This article on healthy relationship advice is something I’ve been wanting to write for quite some time now. If you’ve read some of my previous posts on personal development, I’ve talked briefly about my trying past relationships. I often joke to my friends that I am a serial monogamous. I’ve been in three serious relationships my whole life (included my current one) and each of them have been so eye-opening and different. These relationships have taught me a lot about myself and what a healthy relationship should look like. I hope these 6 things I’m about to share with you will resonate and give each of you a reminder of how to best go about finding a healthy relationship for you.
1. Be unapologetically you
My first and foremost relationship tip is to be 100% yourself and not to hide any of your quirks or traits. It is so often that people try to not show who they really are because they think the other person may not like them for it.
Never apologize for being who you are. One of my past partners really could not handle it when I cried. It was incredibly hard for me because I am a super emotional person. Crying has always been an outlet of emotional release for me, and I felt like I was faulted for this often. I was told many times that it’s not personal but they just couldn’t deal with it. So trying to be the best partner and people pleaser I could, I would fight back the urge to tear up and cry. It felt so restricting and as much as it was a “him” problem, it fell back onto me and how I was supposed to be better at controlling my emotions.
After looking back at this time in my life, it’s like “oh my god, Jenn. Are you for real? You’re going to let another person dictate how you emotionally react to situations and bottle up something that is so natural?”. Nah, b. If I want to cry now, I cry. I now understand there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this. It WAS a him problem. All to say, don’t try to be something you’re not to satisfy someone else.
Another quick example is that I loved dancing and going out, but I didn’t get to do much of that during my prime years in uni. My partner at the time wasn’t into that scene and this prevented me from enjoying it with my friends. I missed out on so many memories and good times with my friends because I was trying to not upset my then boyfriend. Which re-reading that statement sounds so incredibly silly, but hey, you live and you learn right?
So, don’t force yourself to mould into someone you’re not. Compromising yourself to please a partner is only detrimental to you both in the long run. One day you’ll resent them or it’ll be the cause of an ending to the relationship. It’s best to be upfront about what you like and who you truly are. I believe there’s absolutely no shame and this way you’ll find a way better match for yourself.
2. Have open and transparent communication
We hear time and time again that having good communication skills in life are essential. At this point, I believe it to be a core component and part of the foundational building blocks of a healthy relationship. More importantly, the need to create a safe space and environment for these conversations (whether good or bad) should be encouraged as well.
It is about allowing the person a space to openly share, without judgement, their feelings on the topic at hand. We preach freedom of speech, but sometimes this is too easily forgotten by the veil of emotions that cloud our ability to think rationally.
Therefore, I emphasize as my advice to you to ensure you are validating your partner’s feelings and emotions, as they are allowed to feel what they do. You may think in your head they’re over reacting or that whatever topic is being discussed doesn’t warrant their emotional response – but that’s not the point. The point of having an open and transparent conversation with your partner will allow you both to be heard, validated and hopefully come to acknowledge each other’s needs.
This works in the opposite context where maybe it’s not a negative problem you’re having, but rather you want to communicate something exciting that happened to you (e.g., a promotion at work). The same applies where you should be attentive and using active listening skills to be present when your partner speaks to you. These types of skills are learned and over time, as with other skills, you’ll get better at. There will be times where you aren’t perfect and you may stray from active listening or lose sight of the purpose of the conversation. But acknowledge when you do, and then snap back into being there for your partner. This type of communication will help to ensure both of you are expressing yourself without worrying what they other may be waiting to retaliate with. Be open, be transparent and be present. To me, communication is a key factor in any healthy relationship.
3. Find a solution vs. compromising
There are going to be times where compromising seems to be the “go to solution” for your conflicts. But I think rather than compromising on something, I encourage you to find a solution. Compromising has this inclination of finding a settlement of sorts, while each party is making some sort of concession. You are basically lowering whatever standard or stand point you might have on a certain topic or behaviour, to come what seems like a suitable conclusion. Rather than using the term compromising, I say find a solution instead.
You may see these two things as interchangeable but the emphasis on finding a solution is that it’s a combined, forward effort. You are working together as a team to come up with something that matches both of your goals and needs. Compromise is more like a lose-lose situation, where there’s a loss of something on either side. Finding a solution between the two of you highlights more of a teamwork, we got this type of response. I find this tip incredibly useful because you won’t always agree on everything. So, work together for a solution! Team work makes the dream work.
4. Discover each other’s love language
The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman allows us to understand how we give and receive love. Of course the more we understand each other, the more likely we are to be in an intentionally committed relationship. The five different love languages are words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. You can learn what your love language is here. I highly recommend reading the book or even just the free resources online that explain each of these languages.
Over the years, I’ve learned that my love language is a combination of quality time, acts of service and physical touch. Meaning that what I need to experience love is a mix of these things. Whereas, my partner could have the opposite love language, where he only needs words of affirmation. As such, there’s an importance to being able to understand your own and your partner’s love language to comprehend the needs of one another.
Many people tend to give love as they would like to receive it, but that may not be what your significant other needs. In this case, it’s important to observe how they express love to other’s in their life and take into account what they express to you they need most often. Therefore, by understanding your own and your partner’s love language, it can help create a baseline for what your healthy relationship should embody. Sometimes, your partner may NEED affection such as physical touch, and in this case if you cannot provide that or satisfy their need, you’ll have communicate with one another to see what a solution could be.
Can more explicit effort be put forth? How much does it mean to you? Will you resent your partner if they don’t provide that need? This can all be discussed in a productive manner, which may lead to more overall relationship satisfaction. You could even take the quiz together and reflect as a team!
5. Discuss mutual life goals
It’s important to be in line with each other’s life goals. I would even say this is acceptable to ask on a first date (but that will depend if you want to date someone with a long-term relationship in mind). By discussing mutual life goals, you gain a better sense and understanding of the compatibility you’ll have with one another down the line.
I think this is important but mostly in a longer-term relationship versus a casual one (of course). But there are times where casual dating could lead to something more serious, and I hope that during that moment in time, you will choose to have a conversation about life goals.
Sometimes, after discussing your own goals, you’ll shortly find out that the person you are dating may not feel the same way. For example, the idea of having kids or getting married may be something one of you doesn’t ever want. Instead of stringing the relationship along, I feel that in those situations, it is quite respectful to let the other person go and find a partner who would want the same things in life. I suspect it would be quite difficult to maintain a romantic relationship with someone if down the line you’re going to break up over something you could have discovered earlier on.
This tip is more food for thought to minimize the heart ache after potentially dating for a long duration of time. But I do see people in these situations where over time, one of them changes their minds and becomes open to the idea of kids or marriage, for example. So, it is possible to have aligning goals further down the road, but this reminder is to try to communicate and chat about it earlier on so there’s no surprises. Then it’s ultimately up to you to proceed with the relationship knowing what you know, or to find someone who matches your goals in the present time. That way you are working with them and not against them, trying to convince them or change their minds. I believe collective goals are important, so please discuss accordingly!
6. Love each other conditionally
I once told my boyfriend, “I love you unconditionally!” and his response was “No… you should love me conditionally.”. This then sparked an entire conversation on what it means to love someone with your entire heart and soul, but still have standards and boundaries that need to be met.
Typically, when the word “unconditionally” is tossed around in the context of love, it means loving someone without any limitations such that it equates true altruism. I challenge this because I believe that TO love someone is to love them through the hard times, mistakes and utter frustrations. BUT, when you call this type of love “unconditional”, I feel like it truly means they can do damage to you (emotionally, psychologically, physically), but yet have this expectation to love them regardless of their wrong doings. Thus, there may come a time in your relationship where you will need to really re-evaluate whether love is truly enough.
I spent a lot of time questioning this a lot in my past relationships and as much as I can love the person, sometimes love wasn’t enough. Why? Because there ARE conditions to my love for you. A lot of it is based off of mutuality, reciprocity, respect, loyalty and trust. If these things are missing, or if say trust is broken one too many times, I feel like you should be re-assessing whether they are WORTHY or DESERVING of your so-called unconditional love. Instead, I stand to push back against this concept and propose loving your significant other with conditions because you deserve that. Don’t love someone just because and stick to loving them time after time after hurt or betrayal.
I’m a strong believer of sticking with your partner through hardships and challenges. However, there may come a time where it’s more toxic or unhealthy for you to be with that individual, than to move on and seek someone worthy of your love. As harsh as that sounds, sometimes you have to realize it yourself. As much as people in your life can tell you their opinions, the outcome of a separation or a break up will only come when you are ready. So remember to love and love hard, but it’s okay to have boundaries and put your worth above all else.
I hope you found this relationship advice blog post insightful. By no means am I a relationship expert but I have been fortunate to learn from my past. I hope that by passing on my knowledge, I can spark something for you to think about or use to develop and thrive in your relationships.
With love and gratitude,
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