You need to get real and extremely clear about where you are in your relationship and why. You need to know the things that work well an the things that don't. "Half of the solution to any problem lies in defining the problem." You cannot change or heal what you do not acknowledge.

You need to find out what you personally have done, both positively and negatively, to put your relationship in the position you now find it. Is it your lack of communication, your tendency to fight, your fear of intimacy, a general emptiness, or any of a number of other problems.

The sick relationship is like any other ailment that is subject to diagnosis. If you make a wrong diagnosis, you not only treat the wrong thing; you ignore the real problem because you already think you are on track.

To rescue your relationship, your job is not only to thoroughly and accurately diagnose what it is that needs to change, but then implement the correct intervention strategies that will make that change happen. It does require you to be excruciatingly honest bout this relationship and the part that you play in it. If your relationship is absolutely off in a ditch, you must admit it. If your relationship is emotionally bankrupt because you and your partner are completely drained, admit it. If you are married but are living an "emotional divorce", admit it. If this relationship is killing you and your self-worth and value, admit it. If you have become hardened and callused by the pain, admit that too.

Is the problem caused by one of you dumping on the other for frustrations about life that have nothing to do with your relationship? Have the two of you been parents for so long that you've forgotten what it means to be friends and lovers? Have you forgotten how to pay attention to each other? Do you no longer have sex in your marriage? What's happened to the intimacy? Are you cold and distant to your partner because of something that happened ten years ago? Are you a double-income couple with no time for each other? Is there tension because of a past affair on the part of one partner?

You must play an active role from start to finish. You must engage your mind, your heart and your soul so you can get in touch with your own feelings.  (Click on each of the following for detailed profiles and tests):

• [Click here] Personal Concepts Profile
• [Click here] Relationship Health Profile
• [Click here] General Relationship Problem Profile
• [Click here] Specific Relationship Problem Profile
• [Click here] The Relationship Behavior Profile: Your Partner
• [Click here] The Relationship Behavior Profile: You
• [Click here] Your Relationship Lifestyle Profile
• [Click here] Relationship Communication Test
• [Click here] Chemistry Test
• [Click here] The Five Tough Questions

I suspect that you have never been as brutally honest about yourself, your feelings, and your relationship as you are being now.  As a result, I strongly suspect that you may be meeting yourself, and thus your partner's partner, for the first time ever.  You could be having mixed emotions right now, but please, don't get down on yourself here.  If you have emerged from these tests, thinking, "Whoa, my relationship is far, far worse than I thought," just hold on and keep reading.  As I told you at the start of this book, you have been given so much misinformation that it's amazing that you have maintained any kind of relationship at all.  I want you to get excited about getting real with yourself.  You are about to make a huge U-turn in your relationship.