6 Tips for Healthy Relationships: To sustain a relationship, whether new or old, trust, love, and understanding are required. A relationship can be made healthier by keeping a few things in mind, in addition to understanding and supporting one another. However, it’s also true that both parties must work together for any relationship to succeed.
If you’re in a new relationship or if your current one is deteriorating, here are some helpful tips. By following these tips, you can strengthen the foundation of your relationship and ensure happiness with and for your partner.
Follow these tips to make healthy relationship:
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Do the things you did the first year you were dating
As the months and years roll on, we tend to slink into our proverbial sweatpants and get lazy in our relationship. We lose our patience, gentleness, thoughtfulness, understanding, and the general effort we once made toward our mate. Think back to the first year of your relationship and write down all the things you used to do for your partner. Now start doing them again.
Ask for what you want
Over time, we assume that our partner knows us so well that we don’t need to ask for what we want. What happens when we make this assumption? Expectations are set, and just as quickly, they get deflated. Those unmet expectations can leave us questioning the viability of our partnership and connection. Keep in mind that “asking for what you want” extends to everything from emotional to sexual wants.
Ask questions beyond just “How was your day?”
At the end of a long day, we tend to mentally check out of our lives and, consequently, our relationship. We rely on the standard question, “How was your day?” But because we hear that question so often, many of us will reflexively just respond with the bare minimum: “Fine. How was yours?” This does nothing to improve your connection and can actually damage it because you’re losing the opportunity to regularly connect in a small way.
Keep it sexy.
What might change in your relationship if both you and your partner committed to increasing the behaviors you each find sexy and limiting those that aren’t? Think about this in the broadest form. “Sexy” can certainly refer to bedroom preferences, but it also represents what excites us about our mate in our day-to-day lives. Do you find it sexy if they help with the housework? Do you find it “unsexy” when they use the restroom with the door wide-open? Talk about what it specifically means to “keep it sexy” in your relationship. Be amazed, be humored, and be inspired.
Make your apology count.
It’s well understood that apologizing is a good thing, but it only makes a real impact when you mean it. Saying things like “I’m sorry you feel that way,” “I’m sorry you see it that way,” or “I’m sorry if I upset you” are a waste of time and breath. Even if you don’t agree that your action was wrong, you will never successfully argue a feeling.
Accept that your partner feels hurt. From this place, a real apology can have a significant impact. When you love your partner and hurt them (intentionally or not), you can always legitimately apologize for the pain you caused, regardless of your perspective on what you did or didn’t do.
Intimacy can be an important factor.
If physical intimacy is important to you in a relationship, Hardin says that expressing your personal needs is critical.
“As humans, we do a terrible job of helping people figure out how to communicate successfully around physical intimacy,” she says. “Start by talking openly about what works and what doesn’t work, what you like and what you don’t like, and then making adjustments in the moment.”
If physical intimacy continues to be an issue in your relationship, Hardin suggests visiting a professional sex therapist.
