Everyone deserves healthy and happy relationships. Healthy relationships all have some key elements: healthy communication, healthy boundaries, mutual respect, and support for one another. Healthy relationships bring out the best in you and make you feel good about yourself. A healthy relationship is not 100% perfect but with a little effort and attention in the right areas, you can strive to keep your relationship on track in a positive direction. Here are 6 ways to do just that.
1. Communication
Open and honest communication is the lifeblood of a healthy relationship. Cultivating regular habits will prevent long lapses in communication. Exchange a pleasant greeting at the start of each day. Check in with each other at the end of each day. Share your highs and lows from the day with each other.
Consider a weekly time where you can talk uninterrupted and stay current with each other’s experiences and feelings. Our lives have become so hectic to the point where work and other responsibilities can easily take up much of our time, leaving no time to focus on our significant other. Create space in your schedule, even just 30 minutes, to listen to and share your thoughts and feelings with your partner.
2. Showing Affection
Small acts of physical affection go a long way. A simple brush of the hands, holding hands, or an unexpected hug can make your partner’s day. Physical touch can strengthen connections, heal, communicate, influence and soothe. Additionally, the touch of a loved one can release chemicals in the body that can lower blood pressure and relieve stress. We all benefit from the need the connection, security and the emotional and physical health benefits that come by being touched in safe and appropriate ways.
3. Plan a Date
For those in long term relationships, it may have been a while since you dated each other. Try reigniting those sparks that flew when the relationship was new. Be flirty with each other. Plan an outing together. Take your partner out for a romantic date or dinner together. Maybe date night can even be a new couple’s ritual for you. In the busy world in which we live, we have to make time for these experiences.
4. Practice Gratitude
No couple is perfect but focusing on the positive aspects of your relationship can make a huge difference. Focus on the positive qualities of your mate, instead of dwelling on their faults. Instead of seeing differences as a negative, be excited and appreciative of them. Those differences, after all, are likely what drew the two of you together in the first place.
When negative experiences happen, as they always do, do not assume things are a lost cause. The key is not in eliminating the negative altogether, but in making sure the positives always outweigh the negatives.
5. Meeting Your Partner’s Needs
A healthy relationship is marked by two people understanding each other’s needs and making those a priority. This is a skill that takes time and effort to develop. It means not just knowing mentally but also emotionally what your partner needs, and how they need you to meet those needs.
Having a high emphasis on your own self-care is healthy as well. You need to feed your own positive attitude into your relationship. This means accepting yourself and embracing and loving who you are as an individual. It also means having a high standard for what you want in a relationship and making sure that your partner has those standards as well and you both are willing to work towards them.
6. Novelty
Try new activities together. Doing something unfamiliar to both of you creates a sense of excitement and uncertainty, that will inject some new life into your relationship. The key is to be together, laugh, and rely on each other. Even if the activity is not something either of you is good at or plan on doing again, you will have the experience and memories to share and talk about.
If you and your partner are struggling with maintaining a healthy and happy relationship, consider consulting with a counselor. Couples counselors can help you implement proven strategies to strengthen your relationship and give you both a safe space to explore feelings and challenges.
