If you don’t have a list of non-negotiables for your relationships…what are you even doing?

You have to know what you want—and what might be an absolute deal-breaker. Otherwise, you’ll be happy to talk to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who comes your way, and it’ll take months for you to realize that you actually don’t share the same values at all.

You’ll end up falling for chemistry versus actually dating someone who is in it for the long haul. And we don’t want that.

If you don’t know where to start, good news—you’ve already started by being here. I’m going to take you through twenty real-deal, grounded, secure woman non-negotiables that are going to change your dating life forever.

20 Non-Negotiables to Add to Your List

Emotional Availability

The number one non-negotiable: emotional availability.

People love to say they want someone who’s emotionally available, but they usually have no fucking clue what that actually means.

Emotional availability means this person is able to be present with their own emotions. Therefore, they can be present with your emotions, too.

Hint: that does not mean he opens up when he’s drunk. It means he has consistent emotional presence and he’s able to articulate his own emotions.

That also doesn’t mean that he’s coming to you with every feeling he ever has. I actually think that’s probably not what you want.

All emotional availability means is that he’s not shutting down his emotions. He’s not running away from them or being explosive. If he has the ability to be with his emotions, it means he will be able to be present for yours without making you feel like they’re “too much.”

Accountability

Number two, accountability.

These first five are the absolute bare minimum basics, and accountability is a massive one. You want a man who owns his shit. He’s not playing games, there’s no blaming, there’s no victim story. If he fucks up—which he will, because he’s a human—he knows how to take accountability and work to repair that.

It also means he has the ability to take responsibility for his life: his successes, his failures, his mistakes, his wins, all of the things.

Accountability is one of the biggest green flags you can find. Trust me.

Healthy Communication

Number three: you have healthy communication.

There’s no ghosting. There’s no stonewalling. He’s actually able to communicate—and when I say communicate, that doesn’t mean he’s always going to talk when you want to talk and he’ll talk for however long you want to talk for because you are feeling triggered. But it does mean he can communicate and say, “Hey. I feel like this conversation is going in circles right now. We need to take a break. Let’s check back in in half an hour.” Instead of giving you the silent treatment and walking away.

Shared Core Values

Number four is going back to something I mentioned at the beginning: shared core values.

This isn’t just you guys liking the same music, or you both enjoying going to the gym or cooking or running or whatever your hobby happens to be.

I’m talking about how you both view things like money. Monogamy. Ambition. Family. How you want to spend your time. Whether you want kids. Your view on sex. Your view on intimacy. Your view on health. All the really important things you actually need to be on the same page for in order for your relationship to thrive.

That means believing what they show you, not what they tell you. If they say they value integrity, but they bail on their commitments the moment something feels hard, then they don’t value jack shit. Or if someone says they value honesty, but they run the other way when they have to have an open and vulnerable conversation, they don’t value honesty.

You have to look for their values in what they show you, not what they put on their dating profile.

Respects Your Boundaries

Number five: he respects your boundaries.

If you tell him no, you’re not getting pushback on that. And if he pushes you or punishes you for saying no, even if he does it in a joking way (“Aw, come on! Lighten up!”), that is an instant deal-breaker. You are fucking out.

If someone is demonstrating that they’re going to push your boundaries when you have very clearly said no, or said that you feel uncomfortable, or said that you feel unsafe? Not a fucking chance.

Calm, Not Chaos

Next, you want to feel calm, not confused, when you’re with this person.

If your nervous system is in a state of constant fight, flight, freeze, or fawn when you’re around this person, and you always feel like you’re in a state of chaos, that’s not good.

You want to make sure that when you reflect on your relationship, you feel calm both in and away from his presence.

You’re not worried about what he’s doing or who he’s talking to. He brings a sense of safety to the relationship. That’s what you’re looking for.

No Constant Triggers

Number seven: he does not trigger your inner child wounds on a daily basis.

Pause. Is this to say that old wounds should never resurface around your partner? No, of course not. Your human relationships are the training ground where we get to transmute and alchemize so much of that.

There are going to be times where you may feel abandoned or unseen or misunderstood or dismissed or whatever it might be—but that should be the exception, not the rule.

If these wounds are being triggered constantly, that’s not a relationship you want to be in.

You Can Express Your Needs

Number eight: you can express your needs to this person without feeling panicked.

You are not rehearsing how to ask for what you need nineteen different times before you ask. You’re not afraid of asking for a bare minimum need to be met. You feel safe enough with this person to communicate the need in the first place.

That doesn’t mean that the need is going to be met without question. Sometimes there’s a negotiation. Sometimes it’s actually just a no, and if this need is really important to you, then this person might not be the best fit.

But either way, you want to feel like you can bring your needs, your standards, your boundaries, and your desires to this person. You want to know you’re going to be heard and received in that without him turning it against you.

No Need to Perform

Number nine: you shouldn’t feel like you have to perform for your partner.

You should be able to be all the things—soft, messy, wild, quiet, moody, whatever—and all of it should be met with love, not judgment or withdrawal.

Of course, I’m not talking about this man being this perfect person who never judges or withdraws, because he’ll get triggered at times as well. But again, that should be the exception, not the norm.

 also never has his own thing of, you know, withdrawal or judgment or shutdown or whatever because he’s gonna be triggered at times as well, but. Again, that’s the exception, not the norm.

When this non-negotiable is present, you don’t feel like you need to be this perfect person or that you need to withhold parts of yourself. You really feel that you can be your entire self, and all of it is welcome.

Conflict Isn’t Scary

The tenth non-negotiable: you need to feel safe during conflict. Not because he avoids conflict and so you never fight, but because he can navigate conflict with maturity. He can stay present with you, you can stay present with him, and you’re staying present within yourselves as well.

He Follows Through

Next, you need someone who does what he says he will do. He follows through on his word.

Consistency is not boring. Consistency is fucking sexy. And this isn’t just when he’s saying yes to things, either.

I can only trust your yes as much as I can trust your no. That means if he says he is not available for something and holds his ground on it, I can trust that he will do the same when he does commit to do something.

He Leads Himself

The twelfth non-negotiable: he leads himself well.

You’re not his mother. You’re not his life coach. You’re not his therapist. You’re not his fucking crisis hotline. He knows how to lead his own fucking life.

That’s not to say that he doesn’t get support. He might have a therapist, he might have coach, he might have a mentor, he might be part of a men’s group. That’s all wonderful. He can even lean on you for support. But he’s not collapsing every time that something happens and expecting you to fix it for him because he “doesn’t know how.”

There’s no weaponized incompetence. He can actually lead himself, which then allows you to be in your feminine, where you can trust him to lead you because he leads himself with competence.

He Has a Spine

This non-negotiable might actually come as a surprise, but it is non-negotiable for your partner to have a spine.

He needs to have some backbone. This goes back to the thing about only trusting your yes as far as I can trust your no.

Most women think that they never want to be told no. They think that they want their every need, emotion, and desire to be met without question by a man. But that’s not actually true.

You want a man who has a spine. A man who is going to tell you no because he’s a man of his word. He’s a man of integrity. He can meet you and not fold at the first sign of emotion in you or in himself.

He carries himself with presence. He’s rooted. You can feel that when he’s here with you, he’s fucking here with you. And he’s not going to back down or run because you’re feeling a feeling.

He Has Purpose

The next non-negotiable: he has to have purpose and drive.

It’s not “potential.” He’s not figuring things out. He is a man on a path.

A lot of women have this misconception that a high-value man is a man who is rich. And whilst that can be great, there are actually a lot of men who are very wealthy, but actually have no purpose, no integrity, and no emotional depth. They just have a lot of money, which is compensating.

Now, would it be great to be with someone who has purpose and drive and is wealthy? Absolutely. Yes. But don’t discount the man who hasn’t externally made it yet.

What you’re looking for is the value of purpose and drive and ambition. I could never date a man who was not living his purpose and needed external motivation to get him moving. Never. I want a man who is internally motivated.

A lot of women think they want to be their man’s first priority. You don’t. You actually want his mission to be his first priority. You want his purpose to be his first priority. Because the more devoted he can be to his passion, the more his masculine comes alive, and the more he can give back to you.

Treats Everyone With Respect

This one should have already been on your list, whether you knew it or not, but just to be clear: it is a non-negotiable that he treats everyone with respect.

Listen to how he talks about his ex. Listen to how he speaks to the wait staff. Listen to how he speaks about his mom. That’s who he really is.

Now, that’s not to say that he needs to be best friends with his ex and he needs to have a great relationship with his mother. He could be no-contact with his mom for valid reasons, or his ex could have treated him poorly. But regardless of those things, we can still speak about those people with respect.

Even when we’re speaking about exes, even if it went horribly wrong, we don’t have to trash them. We can just say, “It was actually a very traumatic relationship, and I learned a lot from that. I don’t wish them any ill will and I wish the best for them, but us separating was the best move for both of us.” We don’t have to start ranting about how they were fucked up and crazy and completely narcissistic or anything like that, right?

This doesn’t just apply to people you know. It actually makes me feel viscerally ill when I even think about this, but if you are treating someone in the service industry or a homeless person or anyone else with disrespect, I’m sorry, but you are disgusting.

Imagine someone having such an air of superiority that they think they are above even saying please and thank you when they are at dinner. Absolutely not.

Genuine Friendship

This one is so often overlooked, but it is a non-negotiable for you to genuinely be friends.

You can be in love with someone but realize that you actually don’t like them very much. So ask yourself:  do you like this person? Do you laugh? Do you have fun? Are you playful? Is there safe and healthy banter? That’s what you’re looking for.

You Want the Same Things

Next, you want to make sure you want the same things.

We talked about shared values, but you also want to make sure that you have shared life goals.

Stop hoping that he’s going to change his mind about kids or marriage or doing the work or whatever. It’s not going to happen. You need to find out what he wants, and you need to find out early on.

I remember speaking to a client years ago, and I asked her what they thought about children, and she said they’d never talked about it. They’d been together for two years, and she had no idea if they aligned on those goals or not.

Don’t wait too long. Don’t waste your time. You need to know if you align on these things. Not just having kids, but getting married, having careers, all of that.

Sexual Chemistry

Number eighteen might seem like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised. It is a non-negotiable that the two of you have sexual chemistry.

If you are never turned on by this person or you feel repulsed by them, we have a problem.

When I was learning about all of this, my teacher said, “If you had sexual chemistry in the beginning and then you lost it, you can get it back. If you never had sexual chemistry, you’ll never get it.”

Growth-Oriented

You also want a man who is growth-oriented. He doesn’t just tolerate your growth; he’s actively encouraging it, and he’s working to grow as well.

If someone is threatened by your growth, that speaks volumes. It means they get something out of you thinking less of yourself, and that’s not someone you want to stay with.

He Makes You Feel More Like You

Lastly (for this list), you want to feel more like you when you are with him.

The best relationships do not make you shrink. They expand you. They help you love the parts of yourself that you have deemed unlovable. They help bring you into totality—and the more that you can be loved in your totality, the more your more destructive parts tend to settle down, because you don’t have to do the most to protect yourself.

Join TCW!

Not sure how to actually implement these non-negotiables? I want to see you in The Connected Woman, my signature program to help you master relationships by mastering yourself.

Inside TCW, we’ll rewrite your standards from the ground up, and you’re going to learn to embody these non-negotiables, not just write them out in your journal and then go and text an ex for the tenth time.

The link is below. Don’t wait.

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