According to a statement by Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina’s leadership and relationship coach Jennifer Howell, a healthy relationship is one where both people can live with love and respect for each other. It is the one where they could talk their heart out with each other, listen, understand and accept it as well. But, if they are always trying to make constant efforts to coordinate with each other, then the relationship is only about responsibilities and not love.
How to Have A Healthy relationship?
According to "Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin", research published in August 2019, staying in a relationship for a long time, where you are unable to find happiness and satisfaction, it is rather better to stay alone. In the same regard, Houston's intimacy and sex psychotherapist, Mary Jo Rapini while giving a statement on healthy relationships said that toxic relationships have a significant impact on the quality of our life. Along with increasing the problems in life, unhealthy habits like stress, restlessness, sleep deprivation, etc. also affect our heart.
According to Rapini, many people are not able to understand that they are in an unhealthy relationship. For a happy and healthy relationship, it is very important for people to understand the genuineness of the other person. Therefore, ETV Bharat Sukhibhava would like to share with you 9 such indications, which will help you know if your relationship is healthy or not. Have a look!
1. Ability To Talk Openly
Jennifer Howell says that it is very important in any relationship that both partners can talk openly about anything to each other. If the partners are not able to talk about each other’s unacceptable habits with the fear of breaking the relationship, then its impact is clearly reflected on their relationship. A healthy relationship is one where both partners can express their likes and dislikes in respect to each other's habits.
2. Mutual Trust
According to Mary Jo Rapini, trust is the foundation of any relationship. When both partners trust each other wholeheartedly, a sense of freedom and space also increases. However, if there is even the slightest decrease in trust in a relationship and the partners are constantly checking each other’s phone or stalking their social networking accounts, all this can lead to bitterness in the relationship.
3. Knowing Each Other’s Love language And Needs
Howell explains that the famous book, "The Five Love Language", describes that when a person accepts you with all their heart, they start understanding even your tiny actions and habits. Relationships will be more romantic once the partners start understanding each other’s small habits and actions, through which they express their love.
4. Ability To Say No To Each Other
Disagreements and quarrels between couples are common. Rapini explains that in every healthy relationship, there are at least 5 such issues on which both have a completely different outlook and thinking. She says that in such a situation if one partner understands the other's attitude and does not try to change it, it means their relationship is healthy.
5. Encouraging Each Other To Achieve Goals
According to Howell, every person's dreams and goals are different. Therefore, if both partners understand each other's dreams and goals and encourage them to achieve them, then their relationship is filled with more love and respect.
6. Respecting Each Other’s Different Interests
Just like dreams and goals, Howell also mentions that every person has different interests and in such a case, neither of them should try to impose their own interests on each other and respect their hobbies and privacy. This not only increases the trust between the two, but the feelings of self-confidence and self-love also develop individually.
7. Acceptance Of The Partners Strengths And Weaknesses
Every person has different strengths and weaknesses. According to Howell, if you understand and accept your partner's weaknesses and their strengths and move forward in a relationship, relations are likely to strengthen.
8. Respecting The Boundaries
Howell giving the example of a person’s financial conditions says that if your partner understands your economic condition and limitations related to your thinking and ideology and respects your opinion after taking all those things into consideration in every small decision, then that is a positive sign in any relationship.
9. Feeling Happy And Supported
According to a study published in "The General of Affective Disorders" in July 2015, dissatisfaction or lack of happiness can also give rise to certain physical problems. This research, conducted on about 5000 adults over 50 years of age, found that people who experienced stress, restlessness, and discomfort in their relationship were more likely to have physical problems. Even many of them felt suicidal several times. At the same time, adults who were in a strong and healthy relationship lived those years of their life, when they needed their partners the most, in a better way with love between them.
Therefore, if you feel you are having an unhealthy and toxic relationship with your partner, instead of draining yourself both physically and mentally, it is rather better to be alone and happier. You can also look for a relationship counselor if you both are willing to mend things and work them out.
