5-Conditions Which Contribute To A Healthy Relationship

 The past 40 years have yielded unprecedented knowledge about what we need in order to have “healthy” relationships. In this case, I use the word “healthy” to mean that it is a relationship in which there is a good chance that each person will have their emotional needs met and that the relationship has the potential for long-term happiness.

In this blog post, I will illustrate five such conditions. This is by no means an extensive list, there are other reasons why a relationship may go awry. Each relationship expresses these traits (or their lack thereof) differently. It is also important to note that relationships are a two-way street. Just as you must embody these qualities for your partner, they also be equally concerned with exemplifying these qualities themselves. If one or both of you fail to do so, the relationship is unlikely to be satisfying to either partner. I would also like to note that although I am writing this as a blog post specifically addressing romantic relationships, this extends to all intimate relationships including family, close friendships and even some work relationships.    

1.   Safety

A safe relationship means that the individuals within it feel safe that their behaviors and actions will not be punished in the form of physical or emotional violence. I define emotional violence as any behavior designed to “make” your partner change their behavior against their will. This includes not only direct violence such as physical abuse, verbal abuse, and intentional psychological manipulation but also more subtle forms of violence such as withholding attention, guilt-tripping, gaslighting, denying responsibility for one’s actions, and many more.

 This does not mean that a safe relationship never has disagreements, nor does it mean that everyone within the relationship always gets along perfectly. It only means that on a broader level, each person believes that they will have space to talk about their beliefs, actions, and feelings without fear of emotional or physical violence.

It is also important to note that the feeling of safety is subjective. Although there are some actions that are objectively destructive to relationships (such as the above), it is equally if not more common that one or both partners feel unsafe due to behaviors which the other person deems appropriate or even encourages. Most of the time, these behaviors are not as obviously destructive as the ones listed above.

There is no one-size-fits-all formula for creating safety in a relationship. It’s something that must be consistently negotiated with your partner. Thus, if you believe that a lack of safety is an issue in your relationship, your best tool for understanding how to work on it is to ask your partner what they need and listen to them.

2.    Caring/Appreciation/love/non-judgmental respect

This is both a prerequisite for creating a sense of safety in a relationship and is also a separate, stand-alone quality worth discussing. To be caring of someone as I am defining it is to hold your partner in high regard- to be someone whom you admire, respect, and love. This probably seems obvious, but it can also be extremely difficult. You must hold your partner in high regard consistently, not conditionally. 

This means that even if you’re in a disagreement with your partner, or you find yourself angry or upset at them, you must simultaneously demonstrate non-judgment, respect, and care for them. This is important because it communicates that you value them unconditionally, and you respect that they are their own person. If you only respect and love your partner in times when they are behaving or being the person that you like them to be, this communicates that your love is conditional and that they are not valued for their whole selves.

I would like to note that this does not mean putting up with or be “okay” with any behavior. If your partner is doing something that upsets you, it is important to have a conversation about it and try to work through it. In saying that you must respect them even if you disagree with them, I mean that when having these conversations, you must treat them with respect regardless of their decision. There must be a mutual understanding that each person gets to choose how they behave. We can influence others, but we cannot “make” them do something they don’t want to do (with no consequences for the relationship).

3.    Honesty

 As the name suggests, to be honest, is to be truthful with one’s partner at all times. There are obvious ways in which honesty is necessary such as refraining from infidelity, telling direct lies, or intentionally leading your partner to believe something that is not true. But there are also more subtle ways in which a relationship can suffer from a lack of honesty. For example, avoiding tough confrontations which may make you and/or your partner upset or uncomfortable, or otherwise pretending that things are “okay” when they are not are also forms of dishonesty.

What makes honesty difficult for many people is that the qualities that bother us about our partner are often things that we are ashamed to talk about for a variety of possible reasons. For example, some of our complaints may not be socially acceptable. Or we may know that our partner has an insecurity wherein they fear the exact thing that we are unsatisfied with. Other times we may feel that our complaints are trivial or “stupid” thus they deserve no space. Sometimes, we may even feel that we have no right to have complaints about our partner at all!

The problem with withholding information is that our complaints are a reflection of our needs. If we don’t get our needs met in a relationship, they will sooner or later be unconsciously and unintentionally expressed in other ways such as angry outbursts, creating barriers to intimacy, infidelity, and/or any other forms of emotional violence. The truth always comes out in relationships. It’s our choice if we want to be deliberate about how we communicate this truth with our partners.

If honesty is an issue in your relationship, it is either as a result of other problems such as lack of safety and non-judgment, or it is due to avoidance of anxiety and other uncomfortable emotions related to being honest. If this is the case, it’s important to recognize that such discomfort is intrinsically part of the relationship. There is no getting away from it (without damaging the relationship). Moreover, the only way to increase your comfort with anxiety is to feel it and to speak your truth despite it. This is courage. Through acts of courage, we learn to eventually integrate honesty into our relationships.

 4.   Boundaries

 Having good boundaries in a relationship is about having the ability to hear “no” and say “no” to our partner when necessary, or an inability to differentiate between feelings and actions you are responsible for, and feelings and actions you are NOT responsible for. At first glance, this is a simple concept. More in-depth examination reveals that it can actually be more complex, and applies to a broad range of situations. Here are some examples of common issues with boundaries:

·   Difficulty tolerating your partner being angry (usually because you are taking responsibility for their anger or believe that it negatively reflects on or is a threat to you in some way)

·  Difficulty tolerating the discomfort of saying no to a request or demand of your partner (difficulty saying no)

·  Responding with yelling or fighting when your partner does not agree with you (difficulty hearing no)

·  Relying on your partner to feel happy (not taking responsibility for your own feelings).

·  Jealous or possessive behavior (not taking responsibility for your own feelings or not leaving the relationship if your partner has proven to be untrustworthy, which is another form of “inability to say no).

·  Passive Aggressive behavior (inability to say or hear no).

·  Taking care of your partner’s needs at high cost to your own (taking responsibility for someone else’s emotions as though they are your own).

·  Believing that your partner is at fault for all the problems in the relationship (difficulty taking responsibility for your actions)

This is by no means an exhaustive list. There are thousands of ways in which boundary issues present themselves in relationships. Boundary issues are toxic to relationships because they often result in manipulative or aggressive behaviors. Moreover, they leave each person feeling justified in their manipulative or aggressive behavior because they struggle to draw clear emotional and behavioral boundaries between themselves and their partner. Conversely, boundary issues can also lead to perpetual self-criticism, depression or dissatisfaction with life in general because unhealthy boundaries in the form of “inability to say no” often leads to being manipulated, abused or otherwise the recipient of emotional violence, and not realizing that it’s a problem, or being too fearful to stand up for one’s self.

5.    Ownership over feelings and actions and actions

 Ownership over feelings and actions is a specific part of good boundaries which I would like to explain more in-depth. We are all responsible for our own feelings. No one can “make” us feel anything. Although our partners may behave in a way that strongly invites us to feel a certain way, our emotional reactions to any particular situation is always our own. It is our interpretation of one’s behavior and what it means to us which causes us to feel the way we do. Not the behavior itself. Even in the case of behavior that would normally be labeled as blatantly “disrespectful,” our interpretations and the meaning we make of it plays a huge role. For example, if my partner calls me lazy, I can interpret that to be a gesture of disrespect thus resulting in me feeling angry. I can also interpret it as an attempt by my partner to motivate me, for which I may be grateful. I may also consider it to be as a result of a personal stressor they are experiencing, and not take it personally in any way at all. The same philosophy can be applied to actions. No one can “make” us behave one way or another. We are responsible for our own actions.

 In relationships, ownership over feelings and behaviors translates to more efforts by each individual within the relationship to take stock of how they are contributing to the relationship problems, and also recognize that their partner is not responsible for changing how they feel. This philosophy lays the foundation for many other helpful tools within relationships including better conflict management and resolution, less need for controlling, using manipulative or disrespectful behavior. It shifts your thinking from worrying about how to change the other person’s behavior to how to tolerate and gain a better understanding of underlying values, beliefs, personal history and other dynamics that contribute to the way you feel.

It’s important to note that being responsible for your feelings and actions does not mean that you must unconditionally accept your partner as they are and learn to tolerate all feelings that you experience as a result of their actions. Rather it means that you must decide what you are and are not willing to tolerate in a relationship, and set boundaries accordingly. Boundary setting is done by changing your behavior in the relationship, or by ending it altogether. This is much easier to do if we own that our partner is not responsible for our feelings. 

You will know that you are having issues taking ownership of your feelings and behaviors if you believe that all the problems in your relationship are your partner’s fault. It is rare if not impossible that only one person creates all the problems in a relationship (and even if it is the case, it begs the question of why you’re dating or married to them!) If you find yourself thinking in this way, now would be a good time to do some self-reflection and be very honest with yourself about how you might have contributed to any problems your relationship is experiencing. You may also want to spend more time listening to your partner’s complaints to understand them. Intentionally look for ways in which they may be true.

 I would like to conclude that each of these traits affects one another. They are all interconnected. They are also dynamic and changing, they are never static and they are not black and white. For example, it is not the case that “there is safety” in a relationship, or “there is not”. Rather, it is on a continuum. There can always be more safety in a relationship, and there can always be less. It is also important to note that it is very easy to write about these traits, actually living by them is much more challenging. We all make mistakes and there will always be “rough patches” in our relationships. I personally have struggled with each and every one of them in my life, and will probably continue to struggle with them in the future (hopefully to a lesser degree and in a different way!). It is not about doing all these perfectly. It is about having “enough” of each so that the relationship is experienced as meaningful and rewarding. 

 ***Written for Meridian Counseling by: Simeon Simov, AMFT Associate Marriage and Family Therapist (117648).

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