Relationships are diminished when partners get into the habit of making assumptions. People say facetiously that when you assume, you "make an ass out of you and me." Rather than make assumptions, people should: Find the courage to ask questions, even tough ones. Openly express their needs, wants, and feelings. Communicate as clearly as possible so as to avoid drama and bickering.  Resist the urge to pretend to know what the other individual is thinking.  Making assumptions falls into the same category as playing games.  If you don't know how your partner feels on a given issue, just ask. If asking doesn't yield answers, then there are definite communication problems that need addressing.  In a healthy relationship, partners are glad to bounce ideas off one another and work together to arrive at solutions to problems in the relationship.  Without a strong system of communication in place, partners may potentially distrust one another, ...

One of my favorite movie quotes comes from "Under Siege 2," a rather obscure 1995 action thriller starring Steven Seagal. During an exchange between the two main villains, one assures the other that our hero (Seagal) disappeared and is presumably dead. Then the other curtly asks, "Did you see the body?" before delivering a powerful line I've never forgotten since watching the movie as a kid: "Assumption is the mother of all f*ck-ups." We've all been there. We (or someone we know) make a choice without doing our due diligence -- perhaps out of sheer laziness or carelessness -- and later say, "I just assumed so and so." Later, we feel a sense of regret and wish we had done our research. For example, my wife often assumes that just because she sees a product being advertised on the website of a given retailer -- say, Macy's -- they're bound to have that very item available at our local store. Such a faulty assumption resu...

I realize this isn't the first time I've written on this topic, but it's something that continues to boggle my mind more and more with each passing day. Why does society pressure us so much into following a certain course of action -- that is, the route everyone else has taken? Just the other day, my coworker heard me saying I wanted to get a cat instead of a dog and gave me a 10-minute spiel on why getting a dog is the right choice. A mom of two, she based her argument on the assumption that my wife and I will have kids someday, and so she gave me her "mommy perspective." It's astonishing how people just assume things this way. Most people think everyone aims for the big-house-with-white-picket-fence-plus-three-kids--and-two-dogs deal, but that just isn't always the case. In addition to wanting a cat instead of a dog, here are a few other ways I might be going against the grain: I want to buy a condo, not a house (cheaper and less maintenance) I...