Healthy Relation & Partner Selection

 

1. Partner selection. A lot of relationship problems can be avoided by careful partner selection. Many people feel feelings in their feel-parts, then plunge headlong into a relationship, naively believing that Love Conquers All. Then they wake up some time later to discover they have totally different ideas about sex, family, children, priorities, work, or whatever, and they start trying to figure out how to “get” their partner to be compatible with them. You don’t marry an incompatible partner and try to make them compatible. That doesn’t work.
2. Personal responsibility. One of the hardest of all life lessons is this: Just because I feel bad doesn’t necessarily mean someone else is doing something wrong. Just because I feel good doesn’t necessarily mean what I am doing is right. On some level, you are responsible for your feelings and actions. That doesn’t mean your partner can’t affect you; intimacy is all about allowing someone else close enough to affect you very deeply. But it does mean your feelings aren’t your partner’s fault. Nowhere is this more true than with jealousy. Inexperienced people with poorly developed emotional skills say “never, ever do anything that makes your partner jealous.” More experienced people know jealousy is rooted in insecurity, which means it is impossible to remove every trigger that can lead to jealousy. Instead, you handle jealousy by building personal security.
3. Communication. The easiest way to tell the health of a relationship is by the quality of the communication in it. Alas, many people deliberately build barriers to communication, sometimes out of shame, sometimes out of fear, sometimes out of insecurity. They are afraid to talk about their past, about their sexual desires, about their former relationships—and then they say things like “My spouse doesn’t really know me. I guess men and women just can’t understand each other!” No, men and women can’t read minds. Every single thing you can’t or won’t talk about is a barrier to intimacy.
4. Trust. You can’t have a healthy relationship without trust. Can’t be done. If you need to see your partner’s phone or email accounts, you don’t trust them. “I have trust issues” is the world’s greatest cop-out. You learn to ride a bike by getting on a bike and riding. You learn to trust by trusting.
5. Respect. Again, you can’t have a healthy relationship without it. The moment your partner becomes your adversary rather than your ally, you’re done. Oh, and regarding point 4 above, respect includes respecting your partner’s privacy. If you feel you have to have your partner’s passwords and cell phone passcode, congratulations! You’ve got two relationship-killers for the price of one.
6. Interdependence, not codependency. If your partner is your whole world, your reason for being, your everything, the reason you wake up in the morning…that’s codependent, and over time will likely strangle your relationship stone dead and then continue clinging to the lifeless husk. Healthy people have, and healthy relationships allow room for, other hobbies, interests, and friends.
7. Speaking of other friends, yes, married people can and should have those. In fact, if anyone tells you otherwise, look out. Any abuse counselor or therapist will tell you that attempting to control your partner’s social activities is invariably the first step down the road to abuse.
8. Mutual, reciprocal support. A healthy relationship always has a balance between what each person brings to the relationship and what they receive from the relationship. If you find that your relationship is all give and no take, especially if you’re expected to sacrifice your dreams to help your partner reach theirs, look out. Good relationships are partnerships between people who can reach further and accomplish more together than they could apart. If your relationship offers no support for you in accomplishing your goals, something’s wrong.
9. Consent. In all aspects of the relationship, not just sex. Healthy relationships are voluntary. They are not prisons. If you can not set boundaries and have them respected, something’s dysfunctional. (Remember, though, that boundaries concern access to yourself—your body, your intimacy, your emotions. “Don’t talk to me like that” is a boundary. “Don’t talk to your ex” is not a boundary.) If you feel like you can’t say no, or you can’t tell your partner something they don’t want to hear, or you are trapped and can’t leave the relationship, that relationship is dysfunctional.
10. Space to be yourself. You are an independent person, not a cog in the relationship. You have the right to express yourself, to hold opinions, to advocate for your needs, to say no, and to have your values respected. That doesn’t mean you have the right to be obeyed; your partner, too, is an independent person.
11. Security. Insecurity is toxic to relationships. It often causes us to act out in ways that cause the very thing we’re afraid of. Being able to acknowledge insecurity for what it is and ask for support from your partner is a blessing. Blaming your partner, mistreating your partner, or trying to deal with your insecurities by controlling your partner (“you aren’t allowed to be friends with other women,” “I don’t want you going anywhere without me”) is toxic.
12. Directness. Advocate for your needs. Talk openly and directly about what you want. Never, ever play games: “I want him to chase me,” “if she really cared about me she’d know what was wrong.” Do not engage in protest behavior.
13. Assume good intent. Your partner is there because they love you and want to be with you. If you can’t assume good intent from your partner, it doesn’t matter if you’re right or wrong…you’re done for.
14. Vulnerability. A healthy intimate relationship requires that you be able to show up as your authentic self, and that means vulnerability. If you want your partner to see you, you have to let them in. That means being who you are, not who you think your spouse wants you to be. It means being honest about your fears and weaknesses. It means being able to be unguarded. This is scary. Love is not for cowards. Show up or go home.