Dating relationships, whether good or bad, can teach a person a lot about him or herself. New relationships can fill a person with confidence, inspiration, hope and love. However, relationships that turn negative can lead to uncertainty, shame and depression.

Therefore, it’s important to understand what constitutes healthy relationships and unhealthy relationships. It can be difficult to objectively answer the question about what makes healthy relationships.

love relationships
Communicating properly within love relationships is often easier in theory than in practice, yet each partner should still strive for maintaining positive interaction. For instance, accusing someone with “you never listen to me,” or “you always forget to call me,” will automatically put the other person in a defensive position.

Instead, a positive partner will simply state how he or she feels. “Sometimes I feel that you don’t listen to me because…” would be a more appropriate way of communicating; or one could say, “I felt really disappointed when you didn’t call today and wondered why you didn’t do what you promised.”

Tone is also important. Couples should avoid sarcastic remarks, putting the other person down, blaming, name-calling, yelling or interrupting. Instead, a “How can we both work to fix this” approach should be taken to create more positive and effective interpersonal relationships.

sexual relationships
Marriage counseling therapists use tools that are also effective for dating relationships, such as a nine-step process called “Emotional Freedom Techniques.” When a couple arrives, the first step is to lay out the problems.

Most couples will fight over laundry or paying the bills, which are surface-level issues that may happen repetitively, but it’s the goal of the therapist to uncover the real relationship issues troubling them. The next step, then, is to realize the destructive cycle and the underlying needs/wants that fuel this negative pattern.

The third step is to understand what’s fueling one’s emotions. In the fourth step, partners become less combative and realize that no one is to blame, but rather, the cycle is the common enemy they must defeat. Partners become more honest and admit their deepest fears and desires in the fifth step.

In the sixth step, the partners should acknowledge each other’s feelings. In the seventh step, couples become closer because of the newfound realizations and the eighth step involves brainstorming and problem solving. Lastly, the partners vow to stay on-track and prevent relapses.

People from broken homes can find it extremely difficult to create healthy dating relationships. Our first experience of love and relationships begins at home with our parents’ example.

Therefore, if the social relationships at home have been negative, then the child will have a skewed vision of what constitutes a “normal relationship.” Many people from broken homes find that they are always searching for what their family life has lacked.

interpersonal relationships
It is entirely possible to view an abusive upbringing as an example of what not to do. Some people in dating relationships can break out of these cycles and learn to live and love positively; although, many more people require some counseling to uncover negative behavioral patterns that have been adopted from childhood.

It’s important for the individual to do some soul-searching and remain honest about where one has been and where one is going. Spending some time alone, soul-searching and trying to think more positively is really what this woman will need to make healthy relationships a reality.

Tags: Couples, Dating Relationships, Defensive Position, Destructive Cycle, Effective Interpersonal Relationships, Emotional Freedom Techniques, Healthy Relationships, Inspiration, Interaction, Laundry, Love Relationships, Marriage Counseling, Relationship Issues, Relationships Love, Sarcastic Remarks, Sexual Relationships, Shame, Surface Level, Uncertainty, Unhealthy Relationships

Infidelity is a painful way to break a marriage. Marriage vows promised trust and love. Infidelity breaks those vows and causes hurt and pain.

To find some of the sources of that pain, here is a case study of Sue A. And Joe R. As they work through Joe’s infidelity.

They knew each other before ever starting school together. Their mothers were best friends. Joe was a year older and they began dating when Sue was a high school junior. College was not a difficult choice for Sue, she followed Joe and during her sophomore year, he proposed. They are parents of three children.

There were some money problems as the children grew up and Joe said he could work late to help bring more money home. The money problems did not seem to improve even though Joe was rarely home. When Sue brought this up, Joe became very angry and left the house. He did not answer phone calls for several days.

After a time to cool off, Joe calls Sue and apologizes. During the call, he also admits that the reason there is no extra money is that he has been involved with someone else. He suggests that he and Sue should find a counselor and try to reconcile.

The heartbreak for Sue is great and forgiveness seems far off. Her husband she has known since she was three has been her betrayer. This was something of which she would have never dreamed. He knew more about her than she felt she knew herself. The hurt was immeasurable.

We all love stories to end happily, however this one may end that way. These deep hurts do not go away overnight. Divorce often follows such mistrust.

Any time in the future, that Joe is late for dinner; those old feelings begin to surface once again. Has he found someone else? Whenever he becomes annoyed at the situation, Joe may be tempted to escape to another place without all the pressures of home.

Family and friends become aware of the circumstances. They may no longer come around as often and the family support system is broken. It is difficult to find anyone in whom to confide.

If divorce follows, children will also feel the pain. The relocation of part of the family across state lines makes parental visitation more difficult and it sometimes even stops. Children sense the tension and also feel the pain. They miss the absent parent. Contact is broken and parents also are pained.

The pain continues. Even if Sue finds someone else with whom to spend the rest of her life, Joe’s infidelity can continue to haunt the new relationship. She may fear sharing feelings since her trust was broken earlier.

Joe finds that his income, which was already being stretched thin, is now being split between his new household and that of his former family. He is paying an expensive price for his marital infidelity. He also finds that he has difficulty with trust. It is not that he cannot trust others. Joe has difficulty trusting himself.

If you are considering infidelity, please consider surviving infidelity and the pain that it may cause from cheating.

Tags: affairs, Best Friends, Betrayer, Case Study, cheating, Circumstances, Counselor, Couples, Divorce, Extra Money, Family And Friends, Forgiveness, Heartbreak, infidelity, Love Stories, marital infidelity, Marriage, marriage infidelity, Mistrust, Money Problems, Old Feelings, Phone Calls, relationship infidelity, Shame, Sophomore Year, surviving infidelity