“What do you mean by good?” I ask.

“They didn’t fight. They spent a lot of time with each other.”

That may have been the definition of a good relationship years ago, but now most people want more. Following are ten signs of a healthy relationship.

Kindness

Is kindness more important to each of you than having your way, being in control, or being right? Do you each receive joy out of being kind to each other? Being kind rather than controlling with each other is essential for a healthy relationship.

Spontaneous Warmth and Affection

Do you and your partner well up with warmth and fullness of heart for each other and express it with affection? Are you each able to see the beautiful essence within each other, rather than just the faults? Are you able to get beyond the outer to the unique inner Self of each other? Do you enjoy sharing affection? Warmth and affection are vital for a healthy relationship.

Laughter and Fun

Can the two of you laugh and play together? Do you appreciate and enjoy each other?s sense of humor? In the midst of difficulties, can you help each other to lighten up with humor? Can you let down and be playful with each other, letting yourselves be like kids together? Laughter and fun play a huge role in a healthy relationship.

Enjoying Time Together and Time Apart

Are you both each other’s favorite person to spend time with? Are you motivated to set aside time just to be together?

Do both of you have friends and interests that you enjoy doing? Are both of you fine when you are not together?

Some couples spend a lot of time together because they really enjoy it, while others spend a lot of time together out of fear of being alone. It is important for a healthy relationship for each person to have friends and interests, so that they are not dependent on each other. Dependency is not healthy in a relationship, particularly emotional dependency.

A Method for Conflict Resolution

All relationships have some conflict. It is not the conflict that is the issue, but how you deal with it. Do you have a method for resolving conflict, or do the issues just keep getting swept aside? If fighting is part of how you deal with conflict, do you fight fair, or are you hurtful when you fight?

Letting Go of Anger

If one or both of you get angry, do you hang on to it, punishing your partner with it, or can you easily let it go? In healthy relationships, both partners are able to quickly move on, back into kindness and affection.

Trust in Your Love for Each Other

Do you each trust that the love is solid, even in very difficult times between you? Do you each know that you can mess up, fail, disappoint the other, emotionally hurt the other ? and the love will still be there? Do you each know that the love is about who you are, not what you do? This level of trust is essential for a healthy relationship.

Listening, Understanding, Accepting and Learning

Do you each feel heard, understood and accepted? Can you share your secrets with your partner without fearing being judged? Are you each more interested in learning about yourselves and each other than you are in controlling each other? Is listening to each other with an open heart and a desire to understand more important than judging each other or defending yourselves?

Sexuality

Is your sexual relationship warm and caring? Can you be sexually spontaneous? Can you talk with each other about what brings pleasure to each of you?

Freedom to Be Yourself

Do you each feel free to be all that you are? Do you each feel supported in pursuing what brings you joy? Does your partner feel joy for your joy?

While some people may naturally be open, kind, affectionate, accepting, and emotionally responsible for themselves, most people need to heal the fears and false beliefs they learned in their families. Healthy relationships evolve as each person evolves in his or her ability to be loving to themselves and each other.

Be Angry and Complain

Given that anger and complaining are not at all erotic, be sure to continue to be angry and complain about the lack of sex. Your anger and complaints are SURE to turn your partner off.

Approach Your Partner Needy

Both men and women tend to be turned off by someone who “needs sex to feel loved and validated.” Most women are not attracted to little boys, so women are generally completely turned off by a man who approaches her as a needy little boy, needing sex to feel validated, safe and secure. The way to continue to be needy is to make sure that you do NOT take responsibility for your own self-esteem.

Give Yourself Up – Be a Caretaker

Completely ignore your own feelings and needs, putting yourself aside and doing all your partner wants you to do instead. By ignoring your own feelings and needs and doing everything you can to avoid conflict, you make sure that your partner has no respect for you whatsoever, which means he or she may see you as an object to be used. The more you are invisible to yourself, the more disrespect and demands you may receive from your partner, which may completely turn you off. In addition, the more you give yourself up, the less sexual you may feel.

OR?..

Be Demanding – Be a Taker

Make sure that you are narcissistic – demanding that your partner attend to you instead of to him or herself. See your partner as an object to service you, and if you do have sex, make sure it is quick to just satisfy you. If your partner does come on to you, make sure you shut down and become resistant. After all, you want to be in control and not be controlled! The last thing in the world you want is to be controlled by your partner.

Attempt to keep your partner occupied with what you want and make sure you are critical, demeaning, discounting, threatening, and ridiculing when your partner does what he or she wants. Be sure to crazy-make your partner by accusing him or her of being selfish when he or she doesn’t want sex, when in reality you are the one being selfish. Keep up the good work! This is how you stay in control.

Be a Couch Potato

Most people, especially women, need some interaction to feel connected enough to want to have sex. Be sure to spend most of your free time watching TV or doing frivolous or mundane things, so that by the time you get into bed and may want to have sex, your partner is too bored with you or too disconnected from you to be interested.

Be Emotionally Unavailable, Withdrawn or Shut Down

Many people, and especially women, need emotional intimacy to feel sexual. You can make sure you have no sex by being emotionally distant. Withdraw, shut down your feelings, and be totally in absorbed in things other than being present with your partner. Be too busy to interact with your partner. Wait for your partner to initiate. Be passive, take no initiative, protecting against rejection instead of taking responsibility for what you want. This pretty much guarantees no sex.

Take No Physical Responsibility

Dress poorly, be sloppy, and make sure you are not in good physical shape – that you are overweight or too skinny. Come to bed smelling badly. Eat poorly and don’t exercise to make sure you get sick often and do not have a lot of energy. Come to bed intoxicated, giving your partner the message that you need to be under the influence to have sex with him or her.

Finally, the real key to never having sex is to do some or all of these things and then deny that they are the cause of your lack of sex! You can continue to be angry and complain only as long as you take no responsibility for the above choices!

?When did you start to feel depressed?? I asked.

?Well, I think it started last week right after we spent a wonderful weekend together.?

?What happened after the weekend??

?It was Sunday evening. We had just come back from an early dinner, and Todd wanted to watch a movie with me on TV. I told him that I wanted to go to the gym because I hadn?t worked out in a few days. He sounded disappointed in not watching the movie with me, so I didn?t go to the gym. I stayed and watched the movie with him because I didn?t want him to feel hurt and rejected.?

?And that?s when you started to feel depressed??

?Yes. Can it really be because I didn?t go to the gym??

?Well,? I said, ?It?s not exactly because you didn?t go to the gym. You probably enjoyed watching the movie with him, right??

?Right! A part of me did want to watch the movie with him, because I do love being with him. That?s why I can?t figure this out.?

?Elayne, I think that the problem is that you make Todd?s feelings and needs more important than your feelings and needs. You gave yourself up to Todd out of fear of his upset feelings. I don?t think you would have been depressed if you had decided that you really wanted to watch the movie with Todd more than you wanted to go to the gym. But it doesn?t sound like you took the time to go inside to see what you really wanted. What were you afraid would have happened if you had gone to the gym??

?I was afraid that he would be angry at me and withdraw from me.?

?So you were willing to lose yourself rather than risk losing him, is that right??

?Yes, that?s exactly what I did.?

?So controlling his feelings and behavior was more important than taking loving care of yourself??

?Yeah, I guess so. I didn?t realize that I was trying to control him by not going to the gym, but I can see that that is exactly what I was doing.?

?So, imagine that your feelings and needs are a child within you, and Todd?s feelings and needs are a child within him. If you put aside your child to take care of his child, how is your child going to feel??

?Oh, I see! I feel depressed because I gave myself up and put my child aside to take care of his child! Wow, this relationship stuff is hard! I also feel trapped and resentful, like Todd is somehow not letting me do what I want to do. And as soon as I didn?t go to the gym, which is what I really wanted to do, I didn?t feel very attracted to him.?

?Right. And Todd may have been trying to control you with his disappointment. Has he felt rejected and hurt in the past when you didn?t do what he wanted??

?Yes, he does this sometimes. I hate it when he feels like that. Now I can see that he is trying to control me with his hurt, and I?m trying to control him by giving myself up. I can also see that this is not going to work well.?

Elayne decided to talk with Todd about what she had learned. Fortunately, Todd was very open to understanding his own behavior as well as Elayne?s. Elayne made the decision to risk letting go of responsibility for Todd?s feelings and take responsibility for her own feelings and needs. Elayne?s depression quickly vanished as she started to take loving care of herself.

Article Source: www.isnare.com