How Healthy Is Your Relationship?

Experts give eight signs that show your relationship is on the right track.

1. Support each other emotionally. During challenging times, you and your partner have each other for emotional support. By connecting with each other, you provide a sense of comfort and relief from stress or times of need.

2. You are accepted and loved. You and your partner feel completely accepted and loved for who you are, even during times of conflict.

3. Value the relationship. Your relationship is of immense value which you accept as priority in your lives. This means that it's not a problem finding time to dedicate and support the relationship.

4. Create a safe haven. You have a secure base which allows you both to pursue your personal goals outside the relationship, without a spouse being so busy as to have little time for her marriage and in the process destroying the relationship.

5. Trust is present: Trusting each other in supportive ways is crucial to a healthy relationship. Moreso trust each other to be emotionally available when the need arises.

6. At ease with intimacy: You are both at ease with discussing intimate and vulnerable feelings, at ease with leaning on each other while upholding distinct individual needs and personalities and enabling each other as well.

7. Maintain self-worth: Maintaining individual self-worth and feeling close with your partner don’t have to be at variance in a healthy relationship. So even though you have separate sense of worth, this variance should still be supported by your relationship.

8. Loving and result-oriented resolution of problems: You discuss depressing situations or grey areas of your relationship in an agreeable respectful manner. You respond to each other’s problems, comforting and moving ahead to resolve them as a team.

How to fit one ‘connect time’ into your day:

Are these signs characteristic of your relationship? Do they bring to mind ways you can make your relationship better? Does reappraising them confirm your happiness and how grateful you are? On the other hand, if your marriage feels dull, and could do with a slight shake up, a little change in daily habits can resuscitate your relationship according to experts.

A vital strategy is to create stress free 'connect time' regularly with your partner.  It could be as simple as enjoying a cup of cocoa or green tea together after dinner or taking a one hour leisurely walk in the park at the weekend.

Do the things you love to do. The best 'connect time' is spent doing things you already love to do together. The only necessary ingredient is the commitment to make it a compulsory routine. For instance, if you always have a cup of cocoa or green tea after dinner, make this happen without the children every night. Alternatively go to bed together and spend some time immersed in each other without a distracting TV.

A little devotion means a lot. Devote to a proper time and place, with a clear beginning and end, and stick with it.  If parenting duties disturb this routine, think of dependable hands to take care of the children for an hour or so each week.

Don’t complicate it. Keep things simple during your connect time.  Make a point not to disagree or try to solve family problems, or talk about finances or argue about whose turn it is to drop the children off at school. Such arguments can destroy couples’ connect time. The key objective is to unwind and connect.

Photo Credit: Creative Commons.