Evaluating Your Relationship With Your Partner-List Of Thoughts To Keep In Mind

Anybody that tells you being in a relationship is easy has never been in a real relationship. In fact, a trip to your local library will give you some idea of how many people need help for their relationships. You can use books or anything else when evaluating your relationship with your partner, but how you do it isn't as important as just doing it. Here are some things to keep in mind as you take a closer look at your relationship.

You have to be willing to accept the facts when you uncover them. While you will most likely discover a lot of good things about your relationship, you will also find a few things that need improvement. Do not ignore the bad stuff, and do not try to justify it away. You need to face the facts, and then do what needs to be done to make things better. After all, the purpose of evaluating your relationship with your partner is to learn more about that relationship; not liking the answers is not a reason to ignore those answers.

The tricky part of the evaluation is going in without any expectations about the results. For example, if you go in asking something like "are we going to stay together," then that will skew your results. You are aiming for a true evaluation, and not trying to verify a suspicion. Be open-minded and honest as you go through the process and you will get a more accurate result.

Here are a few unbiased questions that you can ask:

1. What do you want from your relationship? Don't worry about being selfish and answer this question honestly and thoroughly. It doesn't matter if you want financial security, emotional comfort, a partner to have fun with, or anything else; what matters is that you identify what is you want your relationship to provide.

2. What does your partner want? The other side of the coin is finding out what your partner wants from the relationship. Don't be judgmental and do your best to foster an atmosphere of openness. Some of the things they say may surprise or upset you, and that's okay because you are only in the discovery stage.

3. What do you like best about your partner and your relationship? Try to think of all the different aspects of your relationship and look for as much good stuff as you can.

4. What do you like least? No person is perfect, and no relationship is perfect, but you can't fix something unless you know it's a problem.

5. Where is your relationship in comparison to where you want it to be? This is the final step of evaluating your relationship with your partner. You know what you both want from your relationship, what you like, and what you don't. Now you have to take everything you have discovered and see how close to the mark you are. How much work needs to be done will depend upon many factors, but at least you now have a good idea of what to do.