Necessary Abilities and Fortitudes 451consistently comforting his or her troubled child is a sign of a
high-quality relationship.
NECESSARY ABILITIES AND FORTITUDES
Having a hierarchy of communal relationships in which one
believes oneshouldbehave communally (up to an implicit
cost level) is one thing. Actually pulling off the task of ap-
propriately and skillfully attending to one another’s needs in
such relationships is quite another thing. For mutually sup-
portive, trusting, secure, and intimate communal relation-
ships to exist and to thrive, members must have three distinct
sets of skills. One set allows for responding to one’s partner’s
needs effectively. A second set allows for eliciting a partner’s
attention to one’s own needs. The third set involves being able
to distinguish successfully when one ought to behave in ac-
cord with communal rules and when the application of such
rules is socially inappropriate.
Responding Effectively to a Partner’s Needs
Skills and fortitudes necessary to respond effectively to a part-
ner’s needs include empathic accuracy (Ickes, 1993) and the
ability to draw out one’s partner’s worries and emotional states
(Miller, Berg, & Archer, 1983; Purvis, Dabbs, & Hopper,
1984). Many studies support the idea that understanding a
spouse’s thoughts, beliefs, and feelings is linked with good
marital adjustment (e.g., Christensen & Wallace, 1976; Noller,
1980, 1981; Gottman & Porterfield, 1981; Guthrie & Noller,
1988). Another skill important to meeting a partner’s needs is
knowing when and how to offer help in such a way that it will
not threaten the potential recipient’s self-esteem or make the
potential recipient feel indebted, but will be accepted. Still an-
other skill important to meeting a partner’s needs is the ability
to give help that the partner (notthe self) desires and from
which the partner (notthe self) will benefit. To do so requires
accurate perception of differences in needs between the self
and the partner. Many parents go wrong in this regard. They
may impose their needs on the child and may be seen by out-
siders as living “through their child,” often to the detriment of
the child.
Some of these abilities require learning, practice, and in-
telligence (e.g., the ability to draw a partner out, empathic ac-
curacy, and provision of emotional support). The keys to
others may lie more in emotional fortitudes. A person may
wish to express empathy or offer help but fail to do so out of
fear of appearing awkward or being rejected. One’s history of
personal relationships in general and one’s history within the
particular relationship in question provide explanations for a
lack of emotional fortitude in providing help. If one’s past
partners (or current partner) have not been open to accepting
help in the past, then the person is likely to be reluctant to
offer care. A lack of fortitude may also stem from temporary
factors. When temporarily stressed or in a bad mood, people
may not feel that they have the energy to help because they
may be especially likely to anticipate that negative outcomes
will be associated with helping (Clark & Waddell, 1983).Alerting Partners to Your NeedsNext consider skills and fortitudes necessary for eliciting
needed support for the self from one’s partner. In this regard,
freely expressing one’s own need states to the partner through
self-disclosure and emotional expression should be impor-
tant. After all, a partner cannot respond to needs without
knowing what they are. Given this, it is not surprising to us
that self-disclosure has been found to increase positive affect
(Vittengl & Holt, 2000), liking (Collins & Miller, 1994), and
satisfaction in dating relationships (Fitzpatrick & Sollie,
1999), marriages (Meeks, Hendrick, & Hendrick, 1998),
and sibling relationships (Howe, Aquan-Assee, Bukowski,
Rinaldi, & Lenoux, 2000). Of course, one ought also to be
able to ask outright for help and accept it when it is offered.
Perhaps less obviously, possessing the ability to say “no” to
requests from the partner that interfere with one’s needs
ought to be crucial to the partner’s being attentive and re-
sponsive to one’s needs. It should also be important that, over
time, one demonstrates that one does not exaggerate needs or
constantly seek help when it is not needed (Mills & Clark,
1986). This ought to increase a partner’s sense that one is
appropriately, and not overly, dependent.
Although help-seeking skills might seem easy, enacting
them requires certain emotional fortitudes. In particular, ex-
ercising all these skills probably requires having the firm
sense that one’s partner truly cares for one and will, indeed,
meet one’s needs to the best of his or her ability. Otherwise,
self-disclosure, emotional expression, and asking for help
seem inadvisable. Under such circumstances, one risks being
rebuffed, rejected, or evaluated negatively. The partner may
even use information to mock or exploit the other. Negative
assertion on one’s own behalf may also be frightening, as it
too many provide a basis for rejection. Thus it may seem best
not to seek help and not to assert oneself. However, if one
does not do so, keeping the relationship on a communal basis
becomes difficult. It is for just these reasons that we believe
that a sense of trust and security in relationships is key to
following communal norms.