Six Important Ways To Cultivate a Healthy Relationship

1. Wanting the best for my partner, and doing what I can to help her achieve that (in her terms) while trusting she wants the same for me. And never consciously doing – or letting anybody else do – anything that could harm her in any way.

Her well-being is as important to me as my own. And even though it’s not always easy to properly ‘hear’ and understand what my partner needs from me – especially if she has a different kind of ‘love language’ for how she gives, and experiences, demonstrations of affection, knowing and acting on that is essential to a healthy relationship. And if she’s not sure what that is, the best thing is to try a process of trial-and-error to find out what works best

2. Expecting the best from her – and trusting that if I ever feel I don’t get that, she’ll have a reason that she’ll be willing to reflect on and share with me, so we can both understand and learn from it.

It takes a long time to really know how another person feels. To grow love with her, I need to move from caring which of us is more ‘right’, to seeing my partner’s world as one that is full of potential learning for me, but may also contain unhealed hurt from her past and self-sabotaging beliefs. This may lead her to misinterpret something I’ve said or done, or act in a way that makes me feel undermined. It’s up to me then to share my feelings with her in an un-blaming way that will enable her to ‘get’ what’s going on for me.

3. Being interested in her inner and outer worlds; wanting to be a part of those, and knowing she’d welcome that.

To get to know my partner in a deep way, I need to feel connected with the parts of her life that are nothing to do with me – and be open to contributing to, or learning about them. Otherwise, our relationship will stay on a superficial “dating” level, and will miss out on the lovey sense of intimate connection that happens when we begin to really know, and feel known by, someone else

4. Liking, respecting, and accepting the ‘real’ person my partner is, and showing her how much I enjoy being in her company and feel able to be my true self with her in every way!.

When I dare to let someone know all of me, even the parts I might feel ashamed of and wish were different, and I see that they still accept and appreciate me, it encourages the healing that comes when I really get that I am no better or worse than anyone else – and there is at least one other human being that I really respect who seems to feel the same about me.

5. Knowing that if conflict arises between us, she will want to explore with me what’s happened, so we can each take responsibility for understanding and changing whatever either of us has contributed.

Becoming and staying close to someone will inevitably involve some conflict; and If I get drawn into the blame (and defensiveness) game, I won’t be able to see if it was my unrealistic expectations that were to blame, or assumptions based on my past history; or some misunderstanding and insensitivity on her part. The important thing is, all these can be identified and healed if we openly share (all) our feelings with each other.

6. Knowing that she also wants all the above things for, and with, me.

It takes two to tango, and a relationship based on a sharing of responsibilities for making it work means there’s less risk of it becoming an entanglement of co-dependant needs – or one of the traps of care-taking or rescuing which might seem on the surface to be caring about each other but are actually ways one person is using the other to feel better about themselves.

Good luck with building a close relationship. It’s not easy, and it certainly isn’t always happy, but it’s one of the most challenging and worthwhile things you can do as a hu-man?!

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