How To Know if You Are In A Good Relationship
Recently a client asked me how she would know if she was in a good relationship. If she was doing a good job at her work, she would get promoted. If she was doing well in school, she would get good grades. But if she was doing well in relationships, well, what would she get?
The answer to this question may seem beyond obvious – you would have love, of course, one might say. But typically, people can’t tell whether they are in a good relationship or not. Can you?
You can learn to tell if you are in a good relationship. You don’t have to wait and see if you and your partner will make each other happy or miserable down the road. No matter what stage of the relationship you are in, you can take its pulse right now and be able to tell if it’s thriving, sick and needs help, or if it’s beyond help and needs to end.
Interestingly, your feelings are not always a good barometer of whether you are in a good relationship or not. That’s crazy, isn’t it? I mean, isn’t love all about how you feel?
Well, it is and it isn’t. People get into relationships to feel good or because they are in love – or so they think. But in reality, every person gets into a relationship to meet a complex set of deeper needs, for example:
The need to be understood
The need for companionship
The need to be approved of
The need to be wanted and cherished
The need to care for and to be cared for
And yes, the need to love and be loved
Besides, haven’t you ever been in love, and yet in a bad relationship? This happens to people all the time. People stay in bad relationships and marriages, lovesick over their partner yet unable to let go.
At the same time, people in good relationships sometimes feel bad and think it’s the relationship making them feel bad. For example, who among us has not been with someone who seems deeply in love with us, and yet runs? It may be a good relationship the person is running from, but one that made him or her feel the fear of intimacy.
This is why your feelings are not always a good judge of whether you are in a good relationship or not. However, I am about to give you a concrete way to measure whether your relationship is good and healthy, or should be put out to pasture. Ready?
You are in a thriving new relationship if:
· You and the other person both want the same thing in your relationship’s future – you have talked about it and know exactly what your love sees in the future and it closely matches what you see.
· You are neither spending every moment in touch, nor only seeing each other infrequently. Each of you has a life you value, and at the same time you are eager to get to know each other.
· You spend time together in person, so that both of you can get to know and have tangible experiences with each other.
· You can ask each other anything and not have to deal with defensive reactions or hostility. If one of you does something strange by the other’s standards, there is no problem in asking what it means.
· Neither of you is going into the relationship because you “need” the relationship, attention, affection, love or validation from another person.
· You have similar communication styles. If you like to talk, you are with another talker, or a listener. You are not with someone who thinks words are unnecessary or who rolls his or her eyes or gets defensive when you want to talk.
· You crave a similar amount of intimacy. If you want lots of closeness, you are with someone who creates and seeks out closeness, not someone who holds you at arm’s length and only allows closeness once in a while.
· Your partner is not emotionally unavailable and you are not emotionally avoidant. Dealing with your sweetie does not make you see red flags, nor does closeness make you want to run.
You are in a thriving mature relationship (which is where you want to end up if you are in a new relationship) if:
· You and your partner can be yourselves with each other
· You and your partner always ask each other the things you want to know
· You can bring up any subject, including the relationship, and your partner will talk to you about it — maybe not gladly, but your partner will talk to you and try to resolve whatever issues you bring up. Some times the partner brings up issues.
· You and your partner can ask for what you need from each other. This doesn’t mean either one of you always gets your way, but you can ask and be heard.
· Your partner knows you and you know it. You feel seen and appreciated.
· You love and adore each other.
· You are still hot for each other.
Of course, there is more to these lists. But full lists would be too long to print here, and each person’s list varies slightly from everyone else’s, according to what you want and need in a relationship.
The bottom line is, though, that whether you end up in a good relationship or not is not a mystery dependent on time and luck. You can know the health and, to an extent, the future of your relationship. Even more importantly, you can deliberately set out to attract and create a good relationship…but that is a topic for another time.
If being able to tell if you are in a good, healthy relationship intrigues you, and you are having trouble telling if you are in fact in a good relationship, set up a Diagnostic Love Life Session with me. I will help you figure out if you are in a good relationship, and if not, how to make it better — or even save it, if need be.
From the Heart,
on October 7, 2006 @ 2:17 pm
Hi,
I have read several articles that you have written, and I enjoy and gain knowledge from them.
My question is this, I am involved with a man who can’t seem to resolve his feelings concerning his ex wife. Though, we exhibit alot of the above behaviors in a new relationship and a mature relationship. But we do not exhibit all of them, we do touch on alot of them. I am struggling with us right now because we have decided to be “just friends” until he can work through his feelings for his ex. He and I both come from dysfunctional families, and I am trying to work on me. I do believe he is trying to resolve his feelings for her, he knows she isn’t’ good for him, but it is the Pavlov’s dog routine.. she says jump he says how high. This has been hard, because we do have a wonderful communication pattern, more so than any man I have dated. He was very open with me from the beginning about the unresolved issues of his past. We enjoy each other’s company, and both of us are in agreement that being together, is very comfortable, and not like “work”. So how do you determine with all of the signs of being in a good relationship, if this is actually a good place for me to be?
on November 14, 2006 @ 6:52 pm
Hi
I met this guy and we have been going out a month now. We see each other once a week and I wait for him to call me. I am playing “play hard to get” game. I have learned from my past relationships not to call the men. But with this new guy I rarely know anything about him. I am afraid to ask questions and I am very private person. To be truthful I am statring to fall in love with him but I do not dare tell him. When is a good time to tell him that 6 months down the road?
Help me I need some direction.
Lynn
on April 9, 2007 @ 8:54 pm
My story-
I met my girlfriend (ex girlfriend) in highschool we dated and went out for 3 years 3 months and 10 days. We had what my mom liked to call the “ideal” relationship. She said we just “got it” we always were very open and honest with eachother. We could spend days and nights talking. We both shared the same intimacy for eachother. We both shared the same wants for the future. We have been through so much for eachother. There are no secrets in our closets and even when it hurts we are honest with eachother. For the last year and half we have spent so much time together. We sleep in the same room or couch together and always hold eachother tight. We both love to be touching while we sleep. We did have sex up until about 9 months ago. It was a mutual decision to quit and wait till we got married because it was something we both wanted to wait on. She broke up with me a couple of weeks ago saying she wasnt happy. That she thought maybe she was staying with me because every one “expects” us to get married and have a future. She said she wants to know if she is doing it for her self and no one else. I believe with all my heart and all my prayers that we are meant to be. She is questioning her love for me. I dont know how to show her that its meant to be and how to get her to realize what we have. I asked her last time we talked who was the most trust-worthy person she was friends with and she said I was. She trust me with anything. How do I win her heart back or prove to her. Is it really just time and space…Because I have a problem with these 2 things. People can grow apart. I am in a tail spin and I want to pull out of it. Should I just move on with my life or should I stay and fight with all my hear in what I believe in?
I desperately need advice.
J
on May 2, 2007 @ 2:47 pm
Hi,
I have some things I need to ask you about. My boyfriend is living with his best friend and his best friends girlfriend is living there too. His best friend, Chad, has been gone to Texas for 2 weeks now and will be there for another week. I feel really uncomfertorable about him staying there with her by himself, so I decide to stay with him a few nights just to make sure that nothing happens. Why do I feel like he is cheating on me? Then I try to talk to him and he gets mad at everything that I say is bothering me. I mean, for an example, Chads girlfriend had two of her close friends over and i came over to see my boyfriend, but the whole time he didn’t talk to me, he talked to the other girls. What should I do? Should I just drop him or should I wait a little bit and see if things get better, or something else…..? I hate feeling like this. I trust him I do but I can’t help to feel like this because I have been in some bad relationships and I don’t want to go through that again.Please help me.
on July 19, 2007 @ 6:38 pm
Hi, I really found a lot of insight within your artical but I felt I still must write you and share with you my problem. My boyfriend and I have been dating for 3 years. When we first started dating he never told me that he was still seeing his now ex girlfriend. Him and his ex girlfriend were together for 7 years before me, they basically grew up together. He cheated on her with me for about a year and a half. His now ex girl friend and I did not know about each other. Anyway to make a long story short, I found out and I broke up with him. We were seperated for 3 months and during that whole time he would call me and e-mail me, telling me how sorry he was. I finally decided to give it a try again and so far we have been together for almost 2 years (after the break up). I still have issues trusting him but my major issue with him is that he always puts me down. He is always complaining about something that I don’t have that he would like me to have and no matter what I do to compensate for it, he’s never satisfied. Right now we are seperated because I’ve been having personal problem to which he has responded to by first being supportive then being annoyed (these were school and money related problems, I’m in college and support myself). He claims I have too many problems, all the time. Just the other day he also told me that he loved me but felt like he was missing out on something more in life relationship-wise.
I feel so betrayed and he’s been this way for a while, never satified. I do everything for him, I’m even helping him get through school by tutoring him.
My heart seems to be in the way of making a lot of decisions and so I ask you, do you think I’m wasting my time on this relationship?
on October 26, 2007 @ 10:03 am
hi,
i am a college student studyin medicine.
i had to leave my country to go abroad to attend college. i had a boyfriend before i left but i didnt realise how much i loved him until i left. we are still going out but the distance is killing us both.
we have to wait for summer when i go back home before we can meet. i really love him that is why this distance really hurts. sometimes i get so frustrated but i cant let him go. i need ur advice