What really is a healthy relationship?
When it comes to healthy couples, our heads are usually filled with the best clichéd images we can conjure up, from torchlight camping on the beach, to holding hands on Instagram, to calligraphic silver rings. But all this has nothing to do with what is healthy, but with what is ideal. The ideal of romantic perfection that no one can ever fully access.
The concept of lo healthy it is something very different. What is healthy consists of a balance rigorously worked as a duo, cracked from time to time and carefully repaired by those involved. It is not a gleaming polished order that can be accessed through some superficial compromise rituals.
It is an order to work, always incomplete and raw at certain points, ready for both growth and deterioration depending on its caretakers, who will also be incomplete and raw at some points, full of harmful idealism.
But how can well-intentioned idealism be harmful, young couples in full romantic effervescence will ask. Well, because it is precisely through the idealization of the partner as being unpolluted and predestined that clear signs of affective toxicity are ignored. The initial infatuation causes a state of uncritical well-being that can be risky in certain relationships.
The rush of the first erotic impact eventually wears off and is replaced by the harsh routine of living together. In this new state, both obvious abuse, previously covered by enthusiasm, and exhaustion can occur. Both of these things must be dealt with promptly, either by cutting off the relationship to start a healthy one or by striving to preserve the passion in a more settled and lasting way.
Characteristics of healthy relationships
A long-term relationship can be an enriching experience, but it's not always a walk in the country. The constant friction between two characters, between two entire human universes, is naturally demanding and requires a series of implicit and explicit agreements to make it work. We are going to explore the characteristics of healthy relationships, from the very basics.
Respect
The most basic consists, of course, in mutual respect. Each member of the couple must treat the other with a sense of equality, as a person worthy of deferential treatment, carefully considering her concerns and opinions, without imposing their own criteria, avoiding any internal consultation.
It is impossible to love without respect, which is why this is the essential section to evaluate if there really is a deep emotional connection within the relationship. Only through respect can a lasting self-esteem be built, which generates certainty and warm support, as well as a deep understanding between both.
This characteristic alone removes any possibility of conformism in the face of prolonged mistreatment or abuse. If there is no minimum respect, the relationship not only does not work, but it does not deserve to be called as such.
Honesty
Another essential characteristic of a good relationship is honesty. You can't live with someone who constantly distorts reality. Secrets poison trust, and masks worn over faces hinder mutual understanding and block the affinity necessary for continued relationship development.
The lies make the relational building collapse, built on the basis of the frontality of the character and the real commitment, creating a feeling of uncertainty and humiliation that hangs like a shadow over the couple. In biblical terms, the truth will make you free, happy and fulfilled.
Trust
Trust is derived from honesty and respect. The feeling of being able to count on the other's goodwill in times of celebration or depression is important for sustaining a relationship. Nothing worse than a person who constantly disappears or is reluctant to support you in various situations that may arise. The feeling of relationship abandonment is particularly hurtful and causes major conflicts.
Conversely, giving a partner a vote of confidence is also critical to a relationship. It can be just as damaging to continually mistrust a partner's commitment, fidelity, or attention if there are no real reasons to do so. It would be useful to do a good self-analysis to examine if there really are causes for our concerns, relax if there is not, and give the affected person a sincere vote of confidence.
On the contrary, if we are the ones affected and we are innocent of any suspicion, it is necessary to stand up and demand trust in our actions. Only with a good trust circuit can a good affective dynamic be established.
Shared time
All the virtues of the world together would not be enough if there were no time and space to share. The rapport of a good couple is only achieved with frequent and dedicated contact, with an exchange of interests, comments, experiences and opinions, with the enjoyment of leisure in company.
The first big sign of burnout in a couple is not being willing to find time to spend together. No matter how absorbing a job or a personal project among friends may be, spaces for romantic encounters should always be found.
If a couple truly feels good about being together, they will pursue these spaces even in impossible circumstances. Note that this concept of sharing refers to valuable time in company, not company kept all the time, at all costs. The forced exchange, without breaks, can do more to exhaust the relationship than the prudent distance.
Although it sounds at this point like a reprehensible commonplace, communication is still the most essential element when it comes to building and maintaining a stable relationship.
Communication
That a couple has the freedom and ability to express what they feel is of great importance in their internal dynamics. Prolonged silences, held in this way in the spiteful hope that the other will notice the discomfort for himself, do nothing to resolve emerging problems.
Conversations that turn into monologues by one of the members who is excessively talkative and self-centered are also of no help in resolving conflicts. Communication should be direct, clear, and affectionate, while simultaneously proposing solutions or at least being open to seeking them.
It is essential that each feel heard by the other, without exasperated interruptions or double talk. It is not productive to embark on a cycle of insults, teasing or comments released only to hurt. The exchange must be genuine and respectful, without forgetting the love present within the relationship.
diversity of opinion
We always think of healthy couple relationships as perfect groupings of tribal, aesthetic, political or any other affinities, as if the chosen partner were an extension of our own identities or tastes.
The truth is that the most stable relationships are not built only through agreements, but through well-managed disagreements. Despite the potential for conflict that nests in each disagreement, these same imbalances give dynamism and oxygen to the couple.
Two people throwing the same perspectives at each other, then nodding, can end up as stagnant water, a scenario in which the relationship ends up being an interruption of their development as individuals.
Knowing the diversity of opinion regarding the couple is a good symbol of the level of mutual knowledge reached. Disagreement is a challenge by which people grow, improving their arguments or considering other perspectives.
To summarize it in an image, the touch makes us sharp, not the caress. On the other hand, the different opinion of someone with whom we live forces us to negotiate diplomatically and eventually give in to keep the peace, skills that are necessary for every human being in society.
Acceptance
Having dealt with the issue of the benefits of disagreement, we must arrive at the implicit recommendation of this process: acceptance. Although all people who are in a couple must worry about being the best version of themselves for their love, there is a transformation limit that the partner must keep in mind.
Acceptance can be understood as a higher stage of the basic respect of one member of the couple over the other. It is about fully understanding and enjoying your most irreformable nature.
It doesn't make much sense to mate with one identity and then demand a completely different one. There is a ceiling for change and the notion of overcoming does not have to become a metamorphosis. In fact, this obsessive desire that one member of the couple may have to radically transform the other has its probable origin in a personal psychic problem that should be resolved.
Sometimes, a person will demand of their partner that they be more extroverted and willing to dance, play or musical entertainment in general. It is possible that this demand comes from the oppression complexes that the person himself has been dragging from a restrictive childhood, parental severity or religious extremism.
But then it is the couple who receives the demand to become the life of the party, a role that is not compatible with their more timid identity, just so that the person can compensate for a built-in frustration from the past.
This example helps us see how unfair it can be to demand extreme change that we can unleash on the object of our affections and how much unnecessary unhappiness can be unleashed from this attitude. It would be much cheaper emotionally and more pragmatically to accept the nature of those who love us, seeking a path of beautiful complementarity instead of irrational impositions.
Care
In this last item, in a certain way, all the aforementioned characteristics of healthy couple relationships. The care of the relationship is obviously the aspect that integrates all the factors that participate in the survival of the union.
We can say that a couple forms a kind of common body and, like any body, needs to be checked regularly to ensure its health. Some symptoms of illness could be identified on examination: a certain indifference spreading through her extremities, some level of malnutrition from lack of affection, discolored skin from fears of betrayal, among many other possible examples.
Feeling some conditions, both members will take care of healing and saving their common body, the body of the relationship that they have neglected a little.
How to save it? Acting and speaking honestly, communicating generously with effectiveness, tact and speed, rebuilding trust through new behavior agreements and nobly accepting divergence from one's own opinion, without idealistic authoritarianism. All within the highest respect.
To finish, we invite you to watch the following video, in which the psychologist Lucy Serrano explains in an entertaining way what a healthy relationship consists of. Harmful character of idealization, criteria of equality, respect, individual growth, emotional stability and the art of letting go are well summarized.
So far this review of the most important and common characteristics of the healthy couple relationships. If this article has been of interest to you, you will most likely want to read this other one on our website as a complement, one dedicated to identifying signs of a worn out partner. This will help you recognize when it is time to seek help or alternatives to get out of the relational impasse. Follow the link!
