I remember sitting in graduate school in one of my first marriage counseling classes and the Professor handed out a survey. It asked us a series of questions about relationships and conflict. We passed our papers to a neighbor and scored them. It showed that I was off the charts on "mind reading" as a relational expectation. Turns out I wasn't the only one; the majority of my classmates scored just as high. It was quite the eye-opener! Since then I have worked not only in my marriage but helped many others work on their faulty mind reading expectations. We often expect others to anticipate our needs. We expect them to know how we're feeling and why we are feeling that way. We are then frustrated and let down when they don't follow through with what we've expected internally. We typically never bother to tell them how we felt or what we needed or to give them the whole truth ahead of time. "I'm fine", we said. Or, "just leave me alone." When really internally the desire is saying "please don't walk out of the room, ask me again, tell me it's OK." I work with many couples in marriage counseling to break through this mind reading in order to navigate through hurt to deeper connection. We work on identifying and labeling needs, feelings, desires and then communicating those effectively. For some, they have to work on receiving the actions they asked for because it feels fake or forced from the spouse who has been told what the other desired. Love is action. Love is not reading someone's mind; that's an unrealistic expectation that will lead to much dissatisfaction and discouragement in relationships. Receiving the loving actions is loving as well and feeds the relationship in a positive way. Might you be expecting your partner to read your mind? Have you felt discouraged when desires go unfulfilled? Counseling can help sort all this through and enrich the relationship to be more connected and fulfilling.