Hollywood Love vs. Real Life
As a young girl, do you remember watching all the princess movies and romcoms? Love was magical and romantic. It was a fairytale! Relationships were depicted as sexy, romantic, passionate, and full of desire. Love was passion and being head over heels for your partner. Is this how we should measure love? If passion fades or changes over time, does this mean you are not in love?
Interestingly, many women seem to use passion as a barometer for their love towards a person. Unfortunately, you will be met with disappointment every time. If you were to ask a couple 5, 10, 25, and 50 years later, the answer to a lifetime of love would likely be very different than what Hollywood shows us on the screen. While passion and romance are important in a relationship, you will be very dissatisfied if this is the only metric you use. That’s because passion is linked to novelty, which changes the longer you are in a relationship. Yikes! There is actually a lot of research highlighting that this fire in the relationship dwindles over time.
Then, you probably get a lot of people searching the internet and social media for the classic how to’s in relationships, like how to keep passion in a relationship. After trying these out for a while you likely notice problematic patterns. Then, you start to look up how to have boundaries in a relationship, how to stop having the same fight, or how to better communicate with your partner. Needless to say, the relationship has evolved and you’re wondering how to have a healthy relationship.
What is a healthy relationship? What does it even mean? What does this look like? What is it not? Is there even such a thing? What are the components of a healthy relationship? How do I know what to work on? What are warning signs you do not have a healthy relationship? Is it possible to change? The list of questions can go on and on.
Here is one thing I know…Relationships are not perfect! There will be bumps along the way, and I guarantee one person will want out at some point and another will question the relationship at various points along the way. This is normal. Therefore, a perfect partnership does not exist. However, people can have a healthy marriage/relationship or one this working towards becoming one. And…just because you struggle doesn’t mean you don’t have a healthy marriage.
Warning Signs of an Unhealthy Relationship
a. NO Conflict/Disagreements
When couples tell me they never fight or struggle, I truly believe this means there are problems that aren’t being addressed. Either one person or both are being dishonest with themselves or their partner and/or one or both are not being direct. These are more passive communication patterns which results in one or both people not getting their needs or wants met. Being able to safely argue and work through conflict together is a major sign of healthy relationships. Interestingly, going through hardship and conflict can actually make a relationship stronger.
b. Physical/Emotional/Sexual Abuse (a.k.a. Boundary Violations)
A sign that you are in or might be headed toward an abusive relationship is when your significant other starts to isolate you from your close friends and family. They try to control your movement and want to know all the details of your life/day/situation/event.
It is easier and nice when we can visibly see a boundary. For instance, if someone owns a piece of land, you may not know there’s an owner unless there is a sign and perhaps a fence. It might be a little clearer to understand a physical boundary with people. You don’t touch them unless they give you permission. When you are dating, you either use nonverbals to guess if it is okay to hold hands, hug, or kiss, and/or you verbally ask permission. A “NO” means do not cross their sexual boundary. It is NEVER okay to hit/punch, kick, throw, threaten, or gesture like we are going to hurt someone.
Sadly, women’s physical and/or sexual boundaries are crossed at a highly prevalent rate around the world. According to the World Health Organization article, “This violence starts early: 1 in 4 young women (aged 15-24 years) who have been in a relationship will have already experienced violence by an intimate partner by the time they reach their mid-twenties.”
c. Boundary Crossings
This is different from abuse. A boundary crossing is when someone says or does something that crosses a line with someone’s physical or emotional boundaries. An example I have experienced and have also learned other women encounter involves hugging. For physical boundary crossing, this is when someone gives you a hug, but you aren’t okay with that person hugging you a certain way like a full-frontal hug. Do you pull away, high five, give a side hug, or lightly hug them? Does the other person encroach on your personal space?
This can be slightly complicated with emotional boundaries because they are less visible. An example might be when someone says something hurtful that is not okay like, “You would look better if you wore something else” or “You shouldn’t eat that.” They are critical of you and always finding something wrong with you and your personhood. They chip away at your self-esteem. They might be overly jealous.
For many people, this can be extremely difficult to grasp and navigate. Their parents may not have modeled healthy boundaries, thereby making it really hard to know what is or isn’t appropriate. For more, check out our article of How To Set-Up Boundaries In Relationships.
d. Unsafe to Express your Feelings
Being able to express or communicate your feelings, verbally or with your body language (e.g., crying) should feel safe. If you are punished (i.e., avoid consequence), shamed, feel guilty, or embarrassed to communicate how you really feel on the inside, it a tale-tell sign you might not be in the healthiest of relationships. This means you have to lie to your partner, you have to hide or be dishonest with them because the consequences are not worthy it.
e. You or Your Partner Can’t Take Responsibility
One person can’t take responsibility for their role. One person is always at fault and takes the blame. They can’t accept any feedback, even corrective criticism. This sets up a power differential that might set the stage for abuse. This might also show up in the form of stonewalling. If one person is ignoring, unresponsive, or stops listening and never comes back to resolve the argument, then this is also a way to avoid taking responsibility. Just know if can show up in different forms.
f. When You are not Your Authentic Self
If you feel the need to hide all of yourself, this is another warning sign. All relationships start off with hiding parts of yourself. You don’t want to go in full guns blazing. Some people (a.k.a., I used to be one of them) show their full cards as a self-protective stance to say something like, “Here I am, take me or leave me.” However, with time, we should be able to slowly open up and become more vulnerable and your true self, the good, the bad, and the ugly. We are all a work in progress!
Signs of a Healthy Relationship:
Ultimately, what makes a healthy relationship are the choices and decisions you make when things aren’t smooth sailing. It is a commitment to show up every day. It is also about love. While love is also a feeling, it is also a mindset, an attitude, and choice. It is something that you tend to, protect, nourish, and cherish. When you are struggling, vulnerable, hurt, or weak, you also hold fast to your commitment because you respect yourself and your partner. Notice I didn’t say passion. Our passion for ourselves and our partner may fluctuate, but our love, respect, and commitment are more constant and grow. And, yes…you can find passion again.
We have to actually practice the skills in our everyday life for it to truly mean anything. It’s where the rubber meets the road. It is hard. It takes work, but in order to see real change we have to work hard and put forth consistent effort. While concepts like discipline, commitment, patience (A LOT OF IT), perseverance, problem-solving, flexibility, playfulness, and openness seem like intangible adjectives or just words on a page, the behaviors are not.
However, there are a lot of things that interfere with our ability to have healthy partnerships. It will be well worth your time to learn more about your attachment style. It influences a lot about how we connect with our significant other. Would you like to know what your attachment style is? Here is a great one that will see your attachment as a spectrum!
Attachment Styles
All attachment styles involve people and people do not fit into neat attachment categories. It is better to view them as a spectrum. We can have a little bit of one, a lot of another, or some kind of mix. If you are interested in learning more, check out How Does Your Attachment Style Affect Your Relationships, especially how it pertains parenting? Here is a brief overview.
Secure Attachment Style
You are able to develop and maintain relationships by assertively communicating emotions, needs, wants, and desires (see below for more about communication patterns). You like emotional connection and closeness, but also value separateness and emotional independence. You are able to trust and feel safe with your partner, which means you can depend on them and vice versa. You respectfully recognize your partner cannot meet ALL of your needs at ALL times.
Avoidant Attachment Style
You may want emotionally closeness and say you want to be in a relationship but avoid it and/or appear as if you don’t need anyone. When things get to tense in the relationship, you may be reluctant to try and work at it. You might even call it quits very easily. You might keep the person at arm’s length. Getting too close is threatening in some way because you fear you can get hurt or they will leave you. You are highly guarded and don’t like to be emotionally vulnerable. Emotions are seen as threatening; therefore, you like to keep things surface level. You feel like this is safer.
Anxious/Preoccupied Attachment Style
You care deeply about your relationship but are concerned your partner will leave or abandon you. You might walk on eggshells and forego your own needs and wants because you don’t want to upset your partner for fear, they will leave you. They might be suspicious, dependent, needy, and clingy. You are constantly looking for signs they will leave you and do things in the relationship in hopes they don’t leave you, even unhealthy things or things that go beyond your own boundaries.
Ambivalent/Disorganized Attachment Style
You feel “crazy,” “panicky,” “chaotic,” and like an “emotional mess.” You desperately yearn for connection with your partner but also are angry and scared. You might self-sabotage often. You feel pulled in two directions like I want you and need you, but I don’t want you and need you. You want closeness but are truly terrified to be close at the same time. You may vacillate between anxious and avoidant attachments frequently.
On a Personal Note:
I have been with my same partner since I was 17 years old. We married when I was 22. Therefore, we have been married for 14 years and together for 19. While I don’t know where we will be in a year, 10, or even 20 years from now, I am proud of us. Needless to say, we have changed a lot through the years. I am not the same person almost 2 decades later. Neither is my partner. We have grown a lot together and individually. We have faced external stressors from going through undergrad and graduate school together, multiple moves, several job changes, starting my own business, having kids, and several other major life stressors.
Our marriage isn’t perfect by any means. We still have a lot to work on! However, I know that we are each willing and open to work on ourselves and our relationship. We definitely accept one another’s faults. We both want to listen, hear the other person out, meet/care for each other’s needs, protect one another, and find our way back together through all the major life setbacks and adjustments.
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