Once you've spent some time being in a relationship, its evaluation is of utmost importance to understand the state of your relationship. Whether it's flourishing or degrading, you have to determine it's health and check for signs of a healthy relationship.
One might wonder, why do we have to evaluate it at all? You have to, because sometimes, what might seem right on the surface, could be utterly rotten below it. The health of your relationship determines your and your partner's health, both mental and physical.
You can create your own factors that determine the healthiness of your relationship, but here are a few common factors that might help you cover the base. There is no chronology, that is, all of these factors are equally important for your relationship. So, here are 10 signs of a healthy relationship:
You Spend Quality Time Together
Spending quality time with your partner isn't a one-time thing. Generally, at the early stages of a relationship, this ground is well covered, but as you get comfortable with each other and the relationship flourishes, this time gets significantly lower. Doesn't matter if you've been in the relationship for 2 years or 10, spending time, no, spending quality time together will always be the base of your relationship.
If both the partners get busy in their respective lifestyles and prioritize work, the relationship is going downhill. It doesn't mean you shouldn't work, but it means that if not every day, then in a week, you ought to spend a whole day with your partner without distractions.
You Accept Each Other With Your Respective Flaws
At some point in your relationship, you'll wonder what it would be like if your partner could change this one little habit of theirs. At this point, you need to stop yourself and remind yourself that love doesn't mean changing the other person, but to accept them with their flaws. You must realize and accept that none of you is perfect and this is what makes life more interesting.
A healthy change is acceptable, and perhaps necessary, but a change based on your partner's whim can never be healthy.
You Respect Each Other's Life & Career Goals
The most important thing in a relationship is that you and your partner are on the same page about life; your core values and morality match and you understand and support each other's life goals. Questioning and ridiculing each other's life choices every now and then is not a sign of a healthy relationship. You could be a socially awkward person and your partner, the opposite; this doesn't mean either of you gets to taunt the other person on their lifestyle.
Just like your life goals, your career goals could be polar opposites too, but for a healthy relationship, it's crucial to find a common ground that supports each of your goals. There should never come a point when either of you has to sacrifice their career for the other unless there's no choice to it and you both understand and agree to it.
If your partner's corporate job requires you to permanently move to a new city, you should consider doing it and finding opportunities in your career at the new place. A temporary move of say, 6 months or a year, on and off, can be dealt with as a long distance relationship if you both mutually agree to it.
You Have Your Personal Space
Being in a relationship doesn't mean you stop being an individual. However popular the saying, 'Two bodies, one soul', might be, you are two different individuals who need their own personal space whether you realize it or not. For many people, once they become a couple, their personal life starts to crumble. This is unhealthy.
Giving each other personal space doesn't mean setting them free from the relationship, it means to give them time to grow as an individual, not just as a couple. You both should maintain your individual identities, because who you are as an individual hugely affects your relationship with your partner.
Restricting yourself, or your partner of this personal space is being obsessive, and everybody knows, obsessions are never healthy.
Your Relationship Is Your Safe Zone
A healthy relationship is determined by how the partners are involved and invested. A relationship where you can speak your mind and be listened to, not just heard; where you can express your deeply held fears and wishes, where you can open up and dwell on the little things that matter to you and your partner; where you can fight on the problems that third-world countries are facing or the last decision you both made that went wrong, all with the same zeal.
Fights are an integral part of a relationship, and so is boredom. If you both are able to overcome these, and still be comfortable, your relationship has become your safe zone.
Your relationship should be your home, where you come to at the end of the day and know that now, it's all good. It all comes to down to being comfortable being you with your partner.
These are a few basic signs of a healthy relationship that'll help you determine whether your relationship is blossoming or crumbling.
What do you think? Is your relationship healthy? Let us know in the comments below!