7 Pillars On Which To Build A Healthy Love

There are seven pillars that sustain healthy love in a couple: respect, trust, honesty, support, equality, own identity and good communication. For a couple to be able to build a healthy love it is necessary that there be reciprocity, giving and receiving love in the same measure, always taking care of each other.

Authors, such as Walter Riso or Jorge Bucay, explain to us the importance of showing gratitude in a couple for the gestures of care and affection that they have towards each other. Not taking them for granted and acknowledging them will contribute to building, living and enjoying a complete and healthy love.

Sometimes it can seem like an impossible mission to find a suitable person, and that in turn she also thinks that we are. So when it happens, we feel great emotion, so that the little inconveniences in life seem to matter less. It is as if they were made tiny before such a fortune.

On the other hand, in the early stages of a relationship it is common to see the world in a rosy color. A tone as fantastic as it is dangerous, since it can blind us and prevent us from seeing that the relationship is not as healthy as it should be. In this way, it is important that a love is healthy from the beginning.

Assume responsibilities

Within every couple there are responsibilities. If something does not work between two people, it is both of them the problem and they both have a part of the solution in their hands. Without having to be in equal proportions, of course.

In this sense, it is not a question of thinking ourselves responsible for everything that happens or of not making any mistakes. Rather, the question is to find a balance in the commitments that each one makes and can fulfill. In this sense, an intelligent couple knows how to distribute these responsibilities so that each one’s strengths shine through.

To distribute these responsibilities, communication plays a fundamental role. Especially when we talk about making commitments or reaching agreements. Finally, when it comes to assuming responsibilities, another important point is to assess in a realistic way what we can and cannot do. We may not be able to buy a very expensive gift, but perhaps we can do it with our hands. We may not be able to pick up the other at work, but we can take them.

We are talking about a process, with different threads, of constant growth. A process that will occur in the couple if the love is healthy, but also individually in the people who form it.

Learned behaviors

We all have an idea – before, while and after any relationship begins – of what our partner should be like. Just as we have it of how our friends or our relatives should be. Also, most of us, when we have a partner, tend to compare her to her “ideal double” and do our best to make her fit.

In this distance, the one between the ideal and the real couple, there are usually those attitudes, thoughts or behaviors that bother us about the other. Well, for the couple to work we are going to have to accept a good part of the content of this drawer. With some elements we can reach agreements, but with others we will have to accept them or change partners.

In this sense, that the two people have their tolerance levels adjusted to the reality they share will be essential for healthy love to continue growing. On the other hand, proposing changes intelligently, without falling into the temptation to manipulate the other, will contribute to the growth of the couple in the same way.

Thus, when it comes to learned behaviors, such as not picking up the plate from the table or other domestic tasks, we can talk with our partner and ask him to change the behavior or decide not to do anything and accept the situation. On the other hand, if it is something that is part of their character, such as that our partner is more shy than us, we must accept that it is so. What we should never accept are those behaviors that attack our integrity, such as hitting and insults, just like in any other type of relationship.

Healthy love is a problem of quality rather than quantity. Loving a lot does not mean loving well. Loving well implies respect, trust, honesty, mutual support, living a balanced relationship between giving and receiving, maintaining separate identities and good communication.

7 pillars on which healthy love is built

In summary, in a healthy relationship as a couple, you give and receive each other :

1. Respect

Respect is the ability to see and accept the person as they are, to be aware of their uniqueness. It is wanting to see how it unfolds according to its own wishes and ways, and not according to our plans.

2. Trust

Confidence in a partner consists of not having to check everything the other says or does, feeling that we can trust the other to share both the good and the bad moments.

3. Honesty

It is important to be honest with ourselves about our feelings and to be honest with one another. There cannot be an affective exchange if there is no self-criticism. It is about being sure that our preferences, desires, dreams, wishes and demands are reasonable and do not violate the rights of the couple.

4. Support

It is important to show  mutual support.  Being able to differentiate our needs from the needs of the other and allow them to grow personally and professionally.

5. Equality (balance between giving and receiving)

Both members of the couple have responsibility for the relationship and must take care of it. Reciprocity is the basis of a just love, of healthy love. When we give love, we expect love, because the affective relationships of a couple are fed by exchange. It is not about greed, but about reciprocal altruism: together we are more.

6. Own identity

It is important to maintain separate identities within the couple, where each member can maintain their own identity, their personality and everything that makes them who they are. Practicing a responsible individualism, where each one keeps his own love alive in the relationship he has chosen ; worrying about the partner, but also about our person. We are complete beings.

7. Good communication

Communication is key in any relationship. In a couple relationship, in which we aspire to achieve a healthy love, it is essential to maintain good communication at all times in which the story fits, but also negotiation or gratitude.

A couple is made up of two people who must make joint decisions and who will not always share the same point of view. In order to reach agreements, it is necessary to dialogue with confidence and tranquility.

These seven pillars may not ensure the future of a couple, but they will create the certainty that, as long as love exists, it will be healthy, dignified, fun and a source of growth and inspiration for the people who share it. What better than to take care of them?