What does a healthy relationship look like?

So many times we talk about what is wrong with a relationship. This is good for those who are looking for a solution to a particular problem. But we also need to look and see are we really normal and other aspects of our life. when it comes to our relationships, there’s so much that could go on. 

We fear that we aren’t meant for each other because we have an argument. The Mrs. doesn’t want to have sex nearly as much now that y’all are married. Does that mean our marriage is falling apart? Suddenly, I’m expected to do more of the housework. 

We start coming up with all these possible problems. looking for problems and issues around every corner from the subtle sigh that our wife made while watching a movie to not having the house cleaned at the end of the day we want to read into everything. We want to make sure that we have something to be worried about. that’s because our minds want there to be problems. If there are not any problems, then we might put our guard down, and that dreaded sabertooth tiger might get us.

Then add what you see on television and movies, you hear what celebrities say and we start to wonder what is a normal marriage. What does a happy healthy marriage actually look like? 

That’s what I wanna look at today. I wanna look at 10 aspects that make a marriage work well. I will break it down and look at it so that you can see if you have one of these, three of these examples, half of them? 3/4 of them? Do you have any? If so you are doing better than a lot of folks.

Trust

This is the heart of all relationships. If you are not trusting your spouse, you have problems. If your spouse cannot trust you, you are also having problems. Trust is the foundation for a loving, happy fulfilling relationship with anybody. When you can’t trust the other person, there can’t be respect.

That trust there’s micromanaging there is suspicion there’s jealousy. There are a whole bunch of other fear-based emotions that come into play simply because one or both members of the relationship relationship can’t trust the other person.

Many times you start having little snippets of revenge cropping up when you can’t trust the other person. suddenly, you’re checking their phones you’re putting little test before them which does nothing more than degrade the trust even more.

If you don’t have trust or the trust is waning. You are going to have to find some way to start building that trust back. A lot of that trust is going to have to come in the form of faith and be OK with the other person being suspicious.

This is why the three A’s of abuse addiction and affairs are the source of many divorces. That is because each of those A’s are trust destroyers. Addicts’ lie affairs are a violation of the trust and abuse can’t be trusted in any circumstance.

Respect

Respect comes when you trust the other person. Respect is given, it could never be demanded, or taken. Many people mistake respect for fear. Fear is not respect. Fear is based in a scarcity of control. 

The only way you can get respect in a relationship is by giving respect. You have to respect your wife for her to be able to respect you. Sadly, there’s a lot of things that us humans do that erode our respect for each other. 

The big one actually is supposed to be out of just but it is kind of a backhanded joke. What I’m talking about is sarcasm. Sarcasm often is meant to be funny and it can be. However, when the sarcasm is directed towards your spouse, that is a sign that there is a lack of respect.

Ask yourself why are you playfully dunking on the woman of your life. 

“Well, that’s just how we joke around”, is often the phrase. 

Yet eventually what happens are those little playful, sarcastic pokes become biting jokes and they do increase in ferocity and every time you use sarcasm as a means of deflection, your displaying in a very subtle way, the disrespect you have for your wife.

Open communication 

Are you able to express your thoughts openly in your relationship? Do you censor yourself out of fear of making your wife angry or upset? Well, do you and your wife communicate?

The answers of these will vary all over the page. But if you can have a conversation and be OK with one side or the other express and Larry motions, expressing their opposition to the thought working through that problem, and resolving it in one setting you’ve got a really good ability to communicate. If you say something that might be considered controversial in your house, and it leads to two days of neither one of y’all talking to the other. That’s a problem. If you cannot have discussions with your spouse, there is a lack of trust. There is a lack of respect. To have open communication you have to have the trust that your spouse is doing this to piss you off. You have to have enough respect for your wife to know she is not meaning harm.

Communication is the one sign that a relationship is struggling. A lack of communication is a sign that you’re in roommate syndrome. The only way to get out of the roommate syndrome and to start having open honest communication is to talk.

Start off with simple questions and as y’all continue to talk, continue to have tougher discussions. When you can have a discussion where you or your spouse voice, their concerns and you can actually stay with the conversation and not storm off in a half. You will be a lot better than many people, simply because you can talk to your wife.

Shared goals

Now you know, I like to have a good set of goals. How you reach those goals is not as important as just achieving those goals. Do you have goals just for yourself or do you have marriage goals? Were y’all both are working towards a trip or a particular experience that y’all wanted to have?

As You have personal goals, a good marriage needs shared goals too. Maybe it’s to get the house paid off early. How are both of y’all working together to pay the house off ahead of time? How are y’all working together to save money for that vacation that you’ve always wanted to take? Maybe y’all want to experience walking the Camino de Santiago are y’all putting in steps every day to reach your goal? You have goals why not share the goals of your life with the goals of your spouse? Then see how much further you can get when your wife is by your side. 

Interdependent relationship

Too many people these days are codependent. That is they depend on the other person to validate the third individual. Sounds strange I know yet this type of dependency on the other person never fully works. For a little while yes it does. You can look to your wife to verify that yes you are still handsome. You were still great. You were still strong. You were still the center of her universe and you can do the same thing for her but then what happens when kids arrive? All of a sudden that center of the universe gets shifted and you are not the center anymore. Now you’re having to compete With the kids. Suddenly your wife is not validating you as being this great and wonderful guy anymore. Your wife is not validating your emotions and your anxiety and what are you to do?

This is where codependency spirals out of control eventually one person stops, wanting to be dependent on the other person while the other person stays dependent. All that emotional work to validate the other person will wear you out. Eventually, the relationship crumbles under the weight of each other getting tired of trying to support the kids and each other. 

That’s a lot of validation that goes on. sadly, though your wife can’t validate your emotions. And neither can you validate your wife’s. You can say oh yeah I’m with you. But are you really? That is the folly of being codependent you’re doing stuff just to make yourself feel good, but causes you to emotionally manipulate the other person so you continue to feel good. And life is not 8020. Feel good and feel bad. Life is 50% pain and 50% pleasure.

Emotional adulthood

Another aspect of a good relationship is when both adults are in emotional adulthood. What is an emotional adulthood you ask? It is when both understand that their emotions come from themselves. More specifically their emotions come from their thoughts. Many adults become very reactive because they want to say their emotions come from just something in the air. Suddenly I don’t know where anxiety slaps the face it doesn’t do that. You have a thought that generates anxiety. When you think emotions just happened to you and you have no control over those emotions you are an emotional childhood. And sadly a lot of people who think that Spouse is supposed to make them happy are operating from emotional childhood. 

Wow, a person who can actually absolve their spouse’s right to make them happy is operating from emotional adulthood. 

Strong conflict resolution skills

When it comes to having discussions with another human being. There are always chances of having a disagreement. This is because one adult cannot have the same thoughts as another adult. You may have similar thoughts, but your thoughts are based on your experiences through life. While your spouse’s thoughts are based on the experiences, they’ve had through life. so there’s a good chance that eventually you’re going to have opposing views show up and this is where you have to develop good conflict resolution skills.

With the addition of having emotional adulthood, you can stay out of fight or flight mode. Many emotional childhood adults will react to what is said instead of responding. This means they fly off the hook because somebody said something that the other person doesn’t agree with and all of a sudden, instead of being on the same side, there’s opposing forces and, you have fights for their life going on. This could be someone accusing the other of losing the remote to the television and all of a sudden it’s a three hour yell fest about who does or does not lose what when or where.

When you are having fights and you have a conflict going on if you can stay present and your spouse can stay present. Y’all can actually work through the conflict a lot better a lot faster and come out with more respect more trust more love on the other side then all of a sudden, you’re accusing the other person of being always this horribly extreme being, you’re playing the victim. Conflict resolution will never have a resolution while emotional adulthood-centered adults will work to a resolution of the problem.

Support for each other

Now this one is a tricky one. Because often you will hear someone say well she doesn’t support me in my dreams or he doesn’t support me in my endeavors yet being able to support the other person is a needed element of a relationship, but to emotionally support somebody, or to support their dreams doesn’t mean that you do the work for them.

Often, many victim-oriented people will use the lack of support as an excuse as to why they failed. My wife didn’t support me, but in all reality, my wife didn’t force me to do this. Well, that’s not your wife’s responsibility. Your wife’s responsibility isn’t to ensure that you pursue your dreams. That’s your responsibility. Even the level of cheering does not necessarily support your goals or dreams or emotions. Supporting is acknowledging what the other person wants and if you can help properly. If you’re expecting your wife to do all the hard work and that’s called being supportive that’s you being lazy.

Playful nature

Now we talked about sarcasm a little bit earlier, but there is a playful nature to relationships. Being able to get your spouse to laugh and giggle is very important. A relationship that is serious. All the time becomes very tiresome. So you have to be able to play and joke and have those light moments more often than the serious moments.

If you have been in a serious relationship for a while, it may take a bit of work to get around to being fun again. But that’s something that can be done. It’s a skill that can be exercised like a muscle. The more you play the more you around allow yourself to be the lighter. Your wife will want to become.

Quality time

Finally, the last part is quality time. We often mistake quality for quantity. Yes, you may have a more than average Chance to have quality time the more you try. Quality time are those special moments when y’all are walking and stepping nothing really had to be said. It’s just you and your spouse and yall are present together. 

Sharing moments are great quality time expression. And many times our spouses want us to have more quality time with them yet we have to choose those quality times so that we can achieve the times together. So you have to make an effort to increase the amount of time to spend with your wife and make those times mean something. Not just while we watched, I Love Lucy together on Thursday nights was the last time you took her and y’all talked art at an art museum?

Relationships are fun. Relationships are challenging too. You may have some of these down Path while others you’ve struggled with them your whole marriage. That’s OK because even if you don’t have any of these and you believe that, you have a good relationship with your spouse then guess who’s got a good relationship with her spouse? You see your relationship is dependent upon you and your spouse. If y’all are happy and fulfilled there is nothing standing in your way while if you could have all of these and not fit, still not feel happy still not be fulfilled still there’s something missing and in that case, that’s where more work needs to be applied. If you want to take the next step and reach a fulfilling marriage, then hit the button below.