Creating a good (reciprical) relationship implies learning how to interact with your partner in ways that promote and enhance honest communication while allowing for trust and vulnerability. Becoming skillful at relationships requires both your own inner work and external work (on your partnership).  Consider 5 pointers to nourish a satisfying relationship:

Unconditional Love & Compassion: How to have a satisfying relationship? Some say its key to always put your partner first. Yet, you cannot ignore yourself. Focus on what you are giving and how you are caring in balance with what you are receiving.  Express your needs in a way your partner can understand. If s/he does not get it, this may not be the right person for you.

Absolute Courage and Vulnerability: Love no matter what and commit to absolute truth. Treat someone else as you would have done unto you or treat your partner better to raise the bar on how you would like to be treated. The power of compliments, kind gestures and expressing love is often underestimated. Yet, if this baffles or overwhelms your partner, you may not see eye -to-eye and the relationship may drain rather than energize you.

Know the Truth: This is not about blaming. The key to extraordinary relationships is to know your partner’s soul and never make them wrong. Understand their needs, past hurts, behaviours and patterns. If it resonates, do what you can to satisfy their needs.  Yet, being a good partner in a relationship is also about feeling complete unto yourself without the other person. Know that you cannot satisfy each other's voids, only enrich each other.

Be Honest with yourself: Get conscious and commit to moment-to-moment awareness. Your state, body language, words and actions have a direct and potentially lasting impact on your relationship.

Giving Freedom: The power of forgiving, forgetting is profound. There is a saying: if you give a bird freedom and he comes back, he is yours. If the bird never comes back, he was never yours.  This is not about possession but rather about free will.  Create a safe space for your partner to make honest mistakes and make them feel that they can take comfort in a secure relationship. You cannot force anything. Satisfying relationships arise from giving partners the freedom to value you as you are or move on without imposing guitlt or coersion.