Keeping her interested and committed isn’t about making her insecure or playing the perfect boyfriend—it’s about mastering the dynamics of attraction, respect, and power.

As the most visited website for men on power dynamics and strategies, The Power Moves brings you expertise on respect, attraction, and influence.

In this guide, you’ll learn the key strategies to maintain your edge and build a relationship where you stay in control and respected.

Superman doesn’t worry about keeping her attracted or ‘controlling her’. Soon, you won’t either.

1. Selection: Pick With Chemistry In Mind

So simple, so obvious… Yet so overlooked.

All dating advice for men and for women teaches people how to get those who are on the fence about them.

That might make sense for the short-term.
Or for learning to date.

However, it only works for relationships IF you change her mind about you.
Eventually, she must respect, like, admire, and ideally, be attracted to you.
And you better enjoy each other’s company.

This is so obvious that it doesn’t need an explanation. But it does need reiteration because most people only focus on getting who they want and not so much on who also wants them.
When looking for a relationship, this is the sweet spot:

A good mix is:

• You like them
• They like you
• They’re on the upper of your expectations

For long-term compatibility, prioritize the top #2.

Even purely from an ‘offspring strategy’ point of view, children growing up in a healthy household outperform children from a more attractive mate, but in a less healthy household.

2. Work On Yourself: Become A Top-Choice

This makes you a ‘high mate value man’, and women remain attracted to high-value mate men.

I quote the latest Oxford Handbook on relationships:

Overall, people in a long-term relationship with a partner who is higher in mate value than themselves are more satisfed (Conroy-Beam et al. , 2016)

Become a top choice and realize that looking for ways to ‘control her’ is both beneath you, and unnecessary.

To help you out with that we have many details articles, including:

• High-power, and go for win-win
• High-quality
• High-status nonverbals
• Confident speaking
• … Etc. etc.

2.2. Remain Attractive to Other Women

Dating and relationships share some market-like dynamics.

Some people still resist this simple notion that we first shared many years ago.
But today even The Oxford Handbook of Relationships confirms as much.

Remaining attractive to other women keeps some positive pressure on her.
And gives you the confidence to enforce healthy boundaries, when needed.

Negotiation dynamics also suggest that the more alternatives you have, the more power you have (Fisher and Ury, 1981).

I know that most people recoil here with the word ‘power’ within relationships.
But that’s a bad approach: power is only as good or bad depending on how you use it. Use it for good, and your power is good for both.

Indeed, based on the evidence and our experience, our advice here is this:

🧠 Be A Good Leader For Both

Lead for mutual benefit, respecting her interests.
Inspire her to follow your lead naturally, without imposing or verbalizing it.

🛠️ Tips:

• Define the responsibilities
  • Tell her what she’s responsible for, and that you trust her with it
    Ie.: She manages the household/decor/food preparation/holiday planning/events with friends…
• Let her decide what matters most to her, but little to you
• Consider her preferences for common decisions
• Mind her well-being when taking important decisions
  • Influence, instead of dictating
  • Explain why when you overrule her preference
  • Make it up to her if you imposed

3. Provide Benefits

Evolutionary Psychology research shows two approaches to relationship influence and control:

1. Value-taking (push & control): harms her and the relationship
   Examples:
   • Strict mate guarding
   • Criticizing her
   • Limit her spending
   • …
2. Value-adding (pull & influence): improves her and the relationship
   Examples:
   • Valuing her
   • Gifts
   • Date nights
   • …

Seek value-adding.
Beyond ethics, research shows lower-value men impose costs because they can’t provide benefits (and dark-triad men).

👉🏼 Don’t blame yourself if you resorted to value-taking in the past. It’s on a spectrum, it comes naturally to many, and it’s simply part of growing (I did it as well!)

🎗️ Reminder: Be A Smart Giver

Give, but ensure it’s part of win-win.

Some notes:

1. Give over time, avoid ‘too much too soon’. Let her earn it
2. Give to the right woman
3. Careful with far younger/attractive women, ensure they’re in it for win-win
4. Ensure she has ‘skin in the game’, that she’s investing and invested.
   • 👉🏼 A breakup should be costly to both, not just to you!
5. Careful with raising her status above yours

Some may call this Machiavellian but to us is just common sense. Give, but ensure it’s mutual giving or you’re just a sucker

3.2. Uplift & Inspire

Once you internalize the first lessons of this course, you can also teach them to others.

Most people, including women, will admire you when you exude positivity and confidence.

Some examples:

And here’s one more example with a platonic friend neighbor:

🛠️ Techniques

1. Listen and empathize first to bond and avoid sounding dismissive
2. Start leading
3. Pattern-interrupt the negativity
   • “What are you talking about”
   • “Nonono, it’s not like that at all”
   • “You sound very positive you know”
4. Minimize problems as ‘part of life’, ‘nothing too big’ or ‘momentary’
   • “Yeah, it’s not ideal, but it’s OK”
5. Attack the source of the problem
   • “Does it really matter what some gossiping losers think?”
   • “If she was a winner, she’d be with a guy like me. But she’s not. You are” <— 💪🏼 🎓 Joke/power move to remind her she’s lucky with you
6. Walk her through the worst-case scenario
   • Encourage her that she can handle it
   • Show that even then, ‘it’s OK’, just part of life
7. Highlight the opportunities in the problem
8. Inject optimism
   • “It’s OK”
   • “Summer is coming” <— Even trivial works. It’s more how you say, than what

4. Keep Her Satisfied

Principle:

⚖️ Sex grows in importance with growing libido levels

It’s not a must, but picking a partner with similar libido levels is a plus.

🙋‍♂️Lucio’s Take: don’t be afraid of ‘toys’

As a ‘non-relationship type of guy’, I quickly lose interest in mating with the same woman (‘Coolidge effect’).

For me, the best long-term partner has a lower-than-average libido.

But I also thought that if she’s a higher libido woman, then ‘you only need a vibrator’ for when you’re not feeling it.

5. Maintain -Or Grow- Your Power

Principle:

⚖️ The partner falling behind worries about attraction, while the one moving ahead worries of being too much.

Over time, he doesn’t worry about keeping her attracted—she worries about keeping him

Men have a natural advantage because their mate value is less dependent on age and looks, and more on status and income.

Quoting from the same handbook:

Women are more focused on a partner’s status, while men are likely to focus on physical attractiveness and youth (Walter et al. , 2020). As such, the confict between sexes might increase with relationship length because cues of youthfulness decrease and social status may change (e.g. , due to job loss)

Men Who Let Go Lose Attraction

It’s OK to relax a bit in relationships, but as for everything, balance!

Most men let themselves go and lose attraction and respect over time.

Result:

Women initiate more divorces and college-educated women, who we might expect to be more ambitious and demanding, initiate even more divorces.
Women also report being less happy than men during the relationship (Rosenfeld, 2017), and happier after the divorce (Craft, Erik D, 2002).

5.2. Maintain Your Masculinity

No need to over-stress about ‘masculinity’, but maintain some ambition and drive.

Instead:

• Maintain your sports routine
• Seek career or business growth
• Dress well
• Keep learning
• …

And…

👉🏼 Flirting is allowed.
We don’t advise cheating, but flirting and enjoying your appeal to women can help you maintain your confidence and edge—including your Testosterone levels.

5.3. Maintain a life outside the relationship

For example:

• Life mission
• Interests
• ‘Me time’ you enjoy
• Social circle
• Some close friends

And some authors also add ‘connection with God’.

6. Make It A Great Relationship

For example:

• Spend quality time
• Talk to her
  • Be curious about her life outside the relationship
  • Be curious about her opinion and thoughts
  • Share about your day
• Surprise her sometimes with some gifts
• Organize holidays together
  🛠️👉🏼 If you finance it, have her plan it
• Give for the pleasure of giving if it’s a win-win relationship
  • To make her happy
  • Without keeping track
• Conflict-handling skills that avoid aggression and hostility

These are all listed in the Handbook of Relationship Initiation as empirically tested approaches to increase your partner’s relationship satisfaction.
And the authors summarize:

The best predictors of relationship satisfaction were ultimately positive love (a combination of passionate, altruistic, and friendship love) felt for the partner, the absence of game-playing love, the perception that one did not use aggressive conflict tactics in the relationship, and the perception that the partner was able to take one’s perspective.

“Turns ‘I’s Into ‘We’s”

A shared bond a sense of ‘we’ is a like a protective moat around your relationship.

Writes Dengelegi in The Oxford Handbook of Infidelity:

Conjugate or companionate love can foster a bond that is resistant to the allure of another potential partner. (…) Unhappily, many relationships do not develop a strong enough familial bond (…) relationship fragility and the common practice of evaluating potential new partners may motivate a partner’s focus on someone who seems to offer more

In simple words: everyone ‘sees’ other options. But if one has a strong bond already, those other options need not to be threatening.

A strong sign of an existing bond is when couples develop a relational identity—seeing themselves as a “we” rather than just two “I”s.
This concept first introduced by Aron (1992) is supported by substantial evidence across several areas of relationship and communication research, and we recommend it for men who seek long-term relationships.

How to achieve that sense of we?
Great leadership and smart frame control.

Poor Ways of Keeping Attraction

Some advice on this topic is valid from a power dynamics point of view, but may promote toxic approaches instead of genuine self-development.

Some of the most popular women’s dating books for example rely on manipulation tactics such as ‘using sex as a negotiation chip’.

And some popular self-help authors advise on control techniques centered around keeping her fearful and insecure.

While all of these approaches can work, they are all value-taking. They work for you, but to the detriment of the relationship.
What do you gain by turning your relationship toxic?

Plus, you also pay a mental price.
Disempowering your partner harms you because it sub-communicates that you’re lower value.
All these ‘small-pie’ approaches are inherently lower value.

Here are some examples and better mindsets:

• Defensive/cynic
  Ie.: ‘Women cheat/manipulate, so I do the same” ➡️ You can never be sure, but I will do my part. At the very least, I can be proud of myself

• ‘Need her less’ ➡️ Make her want you more

It’s based on the valid ‘principle of least interest’ (Waller, 1937).
But it’s best ensued, rather than pursued, or it can be confrontational, defensive, and lower-value.

• ‘Be the prize’ ➡️ High-quality men are a catch and women know that

Being the prize is the natural consequence of who you are, not something you seek.

• ‘She’s not yours, it’s just your turn’ ➡️ She’s my girlfriend, I feel no need to possess her, but she WANTS to be mine

Learn More

Related articles on relationship dynamics:

• Manipulative games women play: this is how women seek power while dating
• Power moves in a relationship: this is how women seek power during the relationship
• How women control men: this is how most women control most of the relationship
• Red flags of a poor partner

These will help you sport power moves, manipulation, and toxic partners to avoid

SUMMARY

The issue with most advice on maintaining attraction in relationships is that it focuses largely on communication and time together.

While both are crucial, there is more.

Much of the advice that includes power dynamics though includes manipulation tactics that harm both the relationship and the man’s own self-esteem.

This article combined the basics of power dynamics to keep her attracted, with the foundations of win-win that make relationships great for both of you.

If it was any helpful, we have a program that makes her more attracted to you than she’s ever been to any other man:

• Power University