Tips and secrets for building and sustaining a healthy relationship

Create healthy relationships. Learn to understand each other more deeply. Whatever issues you don’t resolve in this relationship you will take to your next one.

 

Creating a healthy relationship has been hugely rewarding.

I’ve been with my partner since 1993. And believe me we’ve had many ups and downs in that time.

The skills we have developed help us engage constructively with disconnection and conflict. Time and again we have worked through differences and come out the other side more connected and with a stronger relationship.

Effective communication skills are foundational for a healthy relationship in which you:

– get to know one another more and more deeply, with compassion and acceptance

– understand each other’s perspective — this doesn’t mean you agree, but you can say “I get it”

– explore how each other interprets things, how your family history impacts how you each see the world, and why certain things are pet peeves for each person

– navigate conflicts gracefully; they can still be intense and uncomfortable, but you can make your way through them in a way that leaves each person and the relationship better off than before

These skills can make a bad relationship good, and make a good relationship fantastic.

When emotions hit the frying pan, a healthy relationship also means that the individuals in it can take responsibility and face their own personal growth and work.

So working on yourself is a big part of healthy relationship. A big part of working on yourself is intrapersonal communication. So there’s interpersonal communication, between people, and intrapersonal communication; how you communicate with yourself.

And one of the skills that we have for that is self-empathy.

Working on yourself also involves being aware of where your buttons are: what things tend to trigger you, and the kinds of things that lead to you having uncomfortable emotions and unfulfilled needs.

Relationships are work, and that’s a good thing. We can grow so much in relationship. A healthy relationship means that you’re going to grow a lot.

Ups and downs are a pattern

One of the things that Tricia and I have discovered in our relationship is that we go through periodic ups and downs. We go through cycles of feeling more connected and feeling less connected. We simply no longer freak out about it when we’re feeling less connected. It doesn’t mean anything horrible, and we realize that it’s just a cycle.

Sometimes we’re more connected, sometimes we’re less connected. So when we notice that there’s disconnection, we can take it in stride and have perspective around it.

We take care of ourselves individually and also do whatever we need to do to bring the relationship back into balance and back to being a healthy relationship.

Relationship exists in the context of community

One of the things that’s key to a healthy relationship is to recognize that relationships exist in the context of community, and part of that means a circle of support.

Tricia and I get stuck when we’re both needing empathy. In other words, when both of us are wanting badly to get heard, then usually neither one of us gets heard.

It’s much more difficult to get in a listening space when my emotions are running high. And if we’re both in that space and needing to be heard it’s hard to move a conversation forward.That’s where a circle of support is crucial. In my work with couples, I always recommended right from the beginning that each person build a circle of support.

What a circle of support means

Tricia and I have an understanding that either one of us or both of us can turn to people outside of the two of us, friends of ours, in order to get support. And the kind of support that we need, first and foremost is empathic support.

So it’s important to know the difference between empathy and other types of support.

The other types of support, such as advice or sympathy (“I’ve been there too”) or suggestions or investigation or other forms of therapy, can be useful but if so then after empathy.

So it’s important to know the distinction between empathy and other types of support and especially to build our circle of support for ourselves and for our relationship from people who have or are willing to develop empathy skills, or from friends that are close enough so that we can coach them on how to give us the type of support that we’re needing.

So please see the page on empathy in order to see some of those key distinctions.

Again social support is really valuable and important because we can turn to someone outside of us and be able to vent in a healthy responsible way. And we come out of it more connected to our own needs, less emotionally charged, better able to listen, and more clear about what we’d like to request.

When my relationships are healthy and positive, compared to when they are not, the difference in my life is huge.

What makes a relationship healthy vs not healthy?

First of all, my relationships are healthy to the extent that both of us trust that our needs matter to the other person. When I trust that my needs matter to you, I relax. I’m not second-guessing your motives. If something you do is not working for me I feel safer approaching you about it. If we need to work something out, I feel more trust that we can get there together.

How do we get to this place of trusting that our needs matter to each other?

When I slow myself down, and really take the time to listen to you that will help build your trust that I care.

When instead of saying “I understand”, I demonstrate understanding by reflecting back to you what it is I heard, and checking it out with you. “This is what I heard. Is that correct? Did I hear you the way that you want to be heard?”

There IS a secret to relationship problem solving.

In a healthy relationship, not only can we solve our problems, we can prevent problems through good communication.

Effective communication skills are the core of healthy relationships.

Every communication process has two parts, speaking and listening, also known as giving and receiving. In NVC we call those honesty and empathy.

Effective communication skills involve clear self expression (honesty), but also engaged, compassionate listening (empathy).

Furthermore, the best communicators also possess strong self-empathy skills.

What do you think gets in the way of my being fully present with you?

It’s that I have too much going on for me. If I am in emotional distress or pain, it is much harder to be empathically present with you.

Therefore, self-empathy skills can be critical.

LINK: Here is a story of a time I used self-empathy and had a different and better outcome than had I not.

So self-empathy — placing compassionate attention on your own feelings and underlying needs — can be another important ingredient for effective communication skills and healthy relationships.

Being able to sustain a back-and-forth — especially when emotions are running high — and follow it through with empathy and honesty, with compassion and authenticity, means that we can use conflicts to lead to greater understanding, connection, and win-win outcomes.