Features of Healthy Relationships

1. High self-esteem

2. Freedom from enabling behaviours

3. Absence of codependency

4. Genuineness

5. Warmth

6. Empathy

7. Self-disclosure

8. Social exchange

9. Enjoyment

10. Dependability

11. Energizing feelings

12. Demonstrated mutual interest

You can try to follow about this rule to maintain/build a health relationship.

High self-esteem (自尊心)

• Love for self is primary,before you build healthy relationships with others.

• Life position: I’m OK;you’re OK.

• The following life positions are not healthy:

I’m OK; you’re not OK.

I’m not OK; you’re OK.

I’m not OK; you’re not OK.

Freedom from enabling behaviours

• Good relationship: no enabling behaviour

• Enabling occurs when someone’s actions unintentionally allow irresponsible, dysfunctional, or destructive actions of another person to continue.

• The enabler is trying to help. But in reality, he/she is not.

• In a good relationship, people are free from enabling behaviours

Example:  Your girlfriend/boyfriend who’s cooking (i.e. the enabling behaviour) for you all the time regardless of her own needs is not a good girlfriend, since she doesn’t know how to love herself first 

 Absence of co-dependency 

 A healthy relationship: no co-dependency 

• The result of enabling behaviours

• An emotional state, e.g. ‘I can’t live without my girlfriend / boyfriend’ 

• Co-dependency is often the result of an enabler focusing too much on the needs and behaviours of the other, and both suffer as a result. Codependents feel compelled to help others, and they never think they have done enough. 

• Individuals with low selfesteem are more likely to take extra steps to please others. 

 Genuineness 

 • Genuineness means revealing your true self and striving to be honest. This creates trust in the relationship.

 • Honesty, openness and authenticity

 • Hurt is likely, but healthy relationships can tolerate pain 

 Warmth / Acceptance / Unconditional positive regard 

• Unconditional positive regard 

• A warm acceptance of each other’s personhood. 

• Unconditional positive regard: two people appreciate each other’s unique personalities and allow for human flaws 

 Empathy 

• Empathy – the ability to experience and think from another person’s perspective 

• ‘Empathetic men become co-beings. They don’t talk at you or interrupt. They listen and stand beside you, and in their presence, you have a wonderful feeling that you can be yourself’.

• Accept differences in how people think and feel and not categorise them as right or wrong. 

 Self-disclosure

• Individuals share information about themselves with others, and this is risk-taking. 

• People express on deeper levels, reveal more of their hidden selves, and hence trust is built and a relationship enlivened. 

Do you have friends or confidants to whom you can reveal your deepest secrets and thoughts when you’re in need? 

 Social Exchange

• Social exchange theory: health of relationships can be assessed by their outcomes, or what the participants are receiving, compared to what they are giving. 

• Do I receive benefits that outweigh costs? Is the relationship good for me? 

 Enjoyment 

• People enjoy relationships that are encouraging, supportive and affirming. 

• A healthy relationship will have times of unhappiness, but overall joy is the characteristic. 

 Dependability 

• Dependability: each person in the relationship will do what he/she says unless circumstances prevent it. 

• Trust develops between individuals who can count on each other to be fair and dependable  

Energising feelings 

• Some relationships drain your energy, but positive relationships should fulfill individuals and provide sparks of energy. 

• You leave an interaction feeling ‘up’ in that relationship. 

 Demonstrated mutual trust

 • Positive individuals enjoy sharing with others, and they love to be asked about their lives. 

I believe that the most important things and the most precious is about a relationship.