We all deserve fulfilling, healthy relationships. While another person won’t necessarily “complete” you, a healthy relationship creates a dynamic where both partners feel grounded, safe, and bring out the best in one another.
Just like an unhealthy relationship can impact one’s mental health in negative ways, a healthy relationship has the potential to fill your life with joy, fulfillment, and meaning.
In fact, healthy relationships are associated with longevity, lower stress levels, and better immune function. These relationships support secure attachment— relationships where you have a co-regulator— which calms the nervous system and reduces stress on the body. When we feel safe and connected, our bodies regulate better, making us more resilient physically and emotionally.
Of course, no relationship is perfect. However, most healthy relationships are built on the foundation of similar characteristics. Yet, those qualities may not be obvious, especially if you didn’t grow up with healthy dynamics modeled in your family.
I’m going to share those common themes so you can work toward building and designing a strong relationship— one that will provide you all the joy you deserve.
10 Qualities of A Healthy Relationship
Here are qualities of a healthy, committed, long-term relationship.
trust
Healthy relationships undoubtedly include trust. You feel safe with one another, both physically and emotionally. This trust assures that you can rely on each other. Similarly, trust enables you to have difficult conversations, knowing that you can repair later if necessary.
It’s normal that relationships go through difficult times and trust can be broken. However, it’s incredibly important that rebuilding trust is a high priority to get back to healthy functioning.
Authenticity
In a healthy relationship, partners love and respect each other for being their true selves. While learning, growth, and adjusting are also foundational parts of a relationship, partners do not seek to change one another at the core of who they are.
Partners have their own unique personalities and can feel comfortable sharing their quirks. When you can show all of yourself to your partner, it is much easier to feel confident that they love all of you.
Support
Partners in a healthy relationship check in on each other and they offer support to one another.
They encourage each other to reach for their goals or act on value-driven decisions. Likewise, they see the potential in the strengths they both bring to the table and pull those out of each other. A healthy relationship is one where a partner feels like the other’s biggest hype squad.
boundaries
Couples in a healthy relationship have a solid sense of boundaries, both internally and externally.
Internally, this means that a person has emotional boundaries. They can discern between their behaviors, thoughts and feelings. They take accountability for their own actions.
Externally, partners can distinguish between their own emotions and behaviors and that of their partner. This means that they do not blame each other for their own actions. For example, blaming their own behavior on their partner “making them angry.”
Similarly, though they support each other, they do not take on one another’s emotions. They create space between their own reality and the reality of their partner, accepting both as valid and true.
interdependence
Interdependent relationships have secure attachment styles. Security is an important characteristic of healthy relationships. It means that two things are true:
- You trust that you can explore the world and take chances separate from your partner
- You trust that your partner will be there for you if things don’t go well
Interdependence means that partners are not fully reliant on each other, yet they do not operate fully independently. They achieve a healthy balance of counting on the other and holding themself steady. This kind of security without attachment will bond a relationship over time.
Independence
Healthy relationships balance connection with personal autonomy. Connection within yourself and between you and others. Being connected to ourselves means recognizing and tending to our own emotions rather than relying entirely on our partner to regulate them.
When each person commits to regulating themselves before reacting to each other, the relationship becomes a space of mutual support rather than co-dependency.
Open communication
There is no getting around this one. Strong, healthy, deep communication is necessary for a fulfilling relationship. Healthy couples dive into the uncomfortable conversations and talk about relationship issues. They communicate often and are open and honest. They do not avoid one another when uncomfortable emotions come up to the surface.
To achieve effective communication, couples share their vulnerable emotions and needs, rather than their defenses. For example, instead of saying “you are such a jerk for not listening to me”, they might say, “I feel hurt and neglected when I see you turn away from me.” Communicating this way allows partners to hear one another’s message and acknowledge the impact they have on one another.
Respect
Respect in a relationship means valuing your partner’s feelings, boundaries, and individuality, even if you hold different viewpoints. It involves listening with care, honoring differences, and validating feelings and experiences, regardless of a contrast in perspective.
Studies on long-term relationship satisfaction consistently highlight respect as a core predictor of stability. When respect is present, partners feel seen and valued as a person and as a partner, which encourages emotional risk-taking, and genuine, deep connection.
Conflict Resolution
Strong, engaged partners in healthy relationships do not avoid or shy away from conflict. Instead, they handle it constructively.
Effective conflict resolution includes acknowledging hurt feelings, taking responsibility for impact on each other, and engaging in repair attempts. These kind of conversations (Hold Me Tight conversations) make couples stronger over time. In fact, research in Emotionally Focused Therapy shows that couples who repair after disagreements are more resilient and report higher satisfaction than those who avoid or escalate conflict. They use triggers as a chance to look inward, heal, and build connection rather than to avoid and disengage.
joy
While relationships require effort, they should also bring joy, passion, connection, and fun. In lasting relationships, partners enjoy spending time together and find satisfaction in similar activities. Spending time nurturing the playful and creative parts of yourselves as individuals keeps the relationship vibrant, exciting, and fulfilling.
Even in serious moments, partners recognize when it is appropriate to bring lightheartedness and laughter into their connection.
how to build a healthy relationship
pay attention
Pay attention to your partner. It’s easy to get lost in the mundane parts of life, responsibilities, scroll of social media, or small frustrations.
Instead, pay attention to your partner each day. Remember the parts of them you love and your gratitude for getting to share your life with them. Prioritize making one another feel seen, loved, special, and important. Carve out time to share with each other the parts about them that you love.
These small moments will keep you connected and motivated over time.
see each other as a team
When life throws pain or challenge your way, it can be natural to feel overwhelmed and attribute difficulty to your partner. It’s natural in a relationship for each partner to see the other as the “problem.”
Instead, see if you can externalize the problems outside of each other. Your “problem” is not your partner, it is the ineffective communication dynamic you both feed into when you are stressed. With this perspective shift, you can come together to overcome the problems, rather than fighting against each other.
For example, perhaps partners are frustrated over different instincts and practices regarding parenting. Instead of fighting with each other, they can come together to face the issue of “parenting.” On the same side, they can have effective conversations about their values and goals for parenting and seek out resources to support them as a unit.
Listen to Learn
Communication is paramount to healthy relationships. The most practical tip regarding how to be a better listener in a relationship is to shift your perspective.
While you may be used to listening to scan for information that would support your point of view, listen to learn. Try to put your defenses down, and listen with the goal of connection rather than listening to win.
When partners listen to defend, neither actually ever get heard. However, if you listen to learn, your partner is heard, and then is able to offer you the same chance to be heard when it’s your turn to share.
attend therapy
Reaching a healthy relationship is not always intuitive— and that’s completely normal. That’s because the evolutionary reaction of the brain is to protect and seek safety, rather than to expose vulnerability. However, we know it’s the vulnerability and sharing of deep, raw experiences that brings partners closer.
A marriage counselor or couples therapist can guide you through the complexity of honest communication. Even in the early stages of a relationship, a counselor helps you develop healthy patterns before unhelpful ones take hold.
Similarly, if you’ve experienced pain or broken trust in long-term relationships, a therapist helps you process, heal, and get back on track.
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