Better Relationships
Better Relationships
Finally, let’s look at your relationship overall. So far, you have reflected on the importance of communication and values in contributing to a healthy relationship, now let’s look at your current or most recent relationship as a whole.
How healthy is your relationship?
Sometimes, it can be difficult to tell whether a relationship is healthy or unhealthy because we don’t have anything to compare it to.
Healthy relationships usually consist of the following:
Trusting each other
Respecting each other
Making decisions together
Most couples have arguments, but this does not necessarily mean your relationship is unhealthy.
However, when one person is feeling unsafe or afraid in the relationship, this is a sign that there are serious problems.
While all relationships are different, there are some things that are common to unhealthy relationships. Unhealthy relationships are characterized by one person holding power over another. They may do this by behaviours involving:
Abuse and violence
Monitoring and control
Threats and humiliation
It is important to distinguish behaviour from intention. While you may have good intentions, if your behaviour involves abuse and violence, monitoring and control or threats and humiliation of a partner, it is part of an unhealthy pattern. This is why it is so important to be able to see things from your partner’s viewpoint some times.
Better Man is an initiative by The University of Melbourne.