Too often the focus on healthy relationship communication exists in what each person says. The idea that one-way messages are at the heart of good relationship communication is what destroys relationships. Active listening skills are a must-have technique to anyone interested in building good relationships. There are a variety of active listening skills you can use, but the ones I will be discussing today are questions, using body language, and summarizing.

The first active listening skill you can begin using right away in building good relationships is questioning. Asking questions by firing them away like an interrogator pounding his suspicious criminal is as effective as one-way communication. Questioning in active listening skills is more about the quality of the question. You are not an interrogator in your relationship so do not act like one.

If there is something you do not understand, then ask your partner to rephrase, restate, or repeat the statement. Active questioning skills are an effective technique when combined with body language because it will communicate an interest towards your partner.

I believe the most important aspect of active listening is good body language. Without effective use of your body language, no matter how good your questioning or other forms of active listening are, your intention to build a good relationship will fall through the floor.

Effective body language communicates an interest when combined with questioning. Face your partner and show the person you are there primary concern. Also make good eye contact. Screaming kids, noisy crowds, and football on the television are all distractions that will pull your eyes and focus away from what really matters.

The last of the three active listening skills I will discuss in this article is using summarizing. This technique is not known to many so chances are you do not use this skill. Even if you know of this technique, I aim to encourage you to pull it out of your communication bag of tricks to improve your relationships.

Summarizing involves rephrasing what the person has said in your own words. The secret here is “in your own words”. There are around four summarizing techniques involving an emphasis on emotions, facts, and combinations of the two.

Summarizing plays a role in developing an understanding of what your partner is saying and develops a connection. It is a great technique to build intimacy in your relationship. I encourage you to even use summarizing in everyday social situations and conversations as it helps to build the connection.

The other person hears your summary of what he or she said and knows you understand or will then restate what you do misunderstand. He or she will also see you are interested because you are able to restate what was said. When combined with good body language, your interest is communicated the entire time during the conversation.

Active listening skills are an essential technique to develop if you want to build a good relationship. The listening skills are useful in more then just building intimate relationships as you can just as effectively apply them in social conversations.

In addition, combine effective questioning, good body language, and summarizing together and you will begin to use the power of active listening in your relationships. These 3 listening skills are a great start in mastering two-way communication to build great relationships.

Cheating Affairs can destroy a relationship. Ironically, they can also make them better. That’s not to suggest that you should have an affair to find happiness in your relationship. What I’m saying is that 82% of relationships traumatized by an affair actually get past the affair, and live happier than they did prior to the infidelity.

How can this be? It seems that no one in their right mind would consider even staying in a relationship after they find out they have been cheated on. If you ask people what they would do, the predominant answer you will get is that they would leave. But that is prior to it actually happening. Of those who have actually been cheated on, most decide to stay in the relationship. They stay because they recognize that there are other problems in the relationship that have caused their partner to stray. They are not meeting the needs of their partner.

Only when you are fully able to understand the needs of your partner are you able to save your relationship from infidelity. The way to fight of infidelity, then, is to understand your partner. To do that, you have to understand some of the basics.

People, in general, have basic needs that need to be fulfilled. When these needs are not being met, they will seek areas for them to be met. In the case of an intimate relationship, this can mean cheating. Once you understand the basic needs, you can use them to help satisfy your partner’s needs, and also dive deeper into what specifically your partner needs to feel satisfied.

Many people enter a relationship wondering what they will get, rather than what they can give. When you enter a relationship wondering what you can give, you will get what you want in return. Zig Ziglar, the great motivational speaker says, “You can have everything in life you want, if you just help enough other people get what they want.” This can be applied to your intimate relationship as well.

When you are able to give you partner what they want, they will work just as hard to make sure that you are happy. They will make you feel like you are the most important person in their life!

The basic needs that need to be satisfied are simple, you just have to understand them to satisfy. Everyone has the need for Certainty, Uncertainty, Significance, Love and Connection, Growth and Contribution. When you can figure out how to master these needs and apply them to your relationship, you can create the path to bliss, and protect your marriage from infidelity.

Certainty is what you need to make you feel comfortable. What makes you comfortable? What makes your partner comfortable? Most people, for instance, are certain that their children will love them forever, but fear their spouse could leave at any time.

Uncertainty is variety. Variety is the spice of life, right? We need variety and uncertainty to keep us energized and challenged. Without variety, we fall into a routine, a trap of boredom. We need to learn to embrace variety and the uncertain. Many people think they like surprises, but really they only like the surprises they want. They refer to the unwanted surprises as problems!

Significance is how important you feel. We all have a need to feel valued and respected. Many times, couples grow distant because a spouse is spending too much time doing something else, like working. When this happens, it can be because the working spouse feels significance at work, and at home they are not appreciated. Keep this in mind, and make your partner number one!

Love and Connection is something we all strive for. Whether you are single or committed, we seek out love and connection. Often times we have the connection, but we don’t have that love. And when we have the love, it isn’t coming from our partner.

Growth may be one of the most important needs. You have to grow to stay alive. Your relationship is like a plant; if you don’t water it and give it sunlight, it won’t grow. When it doesn’t grow, it dies. You have to strive to grow your relationship. Evolve with your partner and keep the relationship energized and lively.

Contribution is also a very significant need. Evolution has proven that when something doesn’t contribute, it is eliminated. People have the need to contribute and give to others. Accept the contributions and share with your partner what you have to give.

As you can see, many of these needs are very closely related. When you can satisfy at least 3 of these needs with one action, you will become addicted to that action. That addiction will grow with each need you can add.

Once you understand the 6 Human Needs, develop those needs and learn what your partner wants specifically. Ask your partner what elicits emotion and what emotions they feel when you say something, do something, or what name you call them. You will be shocked at what you learn.

Following these tips are essential to success in any relationship, especially an intimate one. When you feel the pure joy and euphoria from a loving partner, you can easily satisfy all 6 of the Human Needs, and you will get addicted to that euphoric feeling!

Love relationships between women and men are difficult, complex, and sometimes overwhelming, and authors, experts, and friends are always willing to offer advice on how to overcome them. In a welcome and overdue twist on the old theme, many authors have decided over the years to explore the intense nature of friendships between women, so widely experienced yet traditionally downplayed.

Experts suggest that women’s friendships are rooted in the bonds between a mother and a daughter. Subconsciously competing for the love of the same man, husband and father, the relationship of future women friends is directly related to the experience a woman had while growing up. With this backdrop of keen identification, a woman can often “feel” the very pain or joy that her friend may be experiencing. But along with this astonishing intimacy, however, come the usual strains of mutual dependency between mother and daughter. As numerous examples illustrate, a woman may be scarred for life and never forget the devastation she might feel in case she gets betrayed or abandoned by another woman. As many women can regretfully attest, these negative and stressful feelings are generally associated with the pain of ending a love relationship with a man due to a friend’s act.

Most frequent than in men’s friendships, feelings of jealousy, competition, anger and guilt inevitably arise in women’s friendships, due to the threat they feel in balancing a relationship with another woman and yet maintain a healthy, open and intimate relationship with a man. Moreover, these competitive feelings might arise when one friend gets a new job while another does not succeed the same, if one falls in love and the other feels extremely lonely at that time, in case one wants to have a child and has yet to stand painfully by her friend’s pregnancy. Psychotherapists advocate that women friends openly acknowledge the negative feelings between them in the belief that differences, if are successfully sorted out, can lead to a much fuller friendship.

If you are interested in exploring this provocative subject and you feel secure enough to discuss it with your female friend, try opening up some of the hidden and more difficult aspects of your friendship and you will probably be amazed with the things you will discover for the other person’s inner feelings apart from your own thoughts. In fact, such matters are daily the main subject of discussion between many women friends who want to explore them further, with the help of their good female friend.

Once the first flush of romance has passed it takes a little more effort to keep that sense of sparkle and passion alive. However, there are numerous ways to reconnect with each other and put some life back into your relationship.

Even if you have known that special someone for a long period of time, you should make the effort to go on a date together every once in a while. Arrange to meet somewhere, arrive separately and find out about each other all over again. Maintaining an element of surprise in your relationship keeps things alive and recreating your first date scenario reminds you of what attracted you to each other in the first place.

Simple communication is the basis of a successful relationship. Turn off the television, put down your book and just have a chat with your significant other. Talk about how your day was, exciting plans you have for the day or week ahead, and common interests. But, remember that you probably need to take time out to do this, as busy lifestyles often mean you miss out on time like this unless you consciously set some aside. Communication is one of the most important parts of a relationship, so include it in everyday life.

Communication can take other forms asides from talking. Most people enjoy receiving a thoughtful letter or email and something as personal as this can make a big difference; so why not make that special someone’s day. Listening is just as important as talking, therefore, if one of you has something you need to say - no matter how trivial it may seem - then the other really needs to take the time and listen properly.

In a similar vein, spending time apart is equally as important as spending quality time together. Allowing time apart and a little bit of space from each other helps to get the best out of your relationship - and as always, it gives you something different and interesting to talk about at the end of the day.

Remembering to show gratitude to your partner is another simple relationship improving tactic. It is second nature to thank strangers or work colleagues but it’s easy to forget to do the same for your partner. A small gesture of thanks goes a long way and often it is the simple things in relationships that keep everything in check.

An intimate relationship is essentially a partnership so make sure you always work as a team. Therefore, don’t blame each other for things that may have gone wrong. By all means recognise your mistakes or downfalls, but use this realisation as a positive and work together to move on and improve the future.

Regardless if you have been in a relationship for years or if you’ve only just started dating, remember this advice. If you put as much energy and determination into making your existing relationship work as you would put into a new relationship, then you could be onto a good thing.

Is it true that an open relationship will bring a couple closer together? In an open relationship a couple makes an agreement to allow each other to be sexual with other people. Many people are starting to realize that the idea that having sex with another person doesn’t have to be a relationship ending tragedy. the idea of expecting ones partner to never have sex with anyone else ever again is an out dated concept.

In an this kind of arrangement both couples are still able to live out fantasies with other people and the fear of cheating no longer exists. No more worrying about whether the other person is being faithful, it’s no longer an issue.

Despite the advantages to an open relationship there are often problems that arise such as jealousy and insecurity. Maintaining this level of freedom will require an exceptional couple. Since jealousy and insecurity are likely to arise in most people does that mean that the open relationship idea is flawed? I say not. I say the problem is that too many people have a problem with jealousy and insecurity.

A traditional closed relationship provides the illusion of a sense of security that allows people to keep their “issues” of jealousy and insecurity inside. But when you take away that sense of security and allow people to make their own free choices these “issues” are forced to come out to the surface where they will have to be dealt with if the relationship is to be maintained. On the surface this may sound like a bad thing but it actually gives people the opportunity to grow and overcome their own weaknesses and mature.

With most people, facing their own weakness is too much so they give in to their weaknesses. It is then that they blame and end the open relationship. If individuals can become evolved enough to maintain an open relationship and take care of these “issues” they become more suitable and attractive as mates. At this point a couple is able to break down their barriers and become truly close and intimate. It’s at this point that a couple in an open relationship will become so close that they will likely become more monogamous than most people in supposedly closed relationships.

Beneficial open relationships are not for everyone. They require a special kind of person. Do you think you might be one of them?

Read more about and discuss open relationships

There may be a time where you’ll come across a woman who only wants a sexual relationship. Before you rush into one with her, there are a few things you need to consider.

Here are the two things you absolutely need to know before being intimate:

1. Feelings may start to develop. This can be very disastrous to the relationship. Since the relationship is built solely on intimacy, this alone can ruin your chances for another intimate encounter. If she’s intimate with you, she may have feelings for you anyway…at least sexually. If you are intimate with a woman who just want something sexual, then DO NOT EXPECT ANYTHING MORE THAN THAT. If you try to express how you feel about her, or worse, push a relationship on her, she may decline.. It may also ruin your chances for any future intimate encounters.

2. She’s probably in a relationship. There’s probably a lack of intimacy that she’s experiencing in her relationship, so she looks elsewhere. Though she’s cheating, it may make sense to her to try to figure out a solution…especially if she has already expressed to her significant other the problem. What you need to do is decide if you really want to be with someone who’s already involved. Take into consideration that there are many possible outcomes in this situation…like her man may become more intimate with her so therefore she may cut you off.

If you feel like you can still handle a sexual relationship, then by all means, have one. But always remember what it is…just something sexual and nothing more. Take that into serious consideration.

how your relationship was in the very beginning?

You stayed up all night talking about everything - your dreams and desires and even the things that scare or embarrass you. But then, as the relationship went a long, you stopped talking about so much. Everything became so heavy and meaningful.

In the beginning, things were great. There was a level of trust and open communication that created intimacy and understanding. So, what happened to that? Where did it go and how can you get it back?

I used to try to protect my partner from those heavy, bad moods and ugly thoughts. I went to my room and hung out until I felt like socializing again.

I thought I was noble in my ability to control what came out of my mouth.

I thought I was kind because I never let on what I was thinking.

But what I was doing was ruining my relationships. There was no relationship. I was cutting myself off from others and never allowing them to know me. They never knew what I was thinking or feeling or needing.

I was an island. A very lonely island.

I really thought that if I let people know the ugly thoughts, not only would they be hurt - but they would probably become angry and disown me - betray me, talk shit behind my back. I would be the outcast.

So I beat them to the punch! Hah! I\’d banish myself to my own room (or apartment, as I got older). I\’d banish myself to silence.

You can either have a N.I.C.E. (Not Interested in Connecting Emotionally) relationship… where you hide what is true out of fear. Or you can have an alive, real relationship with intimacy, compassion and understanding.

Some people withhold from their partner and add an extra zinger — they put on a show of pain and discomfort in order to punish them. It\’s an effort to communicate just how much pain they\’re in. But none of it\’s verbalized. It\’s a show of the pain.

When you start keeping secrets and withholding,.. when you cut off the sharing of life force between you,… you\’re cutting off the intimacy in your relationship. Even if you think you\’re protecting your partner from painful or embarrassing thoughts - it\’s still destroying your relationship.

Relationships require sharing… both our dreams and desires along with our doubts and fears.

What are you feeling and what needs of yours are being met or not? …

I\’m happy because my need for support in keeping our home is being met.

I\’m disappointed because my need for partnership isn\’t being met in the way we\’re handling our finances.

I\’m sad because my need for connection isn\’t being met when you\’re out with your friends every evening.

You can find out more about this style of intimate communication, along with other advice on building healthy, intimate relationships, at our website: www MagicRelationship dot com.

Another tip: when you offer your feelings and needs, it\’s best to follow them with a request. If you offer them without a request, your partner won\’t know why you\’re giving them the information.

Do you want to be just heard?

Do you want advice?

Do you want to come up with a strategy for meeting your needs? Why the heck are you telling me this?

Often, a comment without a request will be taken as blame… which will lead to fixing, fighting or fleeing. Don\’t leave your poor partner hanging.

Paul and I recommend asking, \”Would you tell me what you heard me say?\” (Avoid saying \’could\’- it implies they aren\’t intelligent enough to repeat you. And avoid saying \”What did I say?\” because what you said and what they heard are two different things.)

And one more tip: don\’t think that little behaviors are enough to be warranted as \’sharing feelings and needs.\’ Fixing your honey a cup of coffee in the morning is very sweet, but it may not communicate your feelings of love and contentment like actually verbalizing the information. \”I love you so much\”, PLUS the cup of coffee goes much further.

Frowning and throwing around the bed covers while you make the bed may not adequately communicate your feelings and needs, either.

Instead, say: \”I\’m feeling disappointed because my need for support around the house isn\’t being met. Would you be willing to discuss a way to help that would also meet your needs?\”

There\’s no room for misinterpretation there.

Try it out this holiday season: make a pact with your beloved to share absolutely ALL your feelings and needs for one day - the good, the bad and the ugly. Then follow the information with a request.

Be prepared to spend some time processing and discussing those feelings and needs as they come up.

However, try to avoid getting into BLAMING and \’FAULT\’ behind the feelings and needs. That tends to end up in a free-for-all about evaluations and judgments - who\’s right and who\’s wrong. Try to stick with feelings, needs and requests.

Try to do this on a day when you\’ll have the time.

You won\’t want to get cut off because you have to run to pick up the kids right when you\’re getting to the heart of an issue that\’s snuck up silently between you.

You\’re going to want to stay and hold each other and talk it through… and feel the intimacy of clearing out all of those old, crusty feelings and unmet needs that have been clogging the flow of love.

And, again, you can find out more about this style of intimate communication for relationships, at our website - www.104Community.com - a along with advice on building healthy relationships.

How important is physical compatibility in relationships? Well, it depends on the couple. For some people their physicality is of utmost importance to them. When it is, they often want their partner to engage in many of their activities with them. For some couples the physical nature of their relationship is not important to either of them. And for some couples, if one rates the physical aspect high and the other one doesn’t, happy satisfied couples have found ways to satisfy that physical element outside of their relationship.

I have done research with couples who self-identify as happy and satisfied after being together at least ten years. One area I ask about is their satisfaction in the physical area. This can encompass many things. It can mean sexual compatibility. It can mean being satisfied with each other’s overall health and level of activity. It can translate into satisfaction with romance or public displays of affection or lack thereof. It could mean satisfaction with one’s partner’s physical appearance.

The one aspect of physical compatibility that seems to be most important is sexual compatibility. The vast majority of the couples I interviewed reported not having other intimate relationships outside of their committed one. They also reported a healthy sex life, well into their later years.

As author, Kevin Lehman writes in his book Sheet Music, sex in a marriage is very important and necessary to a man. He believes a woman who denies her man enthusiastic involvement in the sexual act is like a man who refuses to talk to his partner. As a general rule, women need communication and men need physical connection. That is not to say women don’t enjoy sex and men don’t like to communicate. It’s just the general trend among the genders.

I also interviewed couples who both reported sex was no longer a part of their relationship and they were both at peace with that fact. I even interviewed one couple who were married as heterosexuals. He underwent a sex change operation and is now a woman. They have remained a lesbian couple and the wife also satisfies her sexual desires with a man and her partner fully sanctions that activity.

Other aspects of the sexual area to consider are frequency, duration and creativity. All of these are things that couples should discuss and come to agreement about. If one person wants to explore all manner of sexual activity with his or her partner and the other partner is interested only in the missionary position, then that relationship may be in for some rocky roads.

Romance, foreplay and public displays of affection are also areas where it is helpful to find agreement with your partner.

Compatibility in the sexual area is critical to relationship success but the level of activity is defined by the couples themselves.

Sometimes couples highly value the external appearance of their partner. They want the partner whose look is pleasing to him or her. I interviewed a couple who are both 88 years old, married 56 years. When they were married, the husband loved the way his wife looked. Her beauty was very important to him and he referred to her as his “pin up girl.” Do you know now, 56 years later, he still refers to her as his “pin up girl”? That is a man who was able to adjust and expand his physical expectations to match the maturation of their relationship. Contrast that with a person who gets together with his or her partner based strictly on external beauty. Once that beauty begins to fade, as it inevitably will, he or she will be looking for the next partner to replace the aging one. For some couples, the outer beauty of a person is not important for either of them. And for still other couples, external beauty is of the utmost importance and they are very conscious of their weight, nutrition and may have cosmetic surgery to assist in maintaining their beauty.

A final area to look at is health and fitness. What I found in my research is that for many people who value this aspect of life, they were attracted to partners who did also. This makes the relationship smooth in this area. They often engage in common activities of fitness. They may like to hike, bike, swim, lift weights, and go to the gym together. They may even engage in their activities with other people and that is fine as long as they are maintaining their overall health and fitness. They also generally agree on their nutritional choices.

If this is an area that is not important to either couple, then there is no issue here and they are compatible in their indifference to health and fitness. What challenges and potentially strains a relationship is when one person values this and the other doesn’t. I saw this more with older couples where one partner was perhaps more overweight and in poorer health. One person becomes worried about their partner’s health and mortality.

The bottom line is that different things work for different couples. While some highly value aspects of this physical area and want their partners to value it too, some couples are able to enjoy the aspects of their physical life that are important to them while allowing their partner to do what’s important to him or her. And there are yet other couples who do not value this area at all. The couples who reported being happy and satisfied with their relationship did not have conflict in this area. Either they were compatible in this area or they simply allowed each other to fully express themselves in this area as they saw fit.

Intimacy is all about connection–the feeling that you and your partner are kindred spirits. The hallmark of a healthy marriage or relationship is feeling close and attuned to your partner, but maintaining this connection isn’t always easy. Therefore, finding ways to enhance intimacy is a priority for all couples.

Self-intimacy: A prerequisite to interpersonal intimacy

You are probably in many different relationships: with acquaintances, friends, family, coworkers, to name a few. When you think about the relationships in your life, does your relationship with yourself ever come to mind? Probably not, yet this relationship is central to all of your other relationships.

Self-intimacy is the experience of feeling connected to all of yourself–the parts of yourself you naturally embrace as well as the parts you wish didn’t exist. This connection allows you to feel grounded–giving you an emotional center that anchors your experiences. This anchor has an important place in your relationship.

To get a better understanding of your relationship with yourself, reflect on the following questions: “How do I feel about myself? What do I like about myself? Dislike? Hate? Which parts of myself do I find easy to accept? Which parts make me feel uneasy or conflicted?” Your answers to these questions reflect the type of intimate relationship you have with yourself.

Self-Estrangement: A block to interpersonal intimacy

Unfortunately, you may not have access to important parts of yourself. Why? Because you can dislike a part (or parts) of yourself so intensely that you deny its existence. Your denial doesn’t mean, however, that these parts do not surface in your relationship–they usually seek expression. When you ignore parts of yourself, you’ve left the realm of self-intimacy (a connection to yourself) and have entered the world of self-estrangement (a disconnection from yourself).

At one time or another we’ve all denied certain truths about ourselves, maybe with little consequence–truths that would make us feel vulnerable or ashamed, desperate or inadequate. However, when you’re in a relationship, the consequences of self-estrangement are always significant. Why? Because you can never fully hide from your spouse or partner.

When self-intimacy is the norm, you’ll be fully present and emotionally available to your partner. When self-estrangement rules your inner world, you will remain disconnected from yourself and your partner. Your relationship is robbed of intimacy whenever you close off aspects of yourself to your partner.

Self-estrangement in action:

The husband who cannot be vulnerable with his wife is self-estranged–he denies his vulnerable self. A wife who minimizes her outbursts is self-estranged–she denies her anger. The girlfriend who ignores her jealousy is self-estranged–she denies her insecurities.

For the last ten years, Chris has worked almost nonstop to become a successful attorney. His driven nature has served him well professionally and he recently made partner at his New York City law firm. To his dismay, Chris’s work-related success has always eluded him in his personal relationships.

Chris complains that he often feels distant in his marriage, despite his wife Kendra’s encouragement to be more open and share his feelings. Chris is estranged from any emotions that make him feel “weak” or vulnerable. It’s his inability to connect with these parts of himself that continues to block intimacy in his marriage.

Chris’s first step in breaking out of this self-estrangement pattern is to honestly assess his relationship with himself–in particular, the parts of himself that he wished didn’t exist.

Are you ready to assess yourself?

Rate yourself and your relationship intimacy:

Using a scale from one (no intimacy) to ten (very satisfying levels of intimacy), rate the intimacy in your marriage or relationship.

If your rating is relatively high (8 or higher), than you probably don’t struggle with self-estrangement. If your rating is relatively low (4 or lower), self-estrangement may be standing in the way of a deeper connection with your partner.

To help determine the impact that your level of self-intimacy has on your marriage or relationship, now rate yourself on the self-intimacy/self-estrangement continuum below:

Self-Intimacy—————————————————–Self-Estrangement

Pick a spot on this continuum that reflects how connected (or disconnected) you feel to yourself. Try to think about how self-connected you feel in general, since this may shift for you, depending on circumstances. If the spot you choose is closer to the self-intimacy end of the continuum, this means you feel grounded and are able to share yourself fully with your partner; if your spot is closer to the self-estrangement end, you feel disconnected and are unable to share yourself fully with your partner.

Rating yourself can feel a little daunting, so give yourself enough time to adequately reflect on these issues. If it does feel like self-estrangement is holding you (and your relationship) back from achieving the intimacy you desire, speak with someone who can give you support around this issue (your partner, a trusted friend or family member, a counselor). You’ve already taken an important step by assessing your level of self-intimacy.

Are you ready to build a stronger, more intimate relationship?

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Intimate relationships offer great potential for connection, personal growth and healing. Yet many people find that although successful in their careers and are able to maintain close friendships, they struggle in intimate relationships. Often these relationships aren’t working because the same destructive patterns continue to be repeated, either with the same partner or in successive relationships. This can be due to a poorly developed “radar,” or lacking the ability to choose a person who is emotionally available and able to commit. In marriages, relationship problems are often caused by unhealthy ways of interacting, often established after the commitment has been made. Draining cycles of conflict and miscommunication often leave partners feeling hurt and misunderstood.

Destructive ways of interacting are frequently due to internal blind spots caused by past wounds. Blind spots often manifest as unconscious projections or false perceptions about what is happening in the relationship. Projections can be both and negative. A positive projection might be making a false assumption that the other person has the ability to make us whole by filling a void that we have been unable to fill on our own. A negative projection would be anticipating that the person that we are involved with will betray or abandon us as others have done in the past. If partners become aware of their projections, they can gain both a deeper and accurate understanding of their internal processes and improve the way they relate to each other. By becoming more aware of destructive patterns, old wounds can be healed and closer connections can be made. This can help develop trust and establish a foundation that can be nurtured over time.