What Is a Healthy Relationship?
There are many kinds of health and many kinds of healthy relationships. As I argued in Ethical Engineering, medical health is difficult to define. Marital health is even more so. According to the World Health Organization, “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being.” That’s surely an unrealistic standard; no significant relationship brings complete well-being. The Cleveland Clinic states that “A healthy relationship at its core is centered around empathy and kindness; reliability and commitment; mutual respect for boundaries, the ability to work together as a team; [and] similar values and goals.” A relationship is toxic, says Lillian Glass, when the partners “don’t support each other, where there’s conflict and one seeks to undermine the other, where there’s competition, where there’s disrespect and a lack of cohesiveness.”
Health comes in degrees and has many aspects. We shouldn’t be too quick to condemn a relationship as unhealthy and we should avoid thinking there is only one way for a relationship to be healthy. Still, speaking generally but not dogmatically, the three related keys are mutual respect, concern, and support.
You have to respect each other as persons. If you look down or belittle the other, you won’t have a healthy relationship. If you do not respect the other’s integrity, for example, if you distrust them and if you don’t respect their basic rights as a person in a marriage, you won’t have a healthy relationship. Respect also means respecting the truth as well as respecting their point of view enough to take it seriously and respond to it thoughtfully. You won’t have a healthy relation if you don’t try to be straight with each other, if you manipulate, lie, and hide things. You take responsibility for things, both in the sense of taking charge of what needs to be done (what philosophers call “task responsibility”) and admitting to your part in what went wrong (moral responsibility). You face up to the truth, wherever it leads, even if it makes you uncomfortable.
Mutual concern means you care about the other person’s wellbeing. One of your goals is that they achieve their goals. You care about their happiness, their being fulfilled in life. The advice you give them is what is best for them, in your honest opinion–you never give them advice just because it benefits you.
Mutual support means you help each other. You help them to be a good person living a good life. You try to facilitate and encourage them to reach their goals and succeed, take care of them when they need it, listen, try to understand.
When people talk about healthy relationships they often mention communication and trust. These are important, and they emerge from respect, concern, and support. If you respect your partner, respect truth, and support each other, you will have real communication. Listening to each other is only the first step in communication. Real communication means putting your ego aside so you can think seriously, honestly, and objectively about what you’re each saying. Then work through things together to find resolutions that support both of you. Because, if you have mutual concern, you don’t “win” at the expense of your partner. You care about them as well as yourself. Trust comes from respect. If you don’t trust your partner, you don’t respect them. You see them as devious, dishonest, unreliable. You also need trust to make yourself vulnerable. You have to trust the other person not to take advantage of your openness (respecting them). And you need to trust yourself to bear any hurt (respecting yourself). Because there are always hurts as well as joys.
Unhealthy relationships are the opposite. Someone lies, manipulates, hides things, belittles, distrusts, controls, cares only about themselves. Someone won’t take responsibility and won’t face the truth. You bring out the worst in each other. You hold each other back. You don’t listen. You disparage or dismiss each other’s dreams. You can’t talk openly and constructively. Someone’s ego always gets in the way.
These are all easy habits to fall into, which is why maintaining a healthy relationship takes work. It takes two to make a relationship healthy but only one to make it unhealthy. So if you want a healthy relationship, you have to do your part. [Note: many therapists say it takes two to make a marriage work and two to make it fail. This is a logical impossibility. If it truly takes two people to lift a log and one person doesn’t lift, the log doesn’t get lifted. If it really takes two to make a marriage work and one person won’t do their part, then the marriage won’t work. If it really takes two to make a marriage fail, then it only takes one to make it work (just don’t do your part in making it fail). Yes, usually when a marriage fails, both parties played a role. But each person has the power to destroy a relationship all on their own.]
How Can We Get There?
Every relationship is different. Relationships are complicated and often have a complex history. How to get there will depend on your individual stories, who you are as persons, and what you’ve experienced together. A good therapist or mentor can help, but bad advice can hurt. So I won’t try to give you a one-size-fits-all path. Instead, I’ll give you seven general tips. They may not be enough to fix your relationship, but, usually, doing these things helps. Once again, you have to both work on it. If you alone do some of these things, that might coax your partner to try. Or it might not. Let me repeat: It takes two to make a relationship healthy but only one to make it unhealthy. Sometimes you can encourage and facilitate a partner to join in the process of strengthening your relationship. But if your partner really won’t work with you, there may not be much you can do.
- Tip 1: Choose love over resentment.
It can feel good to indulge in resentment. For one thing, it deflects from anything we don’t want to think about, including our own shortcomings, things we might need to give up or compromise, the fact that our partner was right, and anything else that makes us uncomfortable. It gives us a feeling of superiority over those we resent. There are many reasons we cling to anger. It can be hard to put aside. It may take maturity and self-control. We may have to give up the entitled idea that our feelings are privileged and sacrosanct. But if you are in a good relationship, you love your partner. You’ve built a worthwhile life together. The trust and mutual support you offer each other is worth cherishing and maintaining. So you have a choice to make. You can opt for the love you share or you can opt for resentment and anger. Choosing love doesn’t mean your anger magically disappears. It means you make a commitment. You decide to try and calm your anger down, to act like you’re a loving couple even if you don’t totally feel it this moment, to try to inculcate positive feelings and interactions, to prioritize and focus on the good things you have together instead of whatever is bugging you this moment. You remind yourself that even though you are angry at your partner you still care about them and value so much about them. Choosing love is not a magical choice that makes all bad feelings disappear. But it is a real choice.
- Tip 2. Don’t be afraid to take the first step. Someone has to. Let it be you.
What if you take the first step and your partner doesn’t respond, or, even worse, sees it as weakness and a opportunity to attack? This is where trust comes in. Trust your partner mostly to respond appropriately and trust yourself and your relationship enough to realize it won’t kill you if they don’t on a given occasion. Take the risk.
- Tip 3: When your partner takes a positive step, meet them.
Again, meet them even if you don’t feel like it. If they put their arm around you after you’ve argued, do the same, even if you really feel like pushing them away. If you continue to meet each other, the warm feelings will follow. If you don’t, you just create new anger and bad feeling on both sides. Pushing them away when they reached out just creates a new reason to resent you.
- Tip 4: When your partner takes a positive step, show them you appreciate the step. Don’t complain that it’s just one step and tell them how much more they have to do. (“That’s great, but now you need to….”) Enjoy the step together.
Maria complains that Alicia never does the dishes. One night right after dinner Alicia gets up and, without being asked, does all the dishes. Maybe she didn’t do them quite the way Maria would. Maybe she didn’t throw out the dirty napkins. Maria can say “good, but you didn’t do it right and now you need to gather the trash.” Alicia is not likely to do the dishes again. Instead, Maria could enjoy that the dishes are done, compliment Alicia, and give her affection. This positive response encourages Alicia to keep doing the dishes and perhaps other things around the house as well.
- Tip 5: Remember that good is good enough.
If you have a basically good relationship, cherish and enjoy it, and don’t let the little things you don’t like spoil it. Does your loving, considerate, responsible partner forget to put things back? Drop of water in the ocean. You can occasionally remind them, but to get upset about it is like throwing away a diamond because it has a grain of dust on it.
- Tip 6: Simply being nice to each other goes a long way.
That doesn’t mean ignoring genuine issues. But it’s a lot easier to work toward mutually satisfying resolutions, especially of difficult issues, with someone who is being nice to you.
- Tip 7. Let truth be your guide.
It is easy to fall into the trap of letting your ego be your guide. But you have to choose whether what you care about is your ego or your relationship. If it’s your ego, then you will do or say anything not to look bad or not to give up something you want, no matter how unfair or unreasonable. You won’t admit you were wrong and you’ll deflect from any shortcoming you might have. If this is your choice, marry yourself: you are the only person you truly love. But if you choose your relationship, you will follow the truth wherever it leads. You will look at things as objectively and fairly as you can. If the truth makes you look bad, you will try to do better instead of denying the truth. If the truth and fairness mean you have to make a concession, you will make the concession. If you both do this, you will have a healthy relationship. Spoiler alert: it’s worth it.
Counseling
Sometimes a hoarder’s worth of baggage blocks the path to working on a healthy relationship. You may need to clear a little baggage first, although working together on a relationship is a good start at baggage clearing. A good counselor or therapist can be very helpful. But choose wisely; there are good therapists and bad therapists. There are good therapists who might not be a good fit for you. Don’t be afraid to “audition” your therapist or counselor. Therapy can take time, and you shouldn’t be hasty to pull the plug, but if you see big red flags, take them seriously. For example, if your therapist doesn’t listen to you, get another therapist. For more advice about red flags, see https://growtherapy.com/blog/therapist-red-flags/ and https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/therapy/8-red-flags-watch-in-therapy. For advice about finding a therapist, see https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/07/02/1185661348/start-therapy-find-therapist-how-to and https://www.apa.org/ptsd-guideline/patients-and-families/finding-good-therapist
Should I Leave?
Suppose you don’t have a healthy relationship and your partner won’t do much to work with you. Should you give up and leave them?
No relationship is ideal, and there can be good reasons for staying in a relationship that’s not fully satisfying. You may have children together and not want to break up the family. You may feel a commitment to the relationship. Marriage, for example, is a solemn commitment not easily broken. You may feel there is enough of value in being together that it is worth it. You may have all sorts of personal reasons for staying. Love certainly counts.
But if the relationship fails to meet your basic needs despite communicating openly and trying over a long period, or especially if your partner is abusive (but a lot of people use the word far too loosely), you may consider leaving. No two situations are the same and there is no simple formula for making this decision. By all means, get advice from friends, family, therapists, clergy, or whomever else you trust. But the ultimate decision is yours alone and should take into account all the complex and individual factors of your particular situation.
Final Thought
A good relationship is worth treasuring. My parents always said “you can get through anything as long as you have each other,” and, as Holocaust survivors, they proved it. It is worth all the effort and struggle to spend life with a partner who is truly on your side. If, as human beings, we are indeed islands buffeted by unforgiving waters, there is no glory greater than a causeway of love stretching across the hostile waves.
Disclaimer
Nothing that appears on this blog is meant to replace legal advice, therapy, or medical treatment. I am not providing legal, medical, or mental health advice. Always seek the advice of your own attorney or medical or mental health provider about specific questions concerning your specific health or legal issues.
