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Is Your Relationship Healthy?

Sometimes it's hard to be objective about your relationship. Love tends to blind us to abusive behavior. How can you judge when you're in the thick of a passionate relationship? In this article we give you six examples of the healthy and unhealthy sides of the relationship equation. If your relationship seems to fall on the healthy side, you're in good shape, if not; you may want to think hard about ending things before you get hurt.

Healthy: My partner supports me through difficult times. He trusts in me always and recognizes that we both share a common goal of building a better life together. We are partners in every sense and feel pride in the other when personal dreams are realized.

Unhealthy: He is proud when he knows more about a given subject than I do. He is never satisfied with my contributions to the relationship. When I am happy, he tends to downplay any joy for which he cannot take the credit.

Emotional Cushion

Healthy: I can always expect warmth and a loving emotional cushion from my partner. He listens to me with empathy. He takes joy in my successes. He knows I have only goodwill toward him. We become closer when things are tough and provide nurturing for each other. The relationship becomes more rewarding with the passage of time.

Unhealthy: He makes a point of showing me my weaknesses in an effort to make me feel the necessity of his strengths and superiority. He looks for ways to gain the upper-hand but insists he doesn't wish to control or overpower me. He rubs my face in my mistakes.

Healthy: I can fall back on him and he can rely on me in kind. When he feels strongly about an issue, this is reason enough for me to listen to him and vice versa. We listen to each other and try to understand each others' feelings. There is respect for the other's feelings.

Gut Feelings

Unhealthy: He has no regard for my gut feelings, dreams, achievements, and thoughts. My plans are considered meaningless, less valuable than his plans, and may even be called stupid.

Healthy: He recognizes that respecting each other in every way is how we will achieve success as a couple. He respects my needs, my boundaries, and my feelings. We agree that we both have the right to set these parameters and can come to agreement on these issues through frank discussion.

Unhealthy: He uses my feelings of love, guilt, or fear to achieve his aims. He patronizes and insults me. He threatens he will leave me or hit me if I will not agree with him.  

Values Opinions

Healthy: He asks my opinions and values them.

Unhealthy: He accuses me of playing the feminist card if I choose to have equal say and insists that he makes the final call on all issues.

Healthy: When I am hurt by his actions, I can say this to him and he will seek to heal my pain. I know that he has only my goodwill at heart and regrets his actions.

No Validity

Unhealthy: He would rather blame me for arguments than solve the issues behind them. He assumes my intentions are hostile. When I am hurt by him, he gives me no validity and accuses me of oversensitivity. He denies he is responsible for my hurt.