What Is A Healthy Relationship?

The two things we most need in healthy relationships are to be understood and to be respected. Commitment is also an important ingredient.

Understanding
For many people, to be heard and understood is to be loved. For one person to really "get you", validate how you feel and connect with you in compassion and curiosity is a wonderful experience. Conversely, to not feel heard and understood is to feel judged and disregarded, like the other doesn't care. Click here for Conscious Listening Couples Exercise. Good communication is critical for a good relationship.

Respect
Respect means that not only do I love you and "get" who you are in your goodness, but I see your wisdom. It means I see your strengths and trust you. Respect is relational in that it takes my being respectable for you to respect me. It takes also your self-respect for you to respect me. Respect involves a fundamental value of treating others with kindness and integrity. It means honoring their boundaries. It means understanding the difference between love and attachment.

A healthy relationship requires that we address obstacles to intimacy and destructive, dysfunctional aspects of the relationship. In his book "The New Rules of Marriage", Terrence Real, PhD defines these obstacles as: untreated mental health problems, addiction and abuse. I would also add infidelity. When these big issues are present in the relationship, they can hold it in a cycle of spinning around and around perpetuating hurt and harm and not allowing for safety and health to take root.

Once these issues are addressed and harmful behaviors stopped, most likely with the help of individual or marriage counseling, the relationship needs to heal from the trauma. Trust needs to be developed. Forgiveness and trust can only flourish when the obstacles no longer threaten the relationship. Once the healing occurs, the relationship and intimacy can progress to a new level. If you or your partner are not willing to address these obstacles, it might be time to ask yourself some hard questions about the ultimate value of your relationship. In his research on "successful marriages", John Gottman, PhD identifies seven criteria that successful, or healthy relationships meet. In his study and observation of many marriages, he has found that in successful marriages, couples:

1. Know each other's love maps. This means that they know what makes each other feel loved and card for and do these things.

2. Nurture fondness and admiration. This means that they are friends and feel respect for one another.

3. Turn toward each other instead of away. This means there is a pattern of coming together and interacting with openness instead of putting up walls.

4. Let their partner influence them. This means that they can yield to the other. His studies show that culturally, women more often yield and let themselves be influenced by men but that in successful marriages, men do this as well.

5. Solve the solvable problems. They have negotiation and compromising skills.

6. Overcome gridlock. When there is an issue that the couple cannot come to an agreement about, they accept it and dialogue about it, understanding that it cannot be solved.

7. Create shared meaning. Spirituality or common meaningful activities are shared and celebrated in the relationship.

A Path

A healthy relationship is not something you either have or don't have. It isn't black and white. We all have unhealthy aspects of ourselves and tendencies to avoid intimacy. However, as we bring these to the light and examine them, we can come closer to being the best of who we are. A healthy relationship requires that each partner is wanting and willing to stretch and grow beyond the ego and appeal to maturity. It also involves caring for and nurturing the relationship.

From Healthy Relationship to Home Page