Something new here. Occasional quizzes to help you assess your relationship and figure out how to make things better.
When Maya and Raj came to work with me recently, they had fallen into a painful place of distance and suspicion. Mostly due to job stress and bad behavior on both of their parts. From being deeply in love they now found themselves feeling they were living with a hostile stranger. At least that’s how they felt in their worst moments.
Healing is a matter of finding out what’s going on and finding a way back. So why don’t you do—whatever state your relationship is in—what Maya and Raj did with me.
We’ll start with this. Four questions with yes or no answers for you and, I hope, your partner to answer:
1. Do you feel your partner really knows you?
Yes _____ No _____
2. Do you feel your partner really cares about you?
Yes _____ No _____
3. Do you feel your partner really understands you?
Yes _____ No _____
4. Do you feel your partner likes you?
Yes _____ No _____
Now to be clear, a yes answer doesn’t have to mean your partner is perfect and wonderful. And in the same way, a no answer doesn’t mean that your partner is awful.
Okay, now we’ve gotten at how you feel about one another. If you got a lot of no’s, that’s scary. But is it the truth? Not necessarily. Is it the end? Not likely!
That’s why we need a reality check, which is all-important. Answer the following questions about yourself and your partner:
To get at whether you know one another, I’m asking you:
1a. What are three things that make you happy?
________________________________________
________________________________________
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1b. What are three things that make your partner happy?
________________________________________
________________________________________
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To get at whether your partner really cares about you, I’m asking you:
2a. What are three things that make you feel cared for?
________________________________________
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2b. What are three things that make your partner feel cared for?
________________________________________
________________________________________
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To get at whether your partner understands you, I’m asking you:
3a. What are three things that make you unhappy?
________________________________________
________________________________________
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3b. What are three things that make your partner feel unhappy?
________________________________________
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And to get at whether your partner likes you, I’m asking you:
4a. What are three things that you like about yourself?
________________________________________
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4b. What are three things that you like about your partner?
________________________________________
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That may sound like a lot of questions, but it shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.
When Maya and Raj did this, they were surprised. Yes, there were lots of places where there wasn’t much overlap. But there were lots of places—more than they thought there’d be—where there was overlap. Things weren’t as bad as they’d thought. And that’s common.
But let’s be clear. This is a win/win.
If it turns you are super-clued in to each other, great!
And if it turns out you’re not, that’s actually great too. Great that you’ve found out about it so you can do something about it. It’s not a sign that you’re doomed! It just means that your lifestyle and habits of inattention have caused you to drift apart. So, okay. Now you can drift back together! Now you know you need to spend some time getting to know one another. Now you know just where the areas are that you don’t know what’s going on with each other. It’s never too late for re-discovering each other and it can only be a good thing.
See! Good stuff all around.
And if you’d like more quizzes here, like this post!
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