“You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.”

When Indira Gandhi, the former Prime Minister of India, said this, I think it was for more political reasons and for her peace advocacy. But I believe we can also take this as inspiration in communicating towards a successful relationship with a spouse or a boyfriend/girlfriend. I believe that a relationship can’t succeed if hearts and minds are kept closed and unyielding.

While communication is not everything there is to a relationship, I think there won’t be any real relationship between two people, if they don’t openly communicate and are always trying to assert themselves once they talk. Of course, I don’t think that there is such a thing as a perfect relationship in terms...

Trust is one of the interesting concepts that have come out in this blog recently, particularly when I wrote about keeping long-distance ties. Many of you would agree that in a relationship, building trust is a critical foundation. You need it when you want to establish a good connection with people – not just in marriage or boyfriend-girlfriend relationships, but equally important in raising children, being with friends, working with colleagues, and others. And this is true regardless of where you are – whether the other person is miles away from you or he or she’s someone that you see everyday.

I’ve learned a great deal about trust in my life. Most of them I got the hard way – through mistakes. In the first place, I think that’s...