10 Things You Can Offer in a Relationship: An Afrolady’s Guide on Relationships

We care about our ‘Afro lady’ so much that we are willing to give you tips on 10 things you can offer in a relationship. Relationship here isn’t confined to that of romance, so be it a mother- daughter relationship, frenemies or besties, you sure bet these tips will make your relationship the best it can be.

We personally feel that the best you can ever give in any relationship is the best of YOURSELF. Yes, you’re the best you can ever give. Although, some never maximize their potential and end up never giving their best in their relationships. Others give their best but end up feeling cheated, well you’re in luck as these tips will be your guide to happiness.

10 Things You Can Offer in a Relationship

TIP 1: You Can Offer The Best of Your Time

This never gets old. Time is the one thing we can never get a hold of. Parents lose track of their children’s growth. One day, they have to deal with a crying toddler, the next a shy teenager and then an independent adult. The same goes for every other kind of relationship. One day you are strangers and the next you know everything about each other.

As an Afro lady, you would crave attention and desire for others to spend their time with you. But you would have to spend time with others too. This is bent on the fact that you play multiple roles in the lives of others i.e. mother, daughter, sister, wife, friend, bestie, employee, etc.

Whatever time you have planned out for people and things, give the best of you. Give quality time to spend with your children, spend time watching them grow. Spend time calling your high school friends. Spend time with your parents, a time will come when you wish you did.

You are so focused on your job now, that’s good, but make out time to hang out with your bestie. Take your boss out on lunch, and create a bond that goes beyond the workspace.

I once had a bestie, but we quarreled about something so insignificant and we didn’t keep in contact that much. The next time I heard about her, she had passed on. I had so much time on my hands, but I didn’t give the best of it to listen or settle our differences.

Joel Osteen in his book “Everyday a Friday”, gives instances of his daughter walking down the stairs every night to her parents’ room while she was younger. When she grew up, they never heard those footsteps again and they hoped to hear them.

There is a reason for the expression “Sands of Time”, well, ponder on it. If you want to be an Afro lady with no regrets, give the best of your time to your relationships. Most importantly, give the best of your time to your relationship with yourself. Spend time learning from your mistakes and correcting time.

If only money could buy us time, we will spend all our treasures, buying the times we spend with our loved ones. Till memories become our very reality.

TIP 2: You Can Offer The Best of Your Tears

Sometimes all we have to offer in a relationship is our tears and I am not kidding. As an Afro lady, you need to cry about certain things in order to feel good about things. John Gray in his book “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus”, explains how a woman has to hit rock bottom in order to bounce right back up.

Cry when you see your child for the first time. Let out some tears when you are in the midst of that turbulence. Your boss just shouted at you and you feel bad about it, lock yourself and let out some steam.

You may never understand the concept of giving the best of your tears until you put it to work. Your tears as an Afro lady is so powerful. It describes the height of your emotions. Sometimes your tears are the answer to that problem. Your crying may be the tool for correcting that unruly child, making that block head man listen and it goes on and on.

There is no need to wanting to show your strength by bottling up issues and being all strong up front, like a man. The true strength of an Afro lady is in her tears. Some, if not all women must have let out a tear when they were giving birth and that is one of the greatest determinants of feminine strength – childbirth.

I was once overwhelmed with a lot of activities. I had issues with my partner, I had a lot of papers to turn up in succession. This required that I had sleepless nights and do lots of typing. Out of frustration I was taking a stroll and I knew I had to let it all out. I began to cry. Friends asked the reason for the tears and I said that I just needed to cry. They were confused for sure. I cried about all the things that were bothering me. When I was done, I felt the strength to face my challenges. Well, the troubles aren’t going away simply because, you cried.

The logic is that when you cry, there is an unburdening and you have more room to think clearly, hence, giving the best of yourself. So yes, one of the 10 things you can offer in a relationship is the best of your tears.

Only when we cry, can the scales fall from our eyes and we can see clearly.

TIP 3: You Can Offer The Best of Your Laughter

 

Laughter makes you younger. It’s like an intoxicant; you are full of joy and happiness and everything around you blooms and glows.

After battling with depression for a long time, I knew I had to break out of it. My mother spoke to me one day saying “I can never tell when you are okay or not, you always have the same expression”. I read Joel Osteen’s “Everyday a Friday” and Joel’s smile on the cover page was so contagious, that I had to smile right back. I have since then. My laughter is one of the funniest and weirdest sounds you could ever hear. I wonder how just by laughing, I get others to laugh and everywhere is full of joy.

No one in any relationship loves a tense environment. Offer the best of your laughter in your relationships. Laugh at their jokes, even if you have heard them over and over again. Laugh when you just see them. Think of incredible and naughty things that must have happened one time in the relationship.

I have to go to my boss’s place to attend meetings, and I sure do have a good laugh. It gradually creates a bond and an atmosphere fit for further conversations. My partner and I sure do have a good laugh when we are teasing each other or being sarcastic.

If you do not know how to have a good laugh, then you are no Afro lady you are Afro boring.

A throaty and rich laughter fills a room and it resonates joy and happiness.

 

TIP 4: You Can Offer The Best of Your Food

Yummy yummy yum. One of the things an Afro lady can offer in a relationship is the best of her cooking. You will have to cook for a lot of people. For family, friends, colleagues, etc.

In the good times and bad, when there are quarrels or not, your culinary skills will be required. You would have to cook for an annoying spouse, a sick child, a friendly neighbor, etc. In all, turn your cooking into a means of passing round positive energy.

You can decide to show your love by spelling out things with your dishes. Things like ‘I love you’, ‘I am sorry’ etc. You can add love notes alongside your dishes. Make eating fun for them and make it magical. Serve a three course meal once in a while and spoil them with their favorite food.

The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. There is no food like a homemade dish.

TIP 5: You Can Offer the Best of Your Care

No one rejects care. Care is an offshoot of love. You can always offer care. Ask questions about their well-being but do not be cliché about it. Help when you can. Buy them gifts not only on special events. Ask them how they want to be cared for and do just that. Offer your financial support.

You can offer a body massage, when they are tired, give advice when they need it. Hold their hands to show your care. Listen to them shatter. Care for their wounds, needs, desires and most of all ask for them to care for you by your actions.

We receive care by caring for others.

TIP 6: You Can Offer The Best of Your Anger

Sure thing. You can offer the best of your anger. There are no laid down rules to a working relationship, apply whatever works for you. One thing is for sure, as an Afro lady, do not bottle up issues like a balloon, or one day you are sure to burst.

The best of you anger is that which can be overridden by your love for the persons who you are in a relationship with. Ever wondered why no matter what you do to your mother she gets over it and forgives you? That’s Afro lady power.

Whatever anyone does to annoy you, before entering any kind of relationship you have with them, make up your mind to forgive them. If you are angry, be sure to let them know and make them suffer a little for it if you must, but let it be for a while.

In the romantic relationships I have been in, I would get so mad at my partner but when I see them, my resolve is shattered.

Understand how people feel when you are angry and treat them accordingly. If your employees fret when you are angry because you raise your voice, then resolve to a sternly command or better still take it out on their pay. Deal with yourself first when you are angry before you deal with the person who caused it.

 

When we are angry we say things we do not mean or maybe they are the things we wanted to say all along.

TIP 7: You Can Offer The Best of Your Hugs and Kisses

Everyone wants to be hugged and kissed. If the question on your mind is – what can I offer my partner in a relationship? Well you have a winner – hugs and kisses.

Hug your mother, father, siblings, spouse, bestie, colleagues. Be sure to differentiate a friendly hug from a not-so-friendly hug. Kiss their foreheads and their cheeks. Blow them kisses over a telephone call or while saying goodbye.

The beauty about this is that you receive hugs and kisses too. Isn’t that afrotastic!?

Hug a friend you haven’t seen in a while; and when they miss you, they will have something to remember you by.

Hugs and kisses are not meant for only frogs and wishes.

TIP 8: You Can Offer The Best of Your Body

I have been one to believe that one of the most important things we can offer in relationships is our body. The body is the most visible tag we carry about. So you do not have to take care of your body just for yourself but also for those you are in a relationship with.

You have to have a good appearance as a mother, daughter, employee, bestie etc. Whether we agree or not sometimes those we are in a relationship with can be put off or on just by our bodies. You may like how you look or dress but you are not in a relationship for just yourself.

My father would always raise his voice when I and my siblings were making him late for Sunday services. Yet every time we come out through the front door, there is a glow in his eyes and he nods his head in admiration.

I was having light issues at my place and I asked my partner to help me iron the clothes I was going to wear for service of which he obliged. I had decided to put on some makeup that morning. I put on some baggy shorts and a shirt and ran straight to him to get the clothes and he said to me ‘you look beautiful’.

After child birth, if you’ve gained some weight, you could ask your partner to accompany you when you hit the gym.

As an Afro lady, we need the assertion of our loved ones when it comes to our bodies. They worry when we lose weight or when we look dirty. So do not be afro dirty but afro clean.

Another way we can offer our bodies is to offer it as a place of warmth. This relates to hugs too. Just hold them in your arms. My father was sick one time it was that serious. It was the first time I held him in my arms.

I enjoy it when my partner holds me in a cuddle and I can be selfish most times. But I understand what it means to offer my body. Severally I have offered to be the one who holds him in a cuddle.

My body is your home. Adorn and cherish it

 

TIP 9: You Can Offer Your Words

As a linguist, I had begun to live in and out of words. Wondering what they meant and what they did not. It’s magical and abstract. Our words and language is the most powerful tool we are yet to maximize fully.

You know the saying that ‘women are moved by what they hear’? well men and any other person we are in a relationship with can be moved by what they hear. It’s the power of words. You can read Austin and Searle’s ‘SPEECH ACT THEORY’.

People need to hear words of encouragement, love, trust, displeasure, pleasure, agreement, motivation etc. from you AFROLADY. Offer your words in any relationship you have.

I once saw in a post ‘if you love or miss someone, tell them. Use your words not to hurt but to express your love better.

I started telling my family members, I loved them over the phone, it took a while and they responded back. Whenever my dad told me he loved me, oh what a joy. You can read the article ‘A father’s love by Joy Iwetan’ on our website, to get more knowledge on this.

The first time I told my friend Jocelyn, I loved her over the phone, it felt awkward but now she’s the one who never fails to tell me how she loves me. I tell all my friends about how I feel about them.

My mother would do some reorganization of the house and she would be all like, Train don’t you think I did a good job? And I will assert to her what I already did in my heart but failed to express with my words.

I heard my partner singing, one day and I thought ‘Wow, he really does have a nice voice, I know this but have I or anyone else ever told him that?’ I told him how I felt about his voice and I got a smile and words of appreciation back.

Tell your boss when they do a good job. Do not always wait for timely occasions to use your words.

Dear Afro Lady, use your words, guide and grow your relationships with your words.

Only an I LOVE YOU gets an I LOVE YOU TOO as a response. What you do not say, you do not see or get.

 

TIP 10: You Can Offer The Best Of Your Love

What more can we say. Love is the greatest of all. The other 9 tips are offshoots of love. What more can you offer in a relationship unless your UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. The greatest form of love you can give in any relationship is that which is UNCONDITIONED. An Afrolady loves no matter what come may. Once you decide to go into that relationship, decide to always love.

My love is all I have to give, if you have my heart, you have all of me.

My dearest Afro lady, always remember the best you can offer in a relationship is the best of YOU. Some relationships require you find your best in them while others require the opposite of it. Long lasting relationships are built on the best decisions and memories made by the best people.

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