As a man, I’ll tell you that we can often be a real pain when it comes to relationships. Most women probably feel like we are never satisfied, and truthfully, most of you are probably right. By nature, a lot of men are indeed difficult to be in relationships with, but luckily for you, the vast majority of us are relatively easy to figure out.

See, the media will lead you to believe that all a man wants is a woman that can cook, clean, and do a good job in the bedroom. I don’t know about most men, but what I desire in a woman has evolved far beyond the characteristics of the common “housewife”. I think that the media contributes to this notion that women should try to attain a certain look or physique in order to get the men they want and they even go as far as saying women should cater to every need or whim of a man. Listen, guys do enjoy being catered to, but you have to understand the type of man you’re dealing with before you decide to take that route. Have you ever heard the phrase “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free”? I think that a lot of relationships suffer from this problem when they first start out because some women feel like they need to do everything for their man from the very beginning. If you aren’t dealing with the right type of guy, you will eventually find yourself pouring all of your energy into someone with no plans of returning the same effort. And most of these types of men will eventually gain a false sense of security that will cause them to do something stupid.

And yes, by stupid, I do mean cheat.

How do I know that? I used to be one of the very guys that I’m talking about. I constantly see women getting their feelings hurt because they feel that they are at fault because they got cheated on. They wonder how they can do everything right and still get the short end of the stick at the end of the day. I would say that 99% of the time the guy is to blame but that other 1% definitely falls on the woman. It falls on her because she chose to direct all of her efforts towards the wrong person.

So how do you know if this guy is actually worth your effort? Well, you have to determine whether or not he does anything for you. I’m not talking about things like taking you out to nice dinners, buying you flowers, and getting you expensive gifts. Honestly, most of that stuff is just game and doesn’t mean much. Regardless of whether or not those may be nice gestures, here are some things that you really need to pay attention to:

Does he build you up and push you to be better in a constructive way or does he just criticize you?
Does he support your dreams or does he put them down and make them seem insignificant?
Is he considerate of your needs or only his own?
Is he interested in knowing you personally or is he only concerned with knowing you in the bedroom?

Answering these questions honestly may save you a lot of wasted energy if you’ll commit to keeping yourself on the straight and narrow. I agree that us men-folk can be a bit of a handful, but a woman that can accurately spot a troublemaker will save herself a great deal of heartache in the long run!

This was an original guest post for Afrochimompreneur.com