IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP HEALTHY? FIVE KEY QUESTIONS TO ASK

What does it mean for a relationship to be healthy vs unhealthy? How do you even evaluate if your relationship with someone is healthy or not? Let's do a deep dive into the nature of healthy and unhealthy relationships.

Think about how many relationships you have in your life. You might have a spouse or romantic partner, or if you don’t, chances are good you have at least a friend or two in your life. Maybe you choose to have relationships with your siblings, or parents or extended family. All of these types of relationships can vary on a spectrum from very healthy to unhealthy to even abusive. The challenge is, how do you know if your relationship with someone is healthy or not? Let's examine 5 key areas that can help you determine if your relationship is in that healthy zone.

Keep in mind that when I’m talking about relationship health, I am thinking of a spectrum. Think about our physical health-- we rarely think of ourselves as 100% physically healthy or unhealthy, there are many parameters of health. My cardiovascular health might be great for example, I might have very strong endurance and all my heart numbers are looking good, but I could have really poor strength in my muscles, or maybe cognitively I’m struggling to remember as much as I used to.

It’s really the same with relationships. There’s no one single indicator of health, but there are several indicators and today we are going to discuss 5 key indicators of a healthy relationship and the corresponding red flags to pay attention to.

Number one is Trust. It’s pretty much impossible to have a healthy relationship if you don’t trust the other person. And trust can have a lot of meanings. When I say trust what I mean is that you can depend on the other person to tell you the truth, no matter what. A person who says what they mean and means what they say is trustworthy.

When you trust someone, you know that this person is transparent with you. They don’t avoid sharing key details with you or only share half truths with you, they share the entire truth. Truthful people also most of the time are accurate describers of situations or events. They don’t exaggerate, they don’t lie to get out of a difficult situation.

Remember that trust is something that a person needs to earn over time. The key piece of trust is reliability over time…you can see a pattern with this person that they do in fact do what they say they are going to do, and that what they share with you ends up being the truth. If you feel like you trust someone that you just met, that’s great, but it is really more of a feeling than a reality, because there really is no way to entirely trust someone immediately because you need that time with a person to see if what they say and do is the truth.

Here are some common Red Flags to look out for that the person might not be trustworthy:

The first is that you notice that the person lies. And maybe it’s not big lies like, where they work or live but even little white lies. If a person is inclined to tell lots of white lies, it brings down the trust factor. It’s helpful to understand why the person is lying. Sometimes we lie to make ourselves feel better or get others to like us (we exaggerate a skill we don’t really have or we embellish a story to make it sound more exciting than it really was).

If you notice that the person in your life tells lots of white or even big lies, this is a red flag that I encourage you to talk about directly with this person. It is a good sign if the person admits it and can explain, "yes I do that sometimes because I think it will make people like me more, but I’m working on that", then keep your eye on it and proceed with caution.

However, if the person tells even more lies to get out of their exposure, proceed very carefully with this person. It doesn’t mean that you can’t be friends with them, but you might need to set some boundaries or limits with them. You might not share with them deeply personal information about yourself. Trust is absolutely fundamental to the health of the relationship, so if you don’t trust this person, then it will be very difficult for the relationship to be strong.

Other red flags for trust are noticing that the person acts significantly differently around different people. It’s normal to an extent for our personalities to vary a bit from situation to situation. Maybe I’m more outgoing with my close friends and more shy in a social setting where I don’t know many people, but on the whole, I’m pretty much the same person. If you notice huge discrepancies between how someone acts with you alone vs out in public, this is a concern. It can make it difficult to know who is the real person and who is going to show up at any given day?

Lastly, if you find yourself doubting that the person is going to follow through or do what they say they will do, this is also concerning. No one is perfect and we shouldn’t expect that, but if on the whole, you find yourself saying things inside like “I’ll believe it when I see it” then maybe this person has a pattern of not following through on what they say, making it difficult for you to trust or rely on them.

Number two is Respect:

When I say respect I mean in both directions, a healthy relationship is one in which you respect that person and that person respects you. Think about what respect means, To respect someone means that you care about them and their feelings and you want to treat them well. You see them as an equal to you and treat them the way you would want to be treated. In turn, the other person treats you fairly. When there is respect in a relationship you feel generally comfortable setting expectations and boundaries with this person knowing that they will accept those limits without question or complaint.

Red flags to pay attention to regarding respect. If you find that you have to repeat your boundaries multiple times because the other person won't accept them, be very careful. This person is showing you they don’t respect you. You should not have to repeat your boundary more than once because they should be respected the first time.

Also, if a person expects something from you rather than asks you for it, this is a red flag. When a person expects or demands that you do them a favor, they are showing you that they don’t see you as a person with their own needs and wishes. In a respectful relationship, the other person will ask for a favor and express gratitude and appreciation when you help them. They respect your time as valuable.

And lastly, a person who respects you will never call you derogatory names, even in jest. When you ask them to stop doing something you don’t like, they stop. They don’t make fun of you in hurtful ways. They don’t ever pressure you to do something that you don’t want to do.

Notice how you feel about yourself after spending time with someone. If you feel anxious or bad about yourself after being with someone, this is a red flag that the person is putting you down in subtle ways. No one deserves to be made fun of or put down, not ever. This is never acceptable.

The third sign of a healthy relationship is Good communication:

In a healthy relationship, you are able to be honest and open with the other person. They listen, they care. They are able to validate your feelings. There is an equal balance of sharing back and forth. One person does not dominate the conversation all the time.

Signs of good communication is that the person is able to share their thoughts and feelings and allow you to do the same.

When an issue or conflict comes up in the relationship, you can talk it over safely. You both attempt to see each other’s point of view.

Red flags with communication is that: You argue often or you frequently misunderstand each other. It is very difficult to have a healthy relationship with someone who cannot communicate even the most basic thoughts or feelings. A big red flag is if the other person often blames you for things rather than reflecting on the role they played in the situation. Or alternatively, The other person avoids all conflict, pretends the conflict never occurred. Good communication can be learned. It may take time and practice, particularly if you didn’t have healthy role models for clear and direct communication. This is the biggest reason why couples come into counseling is to address unhealthy communication partners.

The 4th sign of a healthy relationship is that you both put equal time, energy and effort into the relationship:

In a healthy relationship, one person’s needs are not central all the time. Of course this may change during certain phases, of our lives but overall it stays balanced. For example, imagine that your friend gets diagnosed with an illness and then her husband leaves her, there may be many months where most of your conversations are centered around her, and what’s going on in her life, this is understandable. However in a healthy relationship, you will see over time that things will balance out. You trust that if you go through a rough patch in the future, she will be there to help focus on you.

Red flags that there is an imbalance in the relationships is when you feel you are putting all the energy, all the time. You are always the one coming up with the plans, reaching out, connecting. Or maybe when you spend time with this person you feel drained by the relationship rather than energized. These are signs of imbalance that need to be attended to

The last and 5th sign of a healthy relationship seems obvious but it is actually something we forget: do you enjoy their company

In a healthy relationship, you laugh, you do fun things together. You look forward to spending time with this person. You feel happy being with them. You feel better about yourself after having spent time with them. You feel as though your cup is full. You feel energized. You don’t have to have everything in common but you do have to have some things in common that you both enjoy that you can do together.

This is a really important aspect of romantic couples who have kids. I always advise my patients to make sure they maintain the friendship in the marriage. Make sure you don't throw your entire lives into your children as you will wake up one day and realize the kids are gone and you don’t know each other anymore. Prioritize the marriage separate from your kids, if you have them, so you continue to enjoy each other’s company

Red flags that you no longer enjoy each other are that:

The time together is often either spent arguing or discussing the status of your relationship. You notice that you really don’t have much in common. Maybe you notice that you feel tired or drained after being with this person because it seems to take a lot of work.

You notice that you feel often annoyed and you maybe even dread seeing the person vs looking forward to it. These are all signs that you don’t really like this person very much. I see this often with family members. Just because they are your sister or your cousin, doesn’t mean you have to like them. You didn’t choose this person to be your sibling, and you aren’t obligated to spend time with family if you don’t want to. You can love someone but not really like them and that’s ok.

Hopefully these 5 key indicators will give you some insights into how healthy or unhealthy your relationships are. Remember, everyone, no matter what, deserves to have healthy relationships in their lives. You deserve to be loved, cared for, and treated with respect, no matter what.

Our relationships with others are directly related to our relationship with ourselves, meaning that if we don’t love ourselves, if we don’t have a strong, trusting, healthy relationship with ourselves, then we are not likely to have strong, trusting relationships with others. We teach people how to treat us, so if we want to be loved and respected by others, it starts first with loving and respecting ourselves.

Its not possible for every relationship in your life to be healthy, think of how many types of relationships there are. And again, we don’t need to expect perfection, but please notice if you have a pattern of having unhealthy or abusive relationships in many areas of your life. If so, please consider working with a good therapist to help you better understand how this happened and what you can do today to change it.