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How to Start a Healthy Relationship
To learn how to start a healthy relationship, let’s take a look at six different tactics. Some are positive steps towards starting a healthy relationship, some are surefire ways to build codependency and bad relationships. Find which of these tactics you follow and decide if you need to rethink how you approach relationships.
- High or low expectations. Do you approach a new friend or potential date with a lot of mental baggage about what your relationship will mean? Spending too much time thinking about what you and your new friend provide for each other is a bad sign — it means you have expectations about that person or that relationship. It isn’t just high expectations that are dangerous . . . thinking too little of yourself or of the other person is also dangerous. Having a relationship with someone means accepting who they are, their natural self, not some image you’ve created of them or of your friendship. Instead of approaching a situation with expectations, try the next tactic.
- Realistic expectations. Understanding what a person means to you, or what you mean to them, is really a very simple equation. If you enjoy someone’s company, and they enjoy yours, you’re probably ready to form some sort of relationship. Don’t worry about their quirks or what you can get out of them ahead of time — and don’t spend much time thinking the same things about yourself as a friend or as a lover. Having “realistic expectations” means just being a friend for a person, regardless of their station or what they provide for you.
- Desire for communication. It is a wonderful thing to find a person you can really communicate with. This doesn’t mean you have to sit around discussing great works of literature or complex mathematical equations (although intellectual discussion can be quite romantic) — communication just means that you and another person have shown a willingness to, well, listen to one another. Communicating isn’t talking — it means one person talking and the other listening and responding. If you’re entering relationships with the intention of learning about a person (and teaching them about yourself), you’re probably on the right track. The opposite of this behavior can be deadly for a relationship.
- Lack of communication. Do you find yourself unwilling or unable to really listen to what someone has to say? If you’re just starting out becoming friends or lovers with someone and you find yourself avoiding conversation, this is a big red flag. Relationships require honesty, and part of honesty is talking honestly about yourself and your friends. If you can’t simply sit down and share information back and forth with someone, you will certainly run into ‘communication issues’ later on down the line.
- Fear of change. Do you become anxious when things change or when people behave outside of your expectations? If so, you probably have issues with “flexibility”, and this can be poisonous to a relationship. It is perfectly natural to be apprehensive about a situation when it is in transition — moving to a new town, changing schools or jobs, even meeting new people means change and usually a bit of anxiety for anyone. However, remaining inflexible when you’re starting a relationship is a bad sign. It means you and your partner will have difficulty with just about every other facet of your relationship. How do you get over your fear of change?
- Allow for change and growth. No matter how old you are, you’re still changing. Being human means being a participant in a game in which the rules are constantly in flux. If you are willing and ready for your partner to change, you know you’re starting out on a very healthy track. People (and situations) change, and being flexible emotionally means you’re doing all of the above positive things (communicating and having realistic expectations) and avoiding the negative. Really, being flexible about a relationship is the most mature approach possible. It allows you and your partner to be human, to make mistakes, and to act to make up for them.
Learning how to start a healthy relationship might mean changing some things about you or your thought process. We’re not asking you to change who you are, but to tweak your idea of what a relationship means and think of the potential impact you have on a new friend.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 9:01 am and is filed under Flirting, Relationships.
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