Relationships with the people you love should be healthy, but sometimes they are not. If you have an unhealthy relationship either with your kids, parents, spouse, colleagues, and people around you, you need to take up the challenge of turning the tables and making things work better for all involved parties. Healthy relationships don’t just happen; they are built by two willing parties. Building a strong relationship takes time, commitment, and a lot of work to build. You will know your relationship is unhealthy and needs fixing if:
- You and your loved ones don’t support each other as much as you should.
- You are emotionally and practically absent from each other’s lives, especially in bad times.
- There isn’t mutual respect or trust shared by both parties.
- You aren’t communicating openly about things that bother you in life.
- You don’t share any interests anymore, neither do you respect the interest of the other party.
- The understanding and honesty you shared no longer exists.
Everyone needs to be happy and satisfied with their lives, around the people they love. You need to feel the warmth and worth of belonging to a family; a community. For that, you need to fix your relationship (especially with your partner) by following the following 10 tips:
1. Show Appreciation
Couples in love shower each other with affection and words of appreciation all the time. Along the way, many couples start taking those gestures for granted. That is the general reason why many people falling out of love. To keep the original love burning, you need to keep admiring your partner and appreciating the little things they do for you. Appreciate them when they make you happy and when they try to make you happy but fail. In fact, you don’t need any reason to appreciate them for as long they are in your life, by your side.
Although you don’t have to give them material gifts to show appreciation, your partner will always appreciate you more when you gift them. Well thought out gifts, not necessarily fancy, will make your significant other feel your love.
2. Invest in Trust
Whether it is your partner, friend, or relative, you need to trust them first for there to be any meaningful relationship between you two. A trusting attitude is an attitude for love. To build trust, you need to be consistent with what you say and do. You both have to respect each other’s boundaries. Most importantly, you must never betray their trust.
3. Communicate
There will always be tons of unfathomable hurdles to overcome within a relationship. Your partner will lose their job, someone will hit on them, illnesses will strike, and bad decisions will be made by both parties. These are challenges that have brought down healthy marriages and friendships. However, if you communicate openly and honestly, and from a place of love, these hurdles will never shake your relationship.
4. Be a Good Listener
Communication is a two-way street. If you want your partner/friend to listen to you, you must be prepared to listen to them as well. Listening effectively will actually help boost your partner’s self-esteem; they feel confident that someone loves and supports them. And listening doesn’t mean staring blankly as they talk. It means making an effort to understand what the other person says, having a genuine interaction with them, and following the instructions they give if any. By being genuine and understanding, you can build a respectable and strong relationship
5. Be Committed to the Relationship
You have to be committed to sharing yourself and your life with your partner. There are no two ways about that. Commit your time, resources, and energy to make things work between you two. Be willing to be loyal and to stand with the other person; choosing them over and over even when it is not fashionable to do so. It is only after doing that that you can expect them to reciprocate.
6. Spend Quality Time Together
No matter how crazy your life gets, no matter how busy your day was, always set aside time for your partner. Participate in fun activities together. Be willing to stay together. The same goes for friends. Even if you are married, have jobs, and everyone is chasing their own life. For a strong relationship, you must create time for each other.
7. Be Willing to Compromise
Relationships are built on a give-and-take platform. You have to be ready to sacrifice your resources, emotions, and material things in order to make your partner happy or comfortable. As much as you need to take care of yourself and be happy, you also need to compromise your tastes and preferences if they don’t favour your partner. The partner should sacrifice as well so that you can both find a middle ground. You will run into problems eventually if one of you compromises all the time and the other doesn’t reciprocate.
8. Be a Team
If there is a problem (you will have tons of those), avoid the temptation of focusing on who was wrong and who should have done and did not do what. Strive to build a strong relationship that solves any and all challenges that come your way. Learn to support your partner when they make mistakes in life; never criticize them when they are at their lowest point. Learn to respect your partner’s decisions even when you feel like he/she should have made better decisions. Let them know that you have their best interests at heart. Lastly, a great team is a team where everyone takes responsibility for their actions.
9. Grow Together
Strive to grow in your respective careers, in your private lives, and as partners, and support one another while at it. Some people, especially wives, sacrifice their careers to take care of their babies, only to regret later in life and blame their husbands for it. Avoid that. You both need to push each other to grow and venture into uncharted territories. Be willing to be uncomfortable in order to grow. If your partner is offered a job in a faraway city, let them go and then figure out how to make your relationship work later on. Don’t hold them back.
10. Understand and Respect Differences
Don’t do things in secret because you know your partner won’t be supportive of them. Secrecy in relationships can be drastic. Instead of hiding, put all your differences on the table and address them one after the other. Explain to one another why you need to keep doing that which the partner doesn’t approve. You don’t have to do something with your partner if it makes you unhappy; you only need to understand why they do it, respect that they need to keep doing it, and then give them the space to do it.
Final Thoughts
Be respectful at all times! Emotions, feelings, and beliefs aside, you must always respect the people you love. It doesn’t matter if they are right or wrong. You must respect them even if you disagree with them in order to build a healthy and strong relationship.
