Repairing Relationships Advice: Empathize

"All right. The next thing I'm going to ask you to do to try to repair this relationship may be the most difficult part of what I'm going to ask you to do. It is imperative. It is so important that you take a look at the problems and the relationship from the other person's point-of-view. Remember, a relationship is two people. You can't necessarily have a relationship with yourself. I mean, you do, but not in the sense of interchange with another human. So, this is what you feel. You've written it down. You've analyzed the problems. This is what you want. This is how you feel about things. But now, how do they feel about things? You have to start taking a look from their perspective, because a relationship is not simply about you and what you want. I mean, obviously it is, but what do they want? How do they feel? What's important to them? How do they feel about your actions and your ideal concept of the relationship? This is ultimately what we're going to use to determine if we can repair this relationship, or do we just both want such different things, we have to dissolve it? But right now, we're going to do everything we can to repair this relationship."