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I'm not talking about a "checklist" - but honest self-examination. Notice I didn't make a checklist...
I disagree about "doing things for yourself" and "making yourself" happy being a focus. The me-me-me attitude is what I think spoils relationships. This is why I think it's good to consider how you enrich others' lives. What do you do that is unselfish, caring, noble, thoughtful, generous, etc? Of course, this will likely make you happy as a byproduct.
I agree about honest self-examination - but I don't think that is the same thing as saying what you bring to the table.
I used to have a tendency to do everything I could to please the person I was with and to try to change myself into who they wanted me to be. That didn't make either one of us happy. I guess I learned to be true to myself and it worked out really well. But I also really like to do things to make other people happy - so I'm not talking about being selfish. I guess what I meant was more along the lines of getting in shape because it makes you feel better instead of getting in shape to attract someone, following your dreams because they are important to you instead of doing it to get noticed, being your silly self instead of trying to look cool, etc.
It's funny, the older I get, the more humble I'm getting.. so I wonder if the few things may be less than I think....
Well, on a serious note, and to get back on topic - being introspective enough to know your strengths and weaknesses is something I believe you fine tune with age. But when two partners can't bring at least a little of this to the relationship, they might not be ready for one.
These days if my husband and I have a disagreement, one of us usually comes back after a cooling off period and will voice a truism about ourselves as a way of getting the conversation back on track, and maybe apologizing for what went wrong. Something like, "I've realized I'm not as flexible as I'd like to be".
One thing I've really learned over the years, when you can lose your knee jerk reactions/tendencies to be defensive with your partner, you can actually see and understand yourself a lot more clearly.
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