• Implementing people skills in your life is pretty easy, if you understand the basic premise.
  Treat people in a way that you would like to be treated.
• The best all-around response to strengthen relationships. "Tell me more about that."
• Compromise. Even if you don't get everything you want, settle for an improvement on the status quo.
• Have something meaningful to say. Speak with clarity and intelligence.
• Humans must feel heard before they'll listen. Remain open to the ideas of others.
• If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all. Nobody wins from negative comments.
• A disagreeable nature - the need to argue about anything - surrounds issues with illogical garbage,
  so that no one can think clearly.
• Angry behavior (yelling, slamming doors, huffing) distributes stress to everyone in the area, and causes people to shut down. Energy that could solve the problem is wasted.
• Scolding, shaming, and threatening do not work.
  While they may produce temporary results, eventually people will fulfill your low opinion of them.
• Steps to responding to criticism: acknowledge you understand it, ask for more information, express what you agree with (apologize if necessary), and offer a plan to change the situation.
• People are attracted to those who give them the three basic needs they hunger for - acceptance, approval and appreciation.
• Remember the psychological law that makes human beings mimic you.
  Adopt the attitude and action you want the other fellow to express.
• People "love" you because they love the way you make them feel. Your interest in them generates feelings of camaraderie.
• People may not remember what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel.

SMILE! A sincere smile works a magic spell that rekindles friendship.

Author Unknown

Relationship Revival/Survival Tips

Most of us want to be in love, and to make our loving relationships lasting and fulfilling.
Here are 14 tips developed by the Falls Church, Virginia-based PAIRS Foundation which can help your relationship today,
and everyday. We hope you'll share these tips with your partner.

1. First, foremost and always - Learn to listen. Listen to yourself as well as your partner.

2. Actions speak louder then words. Your non-verbal communication says volumes and could easily be misread.
Be aware of your body language.

3. Test all you assumptions verbally. No matter how "obvious" it is to you and how 'certain' you are of your partner's views,
check it out. Ask and listen for intent.

4. Recognize when your communication is creating more of a problem than the problem itself.

5. Accentuate the positive. Appreciate one thing about the other daily - say so verbally.

6. Keep your partner informed of your concerns - about work, home, family.

7. Don't go to bed angry - talk it out.

8. Monitor a potentially irritating, angry tone of voice that can turn a discussion into an argument.

9. Don't preach or lecture.

10. Use tact and timing. Pick mutually agreeable times to have important conversations.

11. Forgive - don't hold a grudge.

12. Bond - Affection and physical closeness help emotional openness. Hold hands, kiss in public, call at work just to say you love your partner, hug in elevators; sex should never be your only avenue to closeness. Try it.

13. Play - take time to do things you love - together. Give each other a coupon book with 14 items you know your partner likes to do and fill in the dates to do them together.

14. Make time to do all of the above. Time and sharing is life.