Signs of Healthy Relationships
Creating Loving Relationships
Although a relationship often involves compromise and selflessness, your individuality should be maintained and cultivated.
- Before making a commitment, ask yourself the following two questions:
- Am I happy and fulfilled with my own life?
- Is my potential partner happy and fulfilled with his or her own life?
- Ask yourself: Does he or she help you to like yourself and the world more? Take the time to discover and explore the possible flaws in the relationship (not necessarily the flaws in each of you). What does each of you want in life and from the other?
- Before making a commitment, it’s important for both of you to clearly define the boundaries of the relationship. Don’t assume that both of you have the same expectations.
- Take the early phases of the relationship slowly so that you can get to know your partner’s behavioral patterns and what you can expect from them.
- Honorable fighting does not ever include physical clashes, cruel personal criticism, name calling, the silent treatment, constant nagging, or other forms of abuse. Fighting honorably is when you argue about individual differences constructively and learn something which brings you and your partner closer together. It is about loving yourself and loving your partner enough to want to understand each other and to be understood by each other.
- Don’t avoid conflict. See it as an opportunity to learn and grow.
Five Features of Successful (Mutually Fulfilling) Relationships
- Commitment
Fundamentally you and your partner have decided that being a couple, and staying a couple, is one of the most important purposes in your lives. Without commitment, trust and security are difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.
- Agreement
Agreement on the fundamental rules of the relationship from the start is essential.
- Communication
Talking to each other: expressing appreciation, arguing over disagreements, making plans together, letting your partner know when your feelings are hurt, etc. Communication is not always friendly, sometimes loud, often difficult.
- Compromise
Compromise does not mean that in every situation where you have differing opinions, you meet halfway. Compromise often means yielding to your partner. In any relationship, the relationship benefits when both partners work at it. Both partners must have the willingness to compromise because of their commitment to the relationship.
- Acceptance
Acceptance of who your partner is, not who you would like him/her to be.
No partner is ever exactly as you would like him or her to be. You won’t always agree. And because you won’t always agree, you’ll have to talk or argue with each other until you can agree. And then, you won’t always get your way.
First section, "Creating Loving Relationships", adapted from Feathering Your Nest
Second section, "Five Features of Successful (Mutually Fulfilling) Relationships", adapted from The Male Couples Guide |
