a bad gift? You'll think twice about exchanging your present—or your partner!—after seeing some of the awful gifts women have actually received from the men in their lives. We polled women in New York City's Union Square to see how clueless guys can really be; here are the ten worst.
Even if you don't have billions laying around, take an example from Bill Gates, who was inspired by his wife Melinda to contribute to charitable organizations. Martha Baer explains how love can urge a person to better themselves by offering what they can to their community. There's a saccharine note to the claim that love makes people better—more generous, more open-minded—but there's truth to it, too. And couples will tell you that contributing to charity is a way of communicating to each other and to the world that they share values.
