your well-being first, your future together has promise. If he or she
brushes your concerns aside as insignificant, or makes you feel
inadequate, foolish, or self-indulgent, you can conclude that this
person doesn’t sincerely have your best interests in mind and you
are probably incompatible.- To make sure your needs are met in the relationship, whether it is
a brand-new one or one of long standing. By spelling out your
needs, you are making it a lot easier for your partner to meet them.
He or she doesn’t need to guess whether something is bothering you
—or what that something is.
The beauty of effective communication is that it allows you to turn a
supposed weakness into an asset. If you need to be reassured a lot that your
partner loves you and is attracted to you (at least in the initial phase of a
relationship), instead of trying to conceal this wish because it is not socially
acceptable to sound so needy, you state it as a given. When presented this
way, you don’t come off as either weak or needy but as self-confident and
assertive. Of course, effective communication means that you communicate
in a way that is inoffensive and does not put your partner on the spot, but
allows them to be open with you without feeling attacked, criticized, or
blamed.
Another advantage of effective communication is that it provides a role
model for your partner. You set the tone for the relationship as one in which
you can both be honest and in which each has the sacred responsibility to
look out for the other’s well-being. Once your partner sees that you can be
so open, he or she will follow suit. As you saw in chapter 8, it’s never too
late to start using effective communication to improve your relationship. It’s
one of the most powerful tools secure people use in their everyday life, with
their partner and kids, and at work. It can really transform the way you
handle yourself with the people around you.
JUDGING THE RESPONSE
With effective communication, you might not be able to solve a problem or
resolve your differences in one shot. But you can judge immediately how