If you scored low in this attribute, you may want to review your level of comfort with disclosing information about yourself. In a partnership, you must be able to express your needs to your partner. An inability to articulate what you need from the partnership will ultimately cause resentment and anger when over time you see your partner getting everything he or she wants while your needs go unmet.
The outcome is often passive/aggressive behavior—a sure killer of partnerships. Once this pattern is introduced into the partnership, trust is eroded, win-lose conflict resolution and problem solving predominate, and independent behavior takes over as each partner struggles to salvage what’s left of a dysfunctional partnership.
In a partnership, you must be able to ask for what you need. This is why we spend so much time in the Assess stage of the Partnership Continuum model doing a needs assessment. Once you know what you need, you must feel confident asking for it. Your ability to selfdisclose also sends a coded message to partners about your willingness to share. If everyone is talking about his or her personal life but you never confide anything, what do you think the reaction is going to be? If you scored high in this attribute, you’re probably able to ask for what you need. This ability tends to build trust between people— at least they know where you stand. You’re probably comfortable with interdependence and use a win-win style of conflict resolution and problem solving, since you know your needs will not be left out of the equation.