To me, a healthy relationship is one that involves strong communication, mutual respect, and a willingness to compromise.
I agree with Anomalia. Communication is key in a relationship in order for it to be successful. In my opinion, a healthy relationship involves the ability to trust the other and to be able to feel like they can discuss anything with the other person. Also, a healthy relationship should not be constantly overwhelming and it should not put a lot of pressure on a person. Although arguing and bickering is normal in any relationship and can happen every now and then, it depends on how you end the fight that shows whether a relationship is healthy or not. At the end of a fight, the two people involved should be able to talk to one another about how they are feeling and they should be able to discuss ways to improve their situation to avoid a similar argument in the future.
^^ Can't really say it any better than that, except I'd add a healthy relationship does not involve keeping score. In other words noting who said what first and who did what for whom, so now it's the other person's turn to reciprocate. You do things for each other out of affection and care, not for gain or to make the other person feel guilty for not returning in kind. Hope that makes sense.
I agree that communication is key, but I had a friend who would say that the biggest problem we had was that I didn't want to talk about my issues. So she would eventually pressure me into telling her, but as soon as I did she'd either get mad at me, brush it off, or draw attention to herself.
@18polaroidpictures - Seems like we are on the same boat. I've also have similar friend - except that this isn't a romantic relationship. I prefer either keeping things to myself or sharing with someone I believe will be able to better resolve the issue. This seems very unnatural to her - I should be sharing only with her - becasue she claims she shares only with me. It's as if like I have bound her to share only with me. she chooses to share with me, similarly i have my freedom to decide with whom and when I'll share.
And even when I do share something with her- she has a similar reaction just like your friend. Which further makes me decide not to share with her anymore. She's like my best friend otherwise, but this is one area we both seem to be having issues.
How do I plan to resolve it? Well I don't know to be honest. But so far I've told her very politely - in the midst of a normal conversation that i have this huge need for privacy and personal space - this is my flaw - but I cannot help it, I know we like bff's but I'm sure being my bestie you'll understand and put up with this. Somehow, when I apologize and bow down my head and say it's my mistake - she seems pleased that - yes of course you should be sorry , it's your fault, what's there to be in gurad of your privacy, look at me I share everything with you - so why can't you.
How have you been dealing with it?
@shilpa Yeah it wasn't a romantic relationship between us too. I mean it was more than the fact that she pressured me into sharing stuff, she was just very abusive in general. She'd purposefully put me down or try to embarrass me. She would randomly ignore me or get mad at me or blame me for everything that was wrong in her life. I wasn't really allowed to hang out with other people. She was just very controlling and mean to me constantly. I didn't realize it all at first, but the longer we were friends the more severe my depression and anxiety got. So one day I just told her that she needed to stop treating me this way, and she didn't want to so we stopped being friends all together. I missed her a lot because it's weird having only one friend who you spent every free moment with and suddenly having no one. But a month later I found out my aunt died and so I tried talking to my friend again to get some help coping. She basically said I'm a worthless person and felt I was just trying to take attention away from her problems. Also got all her friends to harass all my social media until I just deleted my accounts. That was when I fully realized she's pretty much the devil and I haven't missed her as much.
@shilpa And same! I constantly had to apologize to her even if I did nothing wrong. Like she'd randomly ignore me as a test to see I still cared and always made me work for her attention. And if she did ignore me and I pretended not to care, then she got even more mad and I'd end up apologizing until she forgave me anyways...
@18polaroidpictures - Hey friend, I'm sorry about your loss and also for having to go through so much on account of your relationship with your friend. I can feel how difficult it must have been for you - especially because she was a really close friend of yours.
I came across this in the self help resources available on this site, thought of sharing it with you :
Here are some questions to help you assess if a relationship is good for you or not.
Do you feel drained after spending time with this person?
Do you feel bad about yourself after spending time with this person?
Does this person cause messes and drama around them and in your life?
Do you feel like this person does not believe in you?
Do you find it hard to say no to this person when you know you should?
Do you feel like you cannot relax or be yourself around this person?
To me, a healthy relationship is consisted of many different things.
Some of the main components a healthy relationship should have is trust, strong communication, honesty, patience, mutual respect and effort.
I think a healthy relationship would be the one where you're confident about what you do and your partner is supportive of you with no lies or misscommunications in between. You're always ready to sort out any disagreement clearly and show small gestures on daily basis to indicate you care about each other. You can't really lie to your partner and if you do your partner can catch on that. Over all you feel protected, cherished, loved, supportive and make your partner feel the same.
communication is important to keep a healthy relationship ,if something is bothering you is better to talk about it ,respecting each other ,compromising and been supportive of one another
