Resource for Your Source: TheMes of Jack

2. Your Partner Is Not a Thing

Your partner is not a thing or a means to your ends; your partner is a person and an end in him/her self. Your relationship is much more than the trading of sex or wealth. More important are the intimate values beyond social roles – those of trust and affection, freedom and responsibility.

3. Your Partner Is Not a Therapist/Emotional Nurse

Your partner is not a replacement for a mother/father or a therapist. A partnership requires caring adults rather than needy children. Although you should use each other to grow in maturity, to depend on one partner for your emotional “fix” is an a bad habit.

4.Teamwork Makes Love Work

A partnership is not a matter of parallel, independent lives sharing the same space and time for economics or fun – it is about making two lives into one while allowing each their fullest freedom to be who they are. Unilateral decisions divide; dialogue is essential in every area of your relationship to keep you working as a team. Every important action should be considered in the light of its effect on your partner.

5. Give the Four A’s Every Day: Attention, Acceptance, Approval, Affection

Try to give the Four A’s to your partner consistently throughout the day, every day, where possible. Schedule a minimum of 10 minutes near the end of each day for “one-to-one time” in which you specifically practice the four A’s. Each of you has 5 minutes to tell the other anything whatsoever without the listener interrupting with any comment. Only head nodding allowed. When listening you convey the attitude that your partner is the most important value in your world – you try to give full attention, acceptance, approval and affection.