I mess up *all* the time and I have soooo far to go. But I think my fiancee has been so patient because I've earned a lot of leeway through a couple key factors:

• I, first in my own heart and then out loud, committed to allow my fiancee to be the leader in our lives. I remind myself of this all the time and even though it chafed against my ego at first, the weight it took off my shoulders completely revolutionized how I behave in our relationship
• Finances were a rocky area for us for a while, mostly because I come from money and he does not. But I gave him my trust and backed off, and he's shown me that he can be a good captain in this arena.
• Frankly, I've stayed hot. I watch what I eat and have only gotten more disciplined over time. I figured out what my fiancee likes about my body and I work to emphasize it (squats, anybody? :p)
• I've leaned HARD into my most girlish, feminine self. I embrace a child-like, totally vulnerable attitude that I previously feared. It felt silly at first but it truly draws out such a masculine response and induces an amazing dynamic that I absolutely love.
• I've developed my own life, accomplishments, career, etc. such that I have plenty going on and don't turn to him for validation, and such that I'm a credit to my fiancee and an impressive partner to introduce to his social circle. I like to think it makes people think more highly of him when they meet me, and vice versa! Also - he has no fear that I'd ever take financial advantage of him even in the worst case scenario, because I've always pulled more than own weight and made my values clear to him.
• We're totally aligned on the major outlines of what we want our life to be - financial goals, number of kids, parenting priorities, work/life balance, etc.

I am an awful cook, can be terribly messy, am late for stuff all the time and love to sleep in, and have lots of other vices I'm always working on improving. I've been so touched by my fiancee's extreme levels of understanding when it comes to these traits, and I think it's because I focus on the stuff above.

One thing that feeds into this is the notion of "compatibility", that shibboleth of modern romantic advice.

While it is clear that some people get along better than others, "compatibility" has been inflated from this simple idea into the ridiculous notion that a good match for you is someone whose natural, spontaneous behaviour is going to be just exactly what you like.

Which in turn, means discarding the notion of responsibilities in a relationship... if my partner didn't like anything at all that I did, or failed to do, it wasn't my fault, we just weren't compatible. This has created a whole species of womanhood whose idea of having a relationship is showing up, occasionally getting naked and sweaty with him, and otherwise doing exactly whatever the fuck she feels like at every moment.

That's why RPW is baby-talk compared to TRP, never moving beyond the most basic of theory. Because men show up to TRP with the idea that they don't know what to do, which implies they already understand that they have to do something.

RPW is forced to spend most of its time and effort explaining that very thing.