WHAT DO RELATIONSHIP REALLY MEANS AND FACTORS THAT CAN GUARRANTEE HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP

Love is MadnessDefinition of RELATIONSHIP FOR E NGLISH L ANGUAGE L EARNERS
:
the way in which two or more people, groups, countries, etc., talk to, behave toward, and deal with each other
:
a romantic or sexual friendship between two people
:
the way in which two or more people or things are connected
Relationship most often refers to:
Interpersonal relationship , a strong, deep, or close association or acquaintance between two or more people
Correlation and dependence , relationships in mathematics and statistics between two variables or sets of data
Relationship may also refer to:
Relationship , the position in space of an object with respect to another

All About Relationships
Love is one of the most profound emotions known to human beings. There are many kinds of love, but most people seek its expression in a romantic relationship with a compatible partner. For some, romantic relationships are the most meaningful element of life, providing a source of deep fulfillment. The ability to have a healthy, loving relationship is not innate. A great deal of evidence suggests that the ability to form a stable relationship begins in infancy, in a child’s earliest experiences with a caregiver who reliably meets the infant’s needs for food, care, protection, stimulation, and social contact. Those relationships are not destiny, but they appear to establish patterns of relating to others. Failed relationships happen for many reasons, and the failure of a relationship is often a source of great psychological anguish. Most of us have to work consciously to master the skills necessary to make them flourish.
Are You with the Right Mate?
At some point in every relationship it’s natural to ask whether your partner is the right one for you.
A story to illustrate an incovenience relationship
Elliott Katz was stunned to find himself in the middle of a divorce after two kids and 10 years of marriage. The Torontonian, a policy analyst for the Ottawa government, blamed his wife. “She just didn’t appreciate all I was doing to make her happy.” He fed the babies, and he changed their diapers. He gave them their baths, he read them stories, and put them to bed. Before he left for work in the morning, he made them breakfast. He bought a bigger house and took on the financial burden, working evenings to bring in enough money so his wife could stay home full-time.
He thought the solution to the discontent was for her to change. But once on his own, missing the daily interaction with his daughters, he couldn’t avoid some reflection. “I didn’t want to go through this again. I asked whether there was something I could have done differently. After all, you can wait years for someone else to change.”
What he decided was, indeed, there were some things he could have done differently—like not tried as hard to be so noncontrolling that his wife felt he had abandoned decision-making entirely. His wife, he came to understand, felt frustrated, as if she were “a married single parent,” making too many of the plans and putting out many of the fires of family life, no matter how many chores he assumed.
Ultimately, he stopped blaming his wife for their problems. “You can’t change another person. You can only change yourself,” he says. “Like lots of men today,” he has since found, “I was very confused about my role as partner.” After a few post-divorce years in the
mating wilderness, Katz came to realize that framing a relationship in terms of the right or wrong mate is by itself a blind alley.
“We’re given a binary model,” says New York psychotherapist Ken Page. “Right or wrong. Settle or leave. We are not given the right tools to think about relationships. People need a better set of options.”
Sooner or later, there comes a moment in all relationships when you lie in bed, roll over, look at the person next to you and think it’s all a dreadful mistake, says Boston family therapist Terrence Real. It happens a few months to a few years in. “It’s an open secret of American culture that disillusionment exists. I go around the country speaking about ‘normal marital hatred.’ Not one person has ever asked what I mean by that. It’s extremely raw.”
What to do when the initial attraction sours? “I call it the first day of your real marriage,” Real says. It’s not a sign that you’ve chosen the wrong partner. It is the signal to grow as an individual—to take responsibility for your own frustrations. Invariably, we yearn for perfection but are stuck with an imperfect human being. We all fall in love with people we think will deliver us from life’s wounds but who wind up knowing how to rub against us.
A new view of relationships and their discontents is emerging. We alone are responsible for having the relationship we want. And to get it, we have to dig deep into ourselves while maintaining our connections. It typically takes a dose of bravery—what Page calls “enlightened audacity.” Its brightest possibility exists, ironically, just when the passion seems most totally dead. If we fail to plumb ourselves and speak up for our deepest needs, which admittedly can be a scary prospect, life will never feel authentic, we will never see ourselves with any clarity, and everyone will always be the wrong partner

The Way Things Are
Romance itself seeds the eventual belief that we have chosen the wrong partner. The early stage of a relationship, most marked by intense attraction and infatuation, is in many ways akin to cocaine intoxication, observes Christine Meinecke, a clinical psychologist in Des Moines, Iowa. It’s orchestrated, in part, by the neurochemicals associated with intense pleasure. Like a cocaine high, it’s not sustainable.
But for the duration—and experts give it nine months to four years—infatuation has one overwhelming effect: Research shows that it makes partners overestimate their similarities and idealize each other. We’re thrilled that he loves Thai food, travel, and classic movies, just like us. And we overlook his avid interest in old cars and online poker.
Eventually, reality rears its head. “Infatuation fades for everyone,” says Meinecke, author of
Everybody Marries the Wrong Person. That’s when you discover your psychological incompatibility, and disenchantment sets in. Suddenly, a switch is flipped, and now all you can see are your differences. “You’re focusing on what’s wrong with them. They need to get the message about what they need to change.”
You conclude you’ve married the wrong person—but that’s because you’re accustomed to thinking, Cinderella-like, that there is only one right person. The consequences of such a pervasive belief are harsh. We engage in destructive behaviors, like blaming our partner for our unhappiness or searching for someone outside the relationship.
Along with many other researchers and clinicians, Meinecke espouses a new marital paradigm—what she calls “the self-responsible spouse.” When you start focusing on what isn’t so great, it’s time to shift focus. “Rather than look at the other person, you need to look at yourself and ask, ‘Why am I suddenly so unhappy and what do I need to do?'” It’s not likely a defect in your partner.
In mature love, says Meinecke, “we do not look to our partner to provide our happiness, and we don’t blame them for our unhappiness. We take responsibility for the expectations that we carry, for our own negative emotional reactions, for our own insecurities, and for our own dark moods.”
But instead of looking at ourselves, or
understanding the fantasies that bring us to such a pass, we engage in a thought process that makes our differences tragic and intolerable, says William Doherty, professor of psychology and head of the marriage and family therapy program at the University of Minnesota. It’s one thing to say, “I wish my spouse were more into the arts, like I am.” Or, “I wish my partner was not just watching TV every night but interested in getting out more with me.” That’s something you can fix.
It’s quite another to say, “This is intolerable. I need and deserve somebody who shares my core interests.” The two thought processes are likely to trigger differing actions. It’s possible to ask someone to go out more. It’s not going to be well received to ask someone for a personality overhaul, notes Doherty, author of Take Back Your Marriage.
No one is going to get all their needs met in a relationship, he insists. He urges fundamental acceptance of the person we choose and the one who chooses us. “We’re all flawed. With parenting, we know that comes with the territory. With spouses, we say ‘This is terrible.'”
The culture, however, pushes us in the direction of discontent. “Some disillusionment and feelings of discouragement are normal in the love-based matches in our culture,” explains Doherty. “But consumer culture tells us we should not settle for anything that is not ideal for us.”
As UCLA psychologist Thomas Bradbury puts it, “You don’t have a line-item veto when it comes to your partner. It’s a package deal; the bad comes with the good.”
Further, he says, it’s too simplistic an interpretation that your partner is the one who’s wrong. “We tend to point our finger at the person in front of us. We’re fairly crude at processing some information. We tend not to think, ‘Maybe I’m not giving her what she needs.’ ‘Maybe he’s disgruntled because I’m not opening up to him.’ Or, ‘Maybe he’s struggling in his relationships with other people.’ The more sophisticated question is, ‘In what ways are we failing to make one another happy?'”
Now in a long-term relationship, Toronto’s Katz has come to believe that “Marriage is not about finding the right person. It’s about becoming the right person. Many people feel they married the wrong person, but I’ve learned that it’s truly about growing to become a better husband.

Eclipsed by Expectations
What’s most noticeable about Sarah and Mark Holdt of Estes Park, Colorado, is their many differences. “He’s a Republican, I’m a Democrat. He’s a traditional Christian, I’m an agnostic. He likes meat and potatoes, I like more adventurous food,” says Sarah. So Mark heads off to church and Bible study every week, while Sarah takes a “Journeys” class that considers topics like the history of God in America. “When he comes home, I’ll ask, ‘What did you learn in Bible Study?'” she says. And she’ll share her insights from her own class with him.
But when Sarah wants to go to a music festival and Mark wants to stay home, “I just go,” says Sarah. “I don’t need to have him by my side for everything.” He’s there when it matters most—at home, at the dinner table, in bed. “We both thrive on touch,” says Sarah, “so we set our alarm a half hour early every morning and take that time to cuddle.” They’ve been married for 14 years.
It takes a comfortable sense of self and deliberate effort to make relationships commodious enough to tolerate such differences. What’s striking about the Holdts is the time they take to share what goes on in their lives—and in their heads—when they are apart. Research shows that such “turning toward” each other and efforts at information exchange, even in routine matters, are crucial to maintaining the emotional connection between partners.
Say one partner likes to travel and the other doesn’t. “If you view this with a feeling of resentment, that’s going to hurt, over and over again,” says Doherty. If you can accept it, that’s fine—provided you don’t start living in two separate worlds.
“What you don’t want to do,” he says, “is develop a group of single travel friends who, when they are on the road, go out and flirt with others. You start doing things you’re not comfortable sharing with your mate.” Most often, such large differences are accompanied by so much disappointment that partners react in ways that do not support the relationship.
The available evidence suggests that women more than men bring some element of fantasy into a relationship. Women generally initiate more breakups and two-thirds of divorces, becoming more disillusioned than men. They compare their mates with their friends much more than men do, says Doherty.
He notes, “They tend to have a model or framework for what the relationship should be. They are more prone to the comparison between what they have and what they think they should have. Men tend to monitor the gap between what they have and what they think they deserve only in the sexual arena. They don’t monitor the quality of their marriage on an everyday basis.”
To the extent that people have an ideal partner and an ideal relationship in their head, they are setting themselves up for disaster, says family expert Michelle Givertz, assistant professor of communication studies at California State University, Chico. Relationship identities are negotiated between two individuals. Relationships are not static ideals; they are always works in progress.
To enter a relationship with an idea of what it should look like or how it should evolve is too controlling, she contends. It takes two people to make a relationship. One person doesn’t get to decide what it should be. And to the extent that he or she does, the other partner is not going to be happy.
“People can spend their lives trying to make a relationship into something it isn’t, based on an idealized vision of what should be, not what is,” she says. She isn’t sure why, but she finds that such misplaced expectations are increasing. Or, as Doherty puts it, “A lot of the thinking about being married to the wrong mate is really self-delusion.”
Yes, Virginia, Some Mates Really Are Wrong
Sometimes, however, we really do choose the wrong person—someone ultimately not interested in or capable of meeting our needs, for any of a number of possible reasons. At the top of the list of people who are generally wrong for anyone are substance abusers—whether the substance is alcohol, prescription drugs, or illicit drugs—who refuse to get help for the problem.
“An addict’s primary loyalty is not to the relationship, it’s to the addiction,” explains Ken Page. “Active addicts become cheaper versions of themselves and lose integrity or the ability to do the right thing when it’s hard. Those are the very qualities in a partner you need to lean on.” Gamblers fall into the same compulsive camp, with the added twist that their pursuit of the big win typically lands them, sooner or later, into deep debt that threatens the foundations of relationship life.
People who cheated in one or more previous relationships are not great mate material. They destroy the trust and intimacy basic to building a relationship. It’s possible to make a case for a partner who cheats once, against his own values, but not for one who compulsively and repeatedly strays. Doherty considers such behavior among the “hard reasons” for relationship breakup, along with physical abuse and other forms of overcontrolling. “These are things that nobody should have to put up with in life,” he says.
But “drifting apart,” “poor communication,” and “we’re just not compatible anymore” are in a completely different category. Such “soft reasons,” he insists, are, by contrast, always two-way streets. “Nobody gets all the soft goodies in life,” he finds. “It’s often better to work on subtle ways to improve the relationship.”
In an ongoing marriage, he adds, “incompatibility is never the real reason for a divorce.” It’s a reason for breakup of a dating relationship. But when people say “she’s a nice person but we’re just not compatible,” Doherty finds, something happened in which both were participants and allowed the relationship to deteriorate. It’s a nice way to say you’re not blaming your partner.
The real reason is likely to be that neither attended to the relationship. Perhaps one or both partners threw themselves into parenting. Or a job. They stopped doing the things that they did when dating and that couples need to do to thrive as a partnership—take time for conversation, talk about how their day went or what’s on their mind. Or perhaps the real love was undermined by the inability to handle conflict.
“If you get to the point where you’re delivering an ultimatum,” says Bradbury, you haven’t been maintaining your relationship properly. “It’s like your car stopping on the side of the road and you say, ‘It just isn’t working anymore’— but you haven’t changed the oil in 10 years.” The heart of any relationship, he insists—what makes people the right mates for each other—is the willingness of both partners to be open and vulnerable; to listen and care about each other.
Although there are no guarantees, there are stable personal characteristics that are generally good and generally bad for relationships. On the good side: sense of
humor; even temper; willingness to overlook your flaws; sensitivity to you and what you care about; ability to express caring. On the maladaptive side: chronic lying; chronic worrying or neuroticism; emotional overreactivity; proneness to anger; propensity to harbor grudges; low self-esteem; poor impulse control; tendency to aggression; self-orientation rather than an other-orientation. Situations, such as chronic exposure to nonmarital stress in either partner, also have the power to undermine relationships.
In addition, there are people who are specifically wrong for you, because they don’t share the values and goals you hold most dear. Differences in core values often plague couples who marry young, before they’ve had enough life experience to discover who they really are. Most individuals are still developing their belief systems through their late teens and early 20s and still refining their lifestyle choices. Of course, you have to know what you hold most dear, and that can be a challenge for anyone at any age, not just the young.
One of the most common reasons we choose the wrong partner is that we do not know who we are or what we really want. It’s hard to choose someone capable of understanding you and meeting your most guarded emotional needs and with whom your values are compatible when you don’t know what your needs or values are or haven’t developed the confidence to voice them unabashedly.
Carly* is a nonpracticing attorney who married a chef. “I valued character, connection, the heart,” she says. “He was charming, funny, treated me amazingly well, and we got along great.” But over time, intellectual differences got in the way. “He couldn’t keep up with my analysis or logic in arguments or reasoning through something, or he would prove less capable at certain things, or he would misspell or misuse terms. It was never anything major, just little things.”
Carly confides that she lost respect for her chef-husband. “I didn’t realize how important intellectual respect for my partner would end up being to me. I think this was more about not knowing myself well enough, and not knowing how being intellectually stimulated was important to me, and (even worse) how it would tie to that critical factor of respect.” Here’s just a little primer of 7 signs of a healthy relationship.
1. Mutual Respect
If you don’t have this – well, it’s going to be a tough road. This doesn’t mean you agree with everything your partner says or does. It does mean that you have admiration for each other, and steady undercurrent of love and trust throughout your relationship. You also have each other’s back.
John Gottman, a pioneer in studying couples and marriage, could tell within minutes whether a couple was in it for the long haul or if they weren’t going to make it – with startling accuracy. How could he tell? If there were any signs of contempt in the couple’s interaction with each other, the relationship usually didn’t make it.
Abuse, whether it is physical, verbal, or emotional, defies mutual respect in every way, shape and form. You have to have mutual respect to have a healthy relationship.
2. Arguing, Not Fighting
I’ve never seen a healthy couple that doesn’t argue. They never fight, however – they argue. If a couple comes into my office and tells me they’ve never argued, something isn’t quite right.
You can argue without fighting. Arguing is non-combative – you and your partner state your points of view without name-calling or raising your voice. Sometimes you agree to disagree – and that’s okay. Figure out what your “non-negotiables” are – the things that you will not budge on. Now rethink that list. I like the saying “You can either be right, or married.” Hopefully you and your partner’s values (see #6 below) match up pretty well – that makes things much easier!
I’ll do another post on how to have a healthy argument.
3. Agreement on Sex
You’re both okay with how often you have sex, how you have sex, where you have sex…and there’s mutual participation. Sex is not withheld as a punishment. And if you or your partner are not comfortable with an aspect of your sex life, you can talk about it openly, without criticism.
You also find time to have sex. I don’t care how busy or tired the two of you are – there is
always time for sex.
4. Agreement on Parenting
There are bascially three main styles of parenting:
a) Authoritarian: The rules are the rules are the rules. No exceptions.
b) Authoritative: This is what I refer to as a “Benevolent Dictatorship”. There are rules, and kids can give their input, but the parents have the final say.
c) Lenient or “Lassiez-faire”: There are minimal rules.
If the two of you don’t agree on a parenting style, you need to talk. Also, if you differ on whether your children should be spanked or not – you need to talk.
You may have each grown up with different parenting styles – and we each tend to parent the same way we were parented. If you don’t have kids yet but are thinking about it, you must, must, must have this conversation with your partner.
People can change their personality styles. A lot of that depends on # 6 (below).
5. Equality with Money
Even if one of you makes more money than the other, you both have an equal say about where your money goes. There are no “hidden accounts”, and you decide together before you make large purchases.
If you are the one in charge of the bill paying, you pay the bills on time. Period. If you can’t pay the bills on time, turn over that job to your partner or hire someone to do it for you.
You decide on separate accounts if sharing a joint account is getting too complicated or frustrating. Does that hurt the intimacy of a relationship? No, it actually helps your intimacy. You are no longer fighting about money.
6. Common Goals and Values
Couples with very different interests can have healthy relationships – what counts is that they share common goals and values. Couples of different religions (or non-
religion) and cultural backgrounds can have healthy relationships – what makes a healthy relationship is sharing core beliefs. You may both share the belief that giving back to your community is important. You may both share the belief that extended family members are welcome to live with you at any time. Values and beliefs differ for everyone.
Common goals include intangibles like raising happy and healthy children, and tangibles like saving up for a house. You can work together on setting one-year, five-year, even ten- and twenty-year goals. Working towards something together strengthens your bond.
7. Fun
“Sexiness wears thin after a while and beauty fades, but to be married to a man who makes you laugh every day, ah, now that’s a real treat.” – Joanne Woodward
Enough said. Make time to have fun. Life gets too serious without receiving regular doses of humor.