What is a Healthy Relationship

Have you ever wondered whether you’re in a healthy relationship or whether you would even be able to recognize a healthy relationship?  I’ve borrowed from the wisdom of many, but especially therapists/authors Terry Real, Pia Mellody, David Richo, John Gottman, and Patricia Evans to identify 4 characteristics that serve as cornerstones of healthy and mature relationships.  These characteristics are 1) Realistic expectations, 2) Valuing and respect, 3) Accountability, and 4) Genuine connection.
 
Realistic expectations cover each partner’s expectations for the relationship as well as for themselves and their partners.  Without realistic expectations you may experience confusion and ambivalence about your relationship.   Such ambivalence can cause swinging to emotional extremes, or to seesawing about being committed to a relationship.  Below are examples of realistic expectations.
 

• A relationship will not remain in the honeymoon phase forever.  It is not possible for any long-term relationship to sustain the intense passion of early romances.
• Cycles of harmony, disharmony, and repair should be expected in any relationship.  Disagreements, fights, and arguments will occur.
• One partner in one relationship cannot meet 100% of our needs and wants.  Many needs/wants can be met much of the time within a relationship, but none will be met all the time and some won’t be met at all.
• Each partner is an imperfect human being and will make mistakes, have weaknesses, and react in response to their fears and vulnerabilities.
• You cannot provide unconditional love for your partner, nor can they provide it for you.
• Intimacy is not easy.  It requires personal strength, practice, and vigilance.  It can feel uncomfortable.
• Problems in the relationship do not mean that you must reject your partner.
• Disillusionment, betrayals and resultant grief are inevitable in any relationship.

 
The second cornerstone, Valuing and respect, includes valuing and respect for the relationship as well as for yourself and your partner as individuals within the relationship.  In healthy relationships partners honor the relationship but also recognize that without honoring themselves and their partner as individuals the relationship cannot thrive.  Below are some requirements of healthy valuing and respect in relationships.
 

• Each partner chooses “us” over “me” including letting go of needing to be right, feeling vindictive, and needing personal justice.

 

• Partners focus on solutions to problems as part of a team.  They have the ability to negotiate and compromise as well as to follow a reconciliation model rather than a retaliation model.  Partners can forgive.
• Partners have the ability to respect and support the other’s needs, wants, and dreams.
• There is an absence of competitiveness between partners.  Neither partner needs to have power over the other or be better than the other.
• Partners don’t feel threatened by the other’s independence or achievements.
• Partners have no need to manipulate, control, or demand changes of each other to be comfortable.
• Partners have no need for the other to think the same as they do on every topic.
• Partners are committed to working through problems as they arise.

 
Accountability entails each partner being responsible for his or her own sensitivities, vulnerabilities, and transgressions, and taking ownership for their own healing and growth.  It speaks directly about the idea that individuals need to be strong selves to be healthy within a relationship.  Accountability includes challenges for many of us, such as:
 

• Partners don’t rely on the other to feel worthwhile or for self-esteem.  There are no demands for partners to revere each other at all times.
• Partners can recognize and own their needs and wants being met.  There is no expectation that their partner will be a mind reader about wants, needs, or expectations.
• Partners are clear on and enforce their limits regarding what is offensive or intolerable to them.
• Partners are responsible for developing the ability to calm themselves back into a centered, grounded, mature state if triggered into an emotionally reactive state.  Partners are accountable for behavior, words, and choices that occur while emotionally reactive.

 
The fourth cornerstone of a healthy relationship is genuine connection, which encompasses giving and receiving.  Genuine connection arises from the personal strengths and abilities of each partner including:
 

• Partners can tolerate occasional offenses without rejecting the other or feeling diminished. 
• Partners don’t confuse attachment with love, or dependency with connection.  There is no terror of aloneness or abandonment.
• Partners don’t experience closeness as smothering.
• Partners are emotionally able to give and receive.  They are caregivers rather than caretakers.  They can receive care rather than being needy or disconnected.
• Partners don’t have mindsets arising from fear, anger or desire that distort reality and interfere with the ability to connect.
• Partners can tolerate the givens of intimacy including betrayal, hurt, love, confrontations, self-disclosure, and expressions of emotion.
• Partners experience enjoyment, admiration, fondness, and affection toward the other.

 

No one can live up to everything covered in these four cornerstones all the time.  However, if the majority of these characteristics are present in a relationship much of the time, it is an exceptionally healthy relationship.
 
If you’re interested in exploring how to improve your relationships, please call me for an initial consultation at 720-363-5538.