“When you are late, I feel frustrated and scared.” In addition, you moderate

Principle 2: Many of your repetitious, emotional criticisms of your partner are disguised statements of your own unmet needs.

You take responsibility for communicating your needs and desires to your partner.

“Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing, there is a field. I will meet you there.”

may

Unfortunately, most people experience their first “relationship difficulty” in the first eighteen months of life. Experts in child development call this critical period the “Attachment Stage.” Having a close bond with one or more caregivers is important throughout childhood, but it is essential in those earliest months.

were to change some of his more limiting behaviors and his beliefs, he would become more fully the person

Not surprisingly, when her partner acts in a similar manner, she is filled with the same fears she had as a child. Buried in her criticism of her partner, therefore, is a plaintive cry from childhood: “Why can’t someone take care of me?”

hold the key to a long-ago kingdom, and all we have to do is persuade them to unlock the door. Their failure to do so is one of the main reasons for our eventual unhappiness.