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The Web address of this two-page article is http://sfhelp.org/basics/premises-rlnprob.htm

        Page 1 offers 14 premises about understanding and solving any internal or interpersonal relationship problem. This page adds seven more premises, and proposes a set of problem-solving guidelines. Note whether you A(gree), D(isagree), or are ambivalent or unclear (?) about each premise.

Premise 15: Healthy adults are responsible for filling their own primary needs (below)! If you are able-bodied and mentally healthy, and you expect your partner, a child, or others to regularly fill your primary (vs. surface or secondary) needs, you're setting all of you up for disappointment, frustration, hurt, anger, and resentment. This is specially true if the others accept the responsibility! (A  D  ?)

        All human motivation and behavior is conscious and unconscious striving to fill current emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual needs well enough. Identify whom you hold responsible for filling the needs below in your life. The subselves comprising your unique personality may have different beliefs... (A  D  ?)

Common Primary Needs

        Can you think of other primary needs that people (like you) strive to fill?

        In any situation (a) each person will have a different combination of these needs, and (b) will rank them differently. One definition of "social harmony" is "the temporary state that occurs when a group of people have similar-enough primary needs, values, and priorities."

        Primary needs can also be grouped and ranked by time frame: your primary needs for today probably differ from those you want to fill in the next 20 years.

        Consider this: "My integrity is knowing my core beliefs, values, rights, and needs, and acting on them consistently without undue shame or guilt - despite resistance, scorn, and/or criticism from others." Have you ever defined your integrity? Do you know what it feels like to honor and preserve it? People who are able to do that often are usually guided by their true Self, with some Higher Powered help...

        We're the first Western (or global?) generation to popularly acknowledge the harmful relationship dy-namic of enabling. If out of kindness, compassion, or misplaced guilt I choose or accept too much respon-sibility for your problems (unfilled needs), I block you from learning how to master them. Thus enabling is the opposite of empowering, which is what wholistically healthy co-parents want to do for themselves, each other, and their descendents and others.

        Implication: caregivers are responsible for helping dependent kids learn to:

• evolve a realistic Personal Bill of Rights (integrity and dignity) and respect others' equal rights,

• take full responsibility for (a) identifying and (b) filling their own primary needs, and to...

• ask for help in filling them without excessive guilt, shame, or anxiety. (A  D  ?)

If you're guiding minor kids, are you and any partners doing these for them? Did your caregivers do them for you? Has anyone?

Recall: these premises about you, problems, and problem-resolution aim to help you become more aware of what you believe, so you can fill your needs (reduce discomforts) more often.

        Now let's build on the relationship premises above to look at...

  Premises about Solving Relationship Problems

Premise 16: "Solving a social problem" means "identifying and filling your and my current primary needs well enough, as judged by each of us."  (A  D  ?)
 

Premise 17: When based on genuine mutual respect, seven communication skills can empower any adult or child led by their true Self to analyze and resolve their innerpersonal and interpersonal prob-lems (need conflicts) well enough. Few parents or schools teach all these skills, so your family mem-bers probably need to learn them together.  (A  D  ?) See Project 2.

        Who's responsible in your home and family for learning and teaching effective-communication skills?

Premise 18: Without awareness, most of us try to fill our needs by...

• fighting and arguing (about who's wrong);

• projecting, repressing, minimizing, and numbing;

• intellectualizing, over-analyzing, discounting, and/or ignoring emotional and spiritual needs;

• threatening, controlling, and manipulating (my current needs outrank yours), and...

• avoiding, postponing, defocusing, denying, and/or withdrawing emotionally or physically.

None of these resolution-strategies fill co-parents' and kids' primary needs well enough. People who use them are unaware and often wounded, not bad, childish, selfish, or stupid! (A  D  ?) This is why family Project 1 (discerning and reducing false-self wounds) is essential to build effective problem-solving among your subselves and family members.

Premise 19: People who focus on resolving internal conflicts (among their personality subselves) first are best able to resolve interpersonal problems because they minimize confusing contradictions, double messages, and ambivalences. (A  D  ?) If you agree, is that what you usually do?

Premise 20: Adults can commit to helping each other learn effective problem-solving, and model and teach it to their young people and others, at any time. (A  D  ?)

Problem-solving Steps and Tips

Premise 21: An effective strategy for resolving any relationship "problem" between subselves and/or  people includes specific proactive steps. The first steps aim to answer two questions "What do I really
need now, and what - if anything - blocks filling my needs?" (A  D  ?)

        Typical steps you can tailor and adopt:

Admit that you have a relationship "problem" (unmet primary needs), and that you are responsible for deciding what you need, and asserting respectfully to get it.

Use this framework to analyze what is the problem - for whom?

Be aware of thinking or saying that "this problem is a crisis / disaster / catastrophe." These are "hand-grenade" (emotionally explosive) terms that can scare your subselves and other people and promote impulsive (unwise) reactions.

Make (vs. "find") undistracted time to work on the problem alone and with others in-volved.

Accept that your opinions, values, and primary needs are just as legitimate and impor-tant as anyone else's, regardless of age, role, race, faith, or gender.

Help everyone accept that being needy (wanting to reduce current discomforts) is normal and healthy, not weak (shameful)! That includes needing and accepting help, as long as you are mentally and physically able, and you don't expect or demand that someone else be responsible for filling your needs!

Grow and use a Personal Bill of Rights to help, and affirm others' equal rights. Shame-based (wounded) people have major trouble with this until they commit to true (vs. pseudo) wound- recovery.

Help each other accept that conflicts among subselves and people, and the emotions that go with them, are normal and potentially healthy, not inherently negative, wrong, or bad!

Focus on identifying unmet primary (vs. surface) needs, vs. who's wrong or at fault (blaming and defending). Criticizing, explaining, and defending promote lose-lose problem-solving!  Use a checklist like this to analyze your and your partner's primary needs:

Question	Answer	Resources
_  Is my true true Self guiding my other personality subselves now?	Yes    No or ?	Project-1 articles and guidebook
_  Have I reviewed my beliefs and attitudes about relationships?	Yes     No	These articles on attitudes and relationship premises
_  Am I motivated to expand my personal and social awarenesses?	Yes    No or ?	This article and practice exercise on improving awareness
_  Have I studied and applied these essential topics?	Yes    No or ?	These foundation articles
_  Have I refined my thinking and my ability to discover primary needs?	Yes    No or ?	These articles on clear thinking and digging down
_  Have I accepted these analysis options and prioritized my needs?	Yes    No or ?	Review this article, and use this worksheet
_  Have I tried these steps and done any needed troubleshooting?	Yes      No or ?	Assess for false self dominance
_  Have I explored which of my subselves are causing my problem?	Yes     No or ?	This step-by-step series on "parts work"

Stay aware of your problem-solving  process, and help each other learn and use all seven communication skills with patience and mutual respect. Identify simultaneous need-conflicts, separate and rank them, and work on one at a time.

The alternative is "riding off in all directions" and not filling each person's needs. Use the re-sources in Project 2 and its guidebook to patiently strengthen the effectiveness of your thinking and communicating.

In important situations, practice objectively noticing your and your communication partners' E(motion)-levels, R(espect)-messages, and awareness "bubbles."

Aim for good-enough compromises and solutions rather than perfection, "winning," or being right.

Help each other brainstorm viable solutions, vs. doing black-white, either-or thinking. There are always more than two options!

Help each other stay focused on identifying and filling current primary needs, vs. detour-ing too often into the past or the future.

Enjoy growing the art and skill of praising and affirming yourself and each other. Learn how to assert dodge-proof compliments and affirmations!

Identify what problem-solving techniques (e.g. these) consistently work for you as a person and as a family. Then help each other do more of them! Help each other stay aware of your process! This minimizes having how you communicate becoming the problem

If you or another person feel stuck in resolving a mutual dispute,

• use the troubleshooting table above as teammates, not opponents;

• review these common communication-blocks and tips together. They apply equally to dialogs among your subselves and with other people; and...

• Periodically review these communication basics together, and help each other improve your seven communication skills.  

Reality-check your expectations of yourself and each other. Your problem-partners may not be able or willing to fill your expectations.

Check to see that you each are able to spot and resolve values and loyalty conflicts, and associated relationship triangles.

If you're a courting or committed stepfamily, check to see that all related adults and kids...

• genuinely accept your stepfamily identity,

• agree on what that identity means,

• agree on who belongs to your multi-home stepfamily, and...

• are aware of these adjustment tasks and who's responsible for each of them; and...

If you have trouble with these, work at Projects 2, 3, 4,