PSYCHOLOGY CHARACTERISTICS OF A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP
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Alice Boyes Ph.D.
Alice Boyes Ph.D.
In Practice
50 Characteristics of Healthy Relationships
What you know and like about your partner should tell you a lot.
Posted January 22, 2013
Reviewed by Lybi Ma
KEY POINTS
Healthy relationships are playful.
In a healthy relationship, both partners should see each other as trustworthy.
Partners in healthy relationships often have their own "love language" (i.e., pet names or special signs they give each other).
visivastudio/Shutterstock
Source: visivastudio/Shutterstock
If you can say yes to most of these, it's very likely you're in a healthy relationship:
1. You can name your partner’s best friend and identify a positive quality that the person has.
2. You and your partner are playful with each other.
3. You think your partner has good ideas.
4. You’d like to become more like your partner, at least in some ways.
5. Even when you disagree, you can acknowledge that your partner makes sensible points.
6. You think about each other when you’re not physically together.
7. You see your partner as trustworthy.
8. In relationship-relevant areas, such as warmth and attractiveness, you view your partner a little bit more positively than they view themselves or than most other people view them.
9. You enjoy the ways your partner has changed and grown since you met.
10. Your partner is enthusiastic when something goes right for you.
11. When you reunite at the end of the day, you say something positive before you say something negative.
12. You reminisce about positive experiences you've had together in the past.
13. You can name one of your partner’s favorite books.
14. You know your partner’s aspirations in life.
15. You can recall something you did together that was new and challenging for both of you.
16. You kiss every day.
17. You’re comfortable telling your partner about things that make you feel vulnerable, such as worries about getting laid off.
ment from childhood.
21. You never, or very rarely, express contempt for your partner by rolling your eyes, swearing at them, or calling them crazy.
22. You can list some positive personality qualities which your partner inherited from their parents.
23. If you have children together, you can list some positive personality qualities your partner has passed on to your children.
24. You enjoy supporting your partner’s exploration of personal goals and dreams, even when this involves you staying home.
25. You have a sense of security: You’re confident your partner wouldn’t be unfaithful, or do something to jeopardize your combined financial security.
26. When you argue, you still have a sense that your partner cares about your feelings and opinions.
27. Your partner lets you into their inner emotional world—they make their thoughts and feelings accessible to you.
28. You frequently express appreciation for each other.
29. You frequently express admiration for each other.
30. You feel a sense of being teammates with your partner.
31. You know your partner’s favorite song.
32. You have a sense that your individual strengths complement each other.
33. When you say goodbye in the morning, it’s mindful and affectionate.
34. If you’ve told your partner about trauma you’ve experienced, they’ve reacted kindly.
35. You don’t flat-out refuse to talk about topics that are important to your partner.
36. You respect your partner’s other relationships with family or friends and view them as important.
37. You have fun together.
38. You see your partner’s flaws and weaknesses in specific rather than general ways. (For example, you get annoyed about them forgetting to pick up the towels, but you don’t generally see them as inconsiderate.)
39. You’re receptive to being influenced by your partner; you’ll try their suggestions.
40. You're physically affectionate with each other.
41. You enjoy spending time together.
42. You feel a zing when you think about how you first met.
43. You can name your partner's favorite relative.
44. You can name your partner's most beloved childhood pet.
45. You can articulate what your partner sees as the recipe for happiness.
46. When you feel stressed or upset, you turn toward your partner for comfort, rather than turning away from your partner and trying to deal with it yourself.
47. You have a sense that it's easy to get your partner's attention if you've got something important to say.
48. You like exploring your partner's body.
49. You can name your partner's favorite food.
50. If you could only take one person to a deserted island, you'd take your partner.
It is important to remember that there is no such thing as a perfect relationship. Every relationship has a mix of both healthy and unhealthy characteristics. What makes a bond positive is that each person recognizes that relationships take work. Each person must strive to maintain the connection and remedy problems.
People often spend a lot of time talking about how to spot a bad relationship, but not about what constitutes a healthy relationship. Consider the following:
Do you have trust in one another?
Do you respect each other?
Do you support each other’s interests and efforts?
Are you honest and open with each other?
Are you able to maintain your individual identity?
Do you talk about your feelings, hopes, fears, and dreams?
Do you feel and express fondness and affection?
Is there equality and fairness in your relationship?
Characteristics of Healthy Relationships
While all relationships are different, there are some key characteristics that help differentiate a healthy interpersonal connection from an unhealthy one.
Trust
Trust in your partner is a key component of any healthy relationship. Research suggests that your ability to trust others is influenced by your overall attachment style.2 Relationships experienced early in life help shape the expectations that you have for future relationships.
If your past relationships have been secure, stable, and trusting, you are more likely to trust future partners as well. If, however, your past relationships were unstable and undependable, you may have to work through some trust issues going forward.
Trust is also established by how partners treat one another. When you see that your partner treats you well, is dependable, and will be there when you need them, you are more likely to develop this trust.
Building trust requires mutual self-disclosure by sharing things about yourself. As time passes, opportunities to test and evaluate that trust emerge. As trust grows, the relationship becomes a great source of comfort and security. If you feel that you have to hide things from your partner, it may be because you lack this essential trust.
Openness and Honesty
You should be able to feel that you can be yourself in a healthy relationship. While all couples have varying levels of openness and self-disclosure, you should never feel like you have to hide aspects of yourself or change who you are. Being open and honest with each other not only helps you feel more connected as a couple, but it also helps foster trust.
Self-disclosure refers to what you are willing to share about yourself with another person.
At the beginning of a relationship, you may hold back and exercise more caution about what you are willing to reveal. Over time, as the intimacy of a relationship increases, partners begin to reveal more of their thoughts, opinions, beliefs, interests, and memories to one another.
This doesn’t mean that you need to share every single thing with your partner. Each individual needs their own privacy and space. What matters most is whether each partner feels comfortable sharing their hopes, fears, and feelings if they so choose. Healthy couples don't need to be together all the time or share everything.
Differences in opinion over how much honesty there should be in a relationship can sometimes cause problems, however. Fortunately, one study found that when people are unhappy with their partner’s level of openness, they typically discuss the problem with their partner.3 This is a good example of how addressing a problem openly can help strengthen a relationship.
While your partner may have different needs than you, it is important to find ways to compromise while still maintaining your own boundaries. Boundaries are not about secrecy; they establish that each person has their own needs and expectations.
Healthy boundaries in a relationship allow you to still do the things that are important to you, such as going out with friends and maintaining privacy, while still sharing important things with your partner.
A partner who has unhealthy expectations of openness and honesty might expect to know every detail of where you are and what you're doing, restrict who you can spend time with, or demand access to your personal social media accounts.
Mutual Respect
In close, healthy relationships, people have a shared respect for one another. They don't demean or belittle one another and offer support and security.
There are a number of different ways that couples can show respect for one another. These include:
Listening to one another
Not procrastinating or stonewalling when your partner asks you to do something
Being understanding and forgiving when one person makes a mistake
Building each other up; not tearing each other down
Making room in your life for your partner
Taking an interest in the things your partner enjoys
Allowing your partner to have their own individuality
Supporting and encouraging your partner’s pursuits and passions
Showing appreciation and gratitude for one another
Having empathy for one another
Affection
Healthy relationships are characterized by fondness and affection. Research has shown that the initial passion that marks the start of a new relationship tends to decline over time,4 but this does not mean that the need for affection, comfort, and tenderness lessens.
Passionate love usually happens during the beginning of a relationship and is characterized by intense longing, strong emotions, and a need to maintain physical closeness. This passionate love eventually transforms into compassionate love, which is marked by feelings of affection, trust, intimacy, and commitment.
While those intense early feelings eventually return to normal levels, couples in healthy relationships are able to build progressively deeper intimacy as the relationship progresses.
However, it is important to remember that physical needs are different for each individual. There is no right amount of affection or intimacy. The key to a healthy relationship is that both partners are content with the level of affection that they share with their partner. A nurturing partnership is characterized by genuine fondness and affection for one another that is expressed in a variety of ways.
Table of Contents
Questions to Ask Yourself
Signs of Healthy Relationships
Signs of Problems
Build a Healthier Relationship
When to Seek Help
Relationships are an important part of a healthy life. Research has consistently shown that social connections are critical for both mental and physical health. People who have healthy relationships have better health outcomes, are more likely to engage in healthy behaviors, and have a decreased risk of mortality.1
This article discusses some of the characteristics of a healthy relationship and how to spot the signs of potential problems. It also explores some of the steps you can take to improve the health of your relationship.
Questions to Ask Yourself
It is important to remember that there is no such thing as a perfect relationship. Every relationship has a mix of both healthy and unhealthy characteristics. What makes a bond positive is that each person recognizes that relationships take work. Each person must strive to maintain the connection and remedy problems.
People often spend a lot of time talking about how to spot a bad relationship, but not about what constitutes a healthy relationship. Consider the following:
Do you have trust in one another?
Do you respect each other?
Do you support each other’s interests and efforts?
Are you honest and open with each other?
Are you able to maintain your individual identity?
Do you talk about your feelings, hopes, fears, and dreams?
Do you feel and express fondness and affection?
Is there equality and fairness in your relationship?
Every person’s needs are different. For example, some people have higher needs for openness and affection than others do. In a healthy relationship, each person is able to get what they need.
Recap
It can be helpful to look at your own relationship and consider whether or not it has healthy characteristics. Trust, respect, support, and honestly are a few important qualities to look for.
50 Questions to Ask to Get to Know Someone Better
Characteristics of Healthy Relationships
While all relationships are different, there are some key characteristics that help differentiate a healthy interpersonal connection from an unhealthy one.
Trust
Trust in your partner is a key component of any healthy relationship. Research suggests that your ability to trust others is influenced by your overall attachment style.2 Relationships experienced early in life help shape the expectations that you have for future relationships.
If your past relationships have been secure, stable, and trusting, you are more likely to trust future partners as well. If, however, your past relationships were unstable and undependable, you may have to work through some trust issues going forward.
Trust is also established by how partners treat one another. When you see that your partner treats you well, is dependable, and will be there when you need them, you are more likely to develop this trust.
Building trust requires mutual self-disclosure by sharing things about yourself. As time passes, opportunities to test and evaluate that trust emerge. As trust grows, the relationship becomes a great source of comfort and security. If you feel that you have to hide things from your partner, it may be because you lack this essential trust.
Openness and Honesty
You should be able to feel that you can be yourself in a healthy relationship. While all couples have varying levels of openness and self-disclosure, you should never feel like you have to hide aspects of yourself or change who you are. Being open and honest with each other not only helps you feel more connected as a couple, but it also helps foster trust.
Self-disclosure refers to what you are willing to share about yourself with another person.
At the beginning of a relationship, you may hold back and exercise more caution about what you are willing to reveal. Over time, as the intimacy of a relationship increases, partners begin to reveal more of their thoughts, opinions, beliefs, interests, and memories to one another.
This doesn’t mean that you need to share every single thing with your partner. Each individual needs their own privacy and space. What matters most is whether each partner feels comfortable sharing their hopes, fears, and feelings if they so choose. Healthy couples don't need to be together all the time or share everything.
Differences in opinion over how much honesty there should be in a relationship can sometimes cause problems, however. Fortunately, one study found that when people are unhappy with their partner’s level of openness, they typically discuss the problem with their partner.3 This is a good example of how addressing a problem openly can help strengthen a relationship.
While your partner may have different needs than you, it is important to find ways to compromise while still maintaining your own boundaries. Boundaries are not about secrecy; they establish that each person has their own needs and expectations.
Healthy boundaries in a relationship allow you to still do the things that are important to you, such as going out with friends and maintaining privacy, while still sharing important things with your partner.
A partner who has unhealthy expectations of openness and honesty might expect to know every detail of where you are and what you're doing, restrict who you can spend time with, or demand access to your personal social media accounts.
Why Self-Disclosure Is Important In Relationships
Mutual Respect
In close, healthy relationships, people have a shared respect for one another. They don't demean or belittle one another and offer support and security.
There are a number of different ways that couples can show respect for one another. These include:
Listening to one another
Not procrastinating or stonewalling when your partner asks you to do something
Being understanding and forgiving when one person makes a mistake
Building each other up; not tearing each other down
Making room in your life for your partner
Taking an interest in the things your partner enjoys
Allowing your partner to have their own individuality
Supporting and encouraging your partner’s pursuits and passions
Showing appreciation and gratitude for one another
Having empathy for one another
Press Play for Mental Strength Tips
Hosted by Editor-in-Chief and therapist Amy Morin, LCSW, this episode of The Verywell Mind Podcast shares five mental strength exercises you can do right from your couch (like practicing gratitude). Click below to listen now.
Follow Now: Apple Podcasts / Spotify / Google Podcasts / sss Music
Affection
Healthy relationships are characterized by fondness and affection. Research has shown that the initial passion that marks the start of a new relationship tends to decline over time,4 but this does not mean that the need for affection, comfort, and tenderness lessens.
Passionate love usually happens during the beginning of a relationship and is characterized by intense longing, strong emotions, and a need to maintain physical closeness. This passionate love eventually transforms into compassionate love, which is marked by feelings of affection, trust, intimacy, and commitment.
While those intense early feelings eventually return to normal levels, couples in healthy relationships are able to build progressively deeper intimacy as the relationship progresses.
However, it is important to remember that physical needs are different for each individual. There is no right amount of affection or intimacy. The key to a healthy relationship is that both partners are content with the level of affection that they share with their partner. A nurturing partnership is characterized by genuine fondness and affection for one another that is expressed in a variety of ways.
Compassionate and Passionate Love
Good Communication
Healthy, long-lasting relationships, whether they are friendships or romantic partnerships, require the ability to communicate well.
One study found that a couple's communication style was more important than stress, commitment, and personality in predicting whether married couples would eventually divorce.5
While it might seem like the best relationships are those that don’t involve conflict, knowing how to argue and resolve differences of opinion effectively is more important than simply avoiding arguments in order to keep the peace.
Sometimes conflict can be an opportunity to strengthen a connection with your partner. Research has shown that conflict can be beneficial in intimate relationships when serious problems need to be addressed, allowing partners to make changes that benefit the future of the relationship.6
When conflicts do arise, those in healthy relationships are able to avoid personal attacks. Instead, they remain respectful and empathetic of their partner as they discuss their thoughts and feelings and work toward a resolution.
Give-and-Take
Strong relationships are marked by natural reciprocity. It isn’t about keeping score or feeling that you owe the other person. You do things for one another because you genuinely want to.
This also doesn’t mean that the give-and-take in a relationship is always 100% equal. At times, one partner may need more help and support. In other cases, one partner may simply prefer to take more of a caregiver role. Such imbalances are fine as long as each person is ok with the dynamic and both partners are getting the support that they need.
Relationships can change over time and not every relationship is 100% healthy all the time. Times of stress, in particular, can lead to unhealthy behaviors and coping mechanisms that can create problems. A relationship is unhealthy when the bad outweighs the good or when certain behaviors are harmful to one or both individuals.
Attempts to control your behaviors
Avoiding one another
Being afraid to share your opinions or thoughts
Being pressured to quit the things you enjoy
Criticizing what you do, who you spend time with, how you dress, etc.
Feeling pressured to change who you are
Feeling that spending time together is an obligation
Lack of fairness when settling conflicts
Lack of privacy or pressure to share every detail of your life with your partner
Neglecting your own needs to put your partner first
Poor communication
Unequal control over shared resources including money and transportation
Yelling
Some problems may be temporary and something that you can address together, either through self-help methods or by consulting a mental health professional. When it comes to more serious problems, such as abusive behaviors, your primary concern should be on maintaining your safety and security.
Toxic behaviors are often a sign that an unhealthy relationship should end. For other problems, there are many ways to fix weaknesses and build a healthier relationship.
Show Appreciation
Couples who feel gratitude for one another feel closer to one another and tend to be more satisfied with their relationships. One study published in the journal Personal Relationships found that showing gratitude for a partner can be an important way to boost satisfaction in romantic relationships.7
Another study found that feeling gratitude for a romantic partner was a predictor of whether a relationship would last.8
Keep Things Interesting
Keeping up with the daily grind of work and kids can sometimes cause couples to fall into the same old routine. Boredom can lead to greater dissatisfaction as a relationship goes on. Researchers have found, for example, that couples who reported feeling bored in the seventh year of their relationship were more likely to experience marital dissatisfaction nine years later.5
So what are some things that you can do to keep the romance alive over the long term?
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How to Know If You Are in a Healthy Relationship
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Tips for maintaining a healthy relationship
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Table of Contents
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Table of Contents
Questions to Ask Yourself
Signs of Healthy Relationships
Signs of Problems
Build a Healthier Relationship
When to Seek Help
Relationships are an important part of a healthy life. Research has consistently shown that social connections are critical for both mental and physical health. People who have healthy relationships have better health outcomes, are more likely to engage in healthy behaviors, and have a decreased risk of mortality.1
This article discusses some of the characteristics of a healthy relationship and how to spot the signs of potential problems. It also explores some of the steps you can take to improve the health of your relationship.
Questions to Ask Yourself
It is important to remember that there is no such thing as a perfect relationship. Every relationship has a mix of both healthy and unhealthy characteristics. What makes a bond positive is that each person recognizes that relationships take work. Each person must strive to maintain the connection and remedy problems.
People often spend a lot of time talking about how to spot a bad relationship, but not about what constitutes a healthy relationship. Consider the following:
Do you have trust in one another?
Do you respect each other?
Do you support each other’s interests and efforts?
Are you honest and open with each other?
Are you able to maintain your individual identity?
Do you talk about your feelings, hopes, fears, and dreams?
Do you feel and express fondness and affection?
Is there equality and fairness in your relationship?
Every person’s needs are different. For example, some people have higher needs for openness and affection than others do. In a healthy relationship, each person is able to get what they need.
Recap
It can be helpful to look at your own relationship and consider whether or not it has healthy characteristics. Trust, respect, support, and honestly are a few important qualities to look for.
50 Questions to Ask to Get to Know Someone Better
Characteristics of Healthy Relationships
While all relationships are different, there are some key characteristics that help differentiate a healthy interpersonal connection from an unhealthy one.
Trust
Trust in your partner is a key component of any healthy relationship. Research suggests that your ability to trust others is influenced by your overall attachment style.2 Relationships experienced early in life help shape the expectations that you have for future relationships.
If your past relationships have been secure, stable, and trusting, you are more likely to trust future partners as well. If, however, your past relationships were unstable and undependable, you may have to work through some trust issues going forward.
Trust is also established by how partners treat one another. When you see that your partner treats you well, is dependable, and will be there when you need them, you are more likely to develop this trust.
Building trust requires mutual self-disclosure by sharing things about yourself. As time passes, opportunities to test and evaluate that trust emerge. As trust grows, the relationship becomes a great source of comfort and security. If you feel that you have to hide things from your partner, it may be because you lack this essential trust.
Openness and Honesty
You should be able to feel that you can be yourself in a healthy relationship. While all couples have varying levels of openness and self-disclosure, you should never feel like you have to hide aspects of yourself or change who you are. Being open and honest with each other not only helps you feel more connected as a couple, but it also helps foster trust.
Self-disclosure refers to what you are willing to share about yourself with another person.
At the beginning of a relationship, you may hold back and exercise more caution about what you are willing to reveal. Over time, as the intimacy of a relationship increases, partners begin to reveal more of their thoughts, opinions, beliefs, interests, and memories to one another.
This doesn’t mean that you need to share every single thing with your partner. Each individual needs their own privacy and space. What matters most is whether each partner feels comfortable sharing their hopes, fears, and feelings if they so choose. Healthy couples don't need to be together all the time or share everything.
Differences in opinion over how much honesty there should be in a relationship can sometimes cause problems, however. Fortunately, one study found that when people are unhappy with their partner’s level of openness, they typically discuss the problem with their partner.3 This is a good example of how addressing a problem openly can help strengthen a relationship.
While your partner may have different needs than you, it is important to find ways to compromise while still maintaining your own boundaries. Boundaries are not about secrecy; they establish that each person has their own needs and expectations.
Healthy boundaries in a relationship allow you to still do the things that are important to you, such as going out with friends and maintaining privacy, while still sharing important things with your partner.
A partner who has unhealthy expectations of openness and honesty might expect to know every detail of where you are and what you're doing, restrict who you can spend time with, or demand access to your personal social media accounts.
Why Self-Disclosure Is Important In Relationships
Mutual Respect
In close, healthy relationships, people have a shared respect for one another. They don't demean or belittle one another and offer support and security.
There are a number of different ways that couples can show respect for one another. These include:
Listening to one another
Not procrastinating or stonewalling when your partner asks you to do something
Being understanding and forgiving when one person makes a mistake
Building each other up; not tearing each other down
Making room in your life for your partner
Taking an interest in the things your partner enjoys
Allowing your partner to have their own individuality
Supporting and encouraging your partner’s pursuits and passions
Showing appreciation and gratitude for one another
Having empathy for one another
Press Play for Mental Strength Tips
Hosted by Editor-in-Chief and therapist Amy Morin, LCSW, this episode of The Verywell Mind Podcast shares five mental strength exercises you can do right from your couch (like practicing gratitude). Click below to listen now.
Follow Now: Apple Podcasts / Spotify / Google Podcasts / sss Music
Affection
Healthy relationships are characterized by fondness and affection. Research has shown that the initial passion that marks the start of a new relationship tends to decline over time,4 but this does not mean that the need for affection, comfort, and tenderness lessens.
Passionate love usually happens during the beginning of a relationship and is characterized by intense longing, strong emotions, and a need to maintain physical closeness. This passionate love eventually transforms into compassionate love, which is marked by feelings of affection, trust, intimacy, and commitment.
While those intense early feelings eventually return to normal levels, couples in healthy relationships are able to build progressively deeper intimacy as the relationship progresses.
However, it is important to remember that physical needs are different for each individual. There is no right amount of affection or intimacy. The key to a healthy relationship is that both partners are content with the level of affection that they share with their partner. A nurturing partnership is characterized by genuine fondness and affection for one another that is expressed in a variety of ways.
Compassionate and Passionate Love
Good Communication
Healthy, long-lasting relationships, whether they are friendships or romantic partnerships, require the ability to communicate well.
One study found that a couple's communication style was more important than stress, commitment, and personality in predicting whether married couples would eventually divorce.5
While it might seem like the best relationships are those that don’t involve conflict, knowing how to argue and resolve differences of opinion effectively is more important than simply avoiding arguments in order to keep the peace.
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