Who doesn’t want a healthy relationship?

Humans are wired to be together. Even those of us who have a more solitary personality still crave human connection from time to time.

And few things enrich your life more than a deep connection with someone you care about, and who cares about you.

Relationships are one of the trickiest aspects of life. There are a thousand ways for relationships to go wrong, and seemingly only a few ways for them to go right. It’s all too easy for a promising relationship to turn unhealthy and unrewarding.

And so often, it’s our own fault.

You see, relationships have a way of bringing out both the best and the worst in us. And as you open up to somebody else emotionally, you’ll often find some very destructive behaviors in yourself that you may struggle to control.

These behaviors act like a landmine, ready to blow up any relationship that comes into contact with them.

If you want a healthy relationship, you’re going to have to change some of the worst parts of yourself. Here are some behaviors you should definitely get rid of.

1) Complaining 

Look, a relationship is supposed to be a safe space where you can be fully yourself. True emotional intimacy means letting your partner see you at your worst as well as at your best.

With that in mind, it’s okay to vent sometimes when you’ve had a bad day or a negative experience. After all, that’s one of the things your significant other is there for. To support you when times are hard and help you through difficulties.

At the same time, constant complaining can wear anyone down.

Being with a partner who has a relentlessly negative view of the world tends to compromise our own happiness and turn us into more negative people, too.

Plus, always complaining about things rewires your brain so that you can only see the worst aspects of life.

Being in a healthy relationship means sharing the bad as well as the good. But beware if you have a tendency to complain, as this can make you a deeply unpleasant person to be around.

2) Holding grudges

Even in the most harmonious relationship, disagreements happen.

And it’s how you handle those disagreements that determine whether you have a healthy relationship or not.

The key to being able to disagree with your partner in a healthy way is to understand that the issues you are talking about are not the same as the people doing the talking.

In other words, you are not your opinions, and your partner is not theirs. You can disagree with what they are saying and still love and respect them.

And if your partner does something you don’t like, don’t hold a grudge.

If they really upset you, you need to talk about that. The sooner the better. Try to resolve the issue in a constructive way, even if that means agreeing to disagree.

Because holding a grudge against your partner will do long-term damage to your relationship, ultimately making you both feel resentful and unloved.

3) Assuming you know your partner’s feelings

This is a dangerous trap that we all fall into sooner or later.

Once you’ve been with someone for a while, you may feel as though you can anticipate their emotions and reactions without them having to say anything.

And that’s true. I’ve been with my partner for 18 years, and by now, we understand each other’s feelings extremely well.

But that doesn’t mean we can read one another’s minds.

So if your partner does something to upset you, don’t assume you automatically know the reason why.

Telling yourself things like, “he forgot our anniversary, which means he doesn’t care about our relationship,” or, “she didn’t remember my birthday because she doesn’t love me” is a good way to find yourself always believing the worst of your partner.

4) Keeping secrets

Relationships are all about intimacy, and that includes emotional intimacy. But how can you be intimate with someone when you’re not giving them the full picture of who you are?

In a healthy relationship, you are entitled to some privacy even from your partner. But as psychologist Robert Weiss points out, there is a crucial difference between privacy and secrecy.

“Privacy is best defined as the state or condition of being free from observation and disturbance by other people,” Weiss writes. On the other hand, “Secrecy is the active state of intentionally keeping information hidden from one or more people.”

Contrary to what some people may say, you don’t need to tell your partner everything. For example, if you find your wife’s best friend attractive but would never act on that desire because you love your wife, it may be counterproductive to tell her.

But secrets have a way of blowing up relationships. And the more of yourself you hide from your partner, the less healthy your relationship will be.

5) Ignoring boundaries

This ties into the difference between privacy and secrecy. Because often, it all comes down to boundaries.

Boundaries are how we tell other people how to treat us, and they are essential to healthy relationships.

Not only do you need to maintain your own boundaries, but you need to respect the boundaries of your partner, too.

“Boundaries don’t have anything to do with making someone else do anything,” writes professional counselor Andrea Mathews. “Boundaries have to do with ownership… of my own person, my own choices, my own power to speak, power to do, power to be.”

So what does respecting your partner’s boundaries look like?

It means not asking them to do something they have clearly told you they are unwilling or unable to do. It means respecting their autonomy instead of trying to make them into the person you want them to be.

It’s easy to overstep someone’s boundaries, especially when we have known them for a long time. But if you want a healthy relationship, you must respect those lines in the sand your partner draws, just as you need to maintain your boundaries with them.

6) Losing track of yourself

This is, unfortunately, a common habit of people in relationships.

It happens when they get caught up in the excitement of relationship and neglect self-care.

You may stop doing hobbies you used to love or stop seeing people you used to enjoy spending time with, focusing everything on your new partner instead.

To some people, it sounds romantic. But in the long run, it’s extremely unhealthy.

No matter how amazing another person is, they can’t be everything to you. No one can fulfill all of your emotional and psychological needs, and expecting them to is a good way to set yourself up for disappointment.

7) Comparing your partner to others

Unfortunately, this destructive behavior is easier than ever.

There isn’t a day that goes by that social media doesn’t show me some attractive person who isn’t my partner. And while online dating apps may have made it easier to meet others, they have also created a superficial kind of ‘window shopping’ approach to human relationships.

It is important to remember that your partner is a unique individual, just like you. They have their strengths and weaknesses, just like anybody else. You can’t compare one person to another, since all of us are different.

And comparing your partner or your relationship to others is a guaranteed way to make sure you don’t appreciate what you have.

8) Taking each other for granted

Another way to not appreciate what you have is to take your partner for granted.

This is an especially big danger in long-term relationships, as you get used to having the other person around doing all the things they do for you on a regular basis.

In fact, when you’re with someone long enough, you may even forget what life was like before they came along.

Signs you may be taking your partner for granted include:

•       You don’t ask for their advice
•       You stop taking care of yourself physically to be attractive to them
•       You put other things, such as work, before them
•       You stop making time to romance them
•       You don’t listen when they talk

These destructive habits are unfortunately common. But by eliminating these behaviors, you give yourself a much better chance of having a healthy relationship.

9) Criticizing your partner

No one likes being criticized. And in intimate relationships, we tend to feel like the other person should always have our back.

That doesn’t mean you have to think that everything your partner does is perfect. If they do something harmful or hurtful, it’s okay to point that out.

But if you have to criticize, criticize the behavior, never the person doing it.

It’s a small distinction that makes all the difference between a healthy and unhealthy relationship.

10) Avoiding conflict

Constant fighting is a good sign of an unhealthy relationship. But did you know that not fighting can be just as dangerous?

Check out this 2021 study that found that couples in same-sex relationships tended to try and avoid conflict during the Covid 19 pandemic. This resulted in lower relationship satisfaction, higher anxiety, depression, and substance abuse.

The trick is not to avoid conflict, but to make sure you manage conflict in a healthy way. Discussing issues in a relationship, when done right, will only make your relationship stronger.