I do a fair amount of work with couples. Some folks are married and some are not. Most are living with one another, although some have separated and they are attempting to find a way back towards one another. When I work with people I usually work with a few basic processes that emerge in their relationship. They are usually present in every relationship. They are awareness, communication, love, and trust.One must be paying attention to get anywhere in life, and that is true of having a successful relationship. This does not mean just watching your partner; it also means being aware of yourself. In fact, it starts with being aware of yourself. If you do not know what you are feeling, if your experience is dulled by the need to NOT know what is going on, and if you are out of touch with yourself so that you go through life on the run, whizzing past what it’s actually like at any given moment, then you will react to your partner rather than respond to your partner, and you will do and say things that mystify you when you get the echo back from other important people in your life.To overcome a lack of awareness, practice mindfulness. Google it. You will find countless references to mindfulness, but basically mindfulness is a skill. You can get better at it with practice. The skill of mindfulness is the ability to pay attention to what is happening in the current moment in yourself and in your environment as you realise how much a part of your situation you actually are. Any given situation is an emergent entity that depends on the actions of its parts and how they relate to one another.This means that your relationship is not a matter of one person and his or her good or bad behaviour. It is a larger “thing” and you can learn more about it, and do better at it, if you pay attention to all the various people and influences that contribute to your situation, especially in the roles they play and the ways in which they relate to one another.Communication is an essential process in relationships, and communication breakdowns are common focuses of attention in psychotherapy for relationship problems. Essentially, it boils down to a few concerns what you say, how you say it, what you perceive, and how you interpret it.Of course there is the content, the message, the thing you are trying to get across or the information you need to get. So, be clear about that. Know what you feel, and ask for what you want. Most of the time, however, the way a person expresses him or herself cuts the legs out from under the actual message he or she is attempting to get across. If you are feeling particularly romantic, and you want to be close to your partner, and you decide to say, “Come here”, you can say it softly, with a gleam in your eye, or you can bark it out like a drill sergeant giving orders. Which do you imagine will get you where you want to go? Then again, if your partner knows you, and if your partner knows that barking is your way of saying that you are feeling particularly frisky (go figure), then your partner might just “get” it.That leads us to the other side of the communication equation. There is sending, and there is receiving. We are meaning-making kinds of beings. We can’t help it. No matter what we are going through, we are constantly evaluating it for significance. So, when you see or hear your partner saying something, and you perceive how your partner is expressing it, you put that against the background of everything else that is going on in the situation, and you make a meaning out of it. Most people just act on such interpretations without checking them out, and that is what gets them into trouble. Check out the imaginations you have about what your partner is trying to tell you.Love. Some people think of love as a noun something you feel, something you either have or don’t have. In this regard people are, or are not, IN love. However, it is probably more useful to a relationship to think of love as a verb something you do. In this regard, you can give, express affection for your lover, take care of your lover, do the dishes and otherwise help around the house or actually sit with your partner and cuddle up to watch a football game together. One can take time away from individual pursuits, like playing games on the computer, to go for a walk or simply to sip a glass of wine and TALK with your partner. If you need something to read in order to get this more under your belt, consider love as a verb in the following (it is read at many weddings):“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (1 Corinthians 13: 4-7)Trust is like a fragile flower with delicate petals. It looks beautiful, and its fragrance satisfies. However, when that flower has been stepped on and neglected, it turns ugly, and it dies. People have to be able to depend on one another, which doesn’t mean that they become dependent, but it does mean that when one says to another that he or she will be there at a certain time and take out the garbage, that they actually do what they say they are going to do. People need to know that the other person has their back. People need to know that the other person is exclusively giving their body, their emotions, and their dedication to them. Trust. It’s hard to get back once that flower has been neglected.Of course there are many other matters that are relevant in relationships, but these four awareness, communication, love, and trust are critical. Whenever I meet with people to deal with problems in their relationship, it usually comes down to some measure of these things.