You want one thing. Your partner wants another. Do you need to compromise, so neither of you really gets what you want? Does one person need to sacrifice, perhaps at the cost of resenting the other? Is there any way for both of you to win?

You’re probably asking the wrong questions, because you’re probably making a problematic assumption. If you’re assuming that you and your partner are similar people with momentarily competing needs, you’re missing something. Your partner is not who you think they are.

If you can start to learn who, or what, your partner is, you could start to ask some different, far more interesting questions.

This video was filmed at an “Ask Steve” Q&A evening. Participants ask any question about counseling, personal growth, or relationships. Steve has 5 minutes to answer!

About the Author

Steve Bearman, Ph.D., earned his doctorate in Psychology from the University of California, Santa Cruz. He founded Interchange Counseling Institute in 2002 and is the lead teacher of Interchange's San Francisco-based year-long counseling and coaching training. When he's not counseling people, leading workshops, and advocating for social justice, Steve climbs mountains, adventures in the urban wilderness, explores the edges and limits of what's possible, deconstructs everything, and finds new ways to put it all back together.