Top 5 Characteristics of a Healthy Relationship

Healthy relationships are the ones that are exciting, effortless and gradually turn into a successful long-term partnerships.

Maintaining a relationship is a two-way process. It is just about taking care of yourself and taking care of your partner. It is a partnership of selfishness when one focuses on giving more rather than receiving.

Every couple should know that a few problems do not mar the love they share. A healthy relationship makes itself evident if you keep your eyes open to certain characteristics.

[Read: How to keep Spark Alive in your Relationship]

Happiness and Humour

The couple that laughs together stays together, as simple as it could be. If you’re embarrassed to make a self-deprecatory joke or afraid you might offend your partner with a slightly risqué joke you can expect your relationship to sag. While there are boundaries of what acceptable humour is and what is not, every couple develops their own sense of funnies. The idea is to test those limits gently and locating the funny bone of your partner. To be tickled is human and couples who for the sake of maintaining mystery and allure give it up are likely to fail.

It's not your partner who is responsible for your happiness but you need to take responsibility of your own happiness. If you derive joy and happiness from what your partner does for you, you are in a happy relationship. Your laughter is more than comforting act for your partner but also a sense of security. So, don’t forget to laugh with them.

[Read: 10 Tips for Happy Marriage]

Intimate Connection

You do not have to go at it like rabbits at regular intervals and sex in a relationship does dwindle after a while. That however does not mean you give it up altogether and become monks in partnership. Spending quality time with your loved one keeps the relationship going. If you don’t connect with your partner, communication and busy schedule is to be blamed. To build the intimate connection, you need to make time for the things that you love doing together, plan fun activities such as candle-light dinner and vacations together.

Healthy Participants

For a healthy relationship to stay so it requires healthy participants. Although surviving a spell of ill health of one partner can hurl a couple into deeper intimacy. It is still vital if the man and woman try to stay fit. If you neglect yourself it is taken as a subliminal sign of taking your partner for granted. Conversely, a man does not have to be a fitness-freak or a woman may not be the cover girl  for Sports Illustrated. The healthier you are, the more pride and affection you are likely to inspire in your relationship.

[Read: How to Make Happiness Last]

Respect

Good fences make good neighbour and boundaries make for a healthy relationship. Every successful couple makes allowances for privacy and one’s own personal time. It is never a good idea to police every action and thought of your lover. It can only breed resentment and contempt. In a healthy relationship nobody has to ask for ‘space’. It already exists and your lover respects you enough to know that you are your own person who likes his/her time out regularly. Earn respect of your partner by keeping your promises and don’t letting them down.

Gestures

Lastly, a healthy relationship is marked by not just faith, trust and love experienced inside your heart. It needs be manifested outside. To express your feelings once and for all is unachievable because we are wired to need a regular supply of gestures. It could be conveyed in comforting words, subtle actions or material things. You do not need to obsess over proving your love constantly, though. In fact, that is downright unhealthy. But you can develop your own language system to let your lover know you are there for them.

[Read: What Makes a Good Intimate Relationship]

In order to encrypt these  features in your relationship, you have to start with yourself. Change yourself to see a change in your partner.

• Be willing change yourself,
• see the relationship as an opportunity to give,
• be willing to admit your mistakes,
• listen to your partner,
• be supportive of your partner,
• be open and
• have integrity to deal with issues.

The feeling of intimacy, happiness and connection must be mutual for a healthy relationship. A healthy relationship establishes the equilibrium between two persons.

Dependence, co-dependence and unhealthy neediness are characteristics of an unhealthy relationship. If you love someone who does not love you back, your relationship not ideal.

Read more articles on Relationship Help.