How to Build a Healthy Relationship
Learning how to build a healthy relationship is something we should all learn in school. Yet one of the most important areas of our lives is neglected. This is reflected by all of the toxic relationships and bad examples we see in society.
Knowing how to build a healthy relationship could come naturally to you if you saw your parents have a healthy relationship.
But most kids don’t see close examples of healthy relationships for adults and therefore are left in confusion. It’s what has caused a ton of turmoil in the lives of men and women around the world.
What is a healthy relationship?
A healthy relationship for adults is when both people have an engagement that benefits their lives in a positive way. No relationship is perfect, but healthy relationships don’t have constant fights, unresolved issues, obsession from one end or the other.
A lot of men who read RD want a woman to be obsessed with them. I get it, if you don’t have a lot of women who’ve expressed interest over the years then this could lead to a desire to have women be totally enamored with you.
While this is the expression for man’s desire to have power, even if you get a woman obsessed with you, you’ll soon resent her. These types of relationships aren’t healthy for the woman and eventually the woman will lose her obsession to you anyways.
Can you have your woman like you a little more than you like her? Yes, and this is the ideal scenario for a healthy relationship for adults. In this case you can still have love and respect for her, and she can have love and respect for you.
Both people benefit
A healthy relationship in terms of a romantic relationships is one where there is mutual respect and both people get what they want. For official boyfriend / girlfriend or husband / wife relationships, this is not just sex life but also having clear goals for the future and building towards a common vision with each of you playing your part.
But even for women you see or date more causally, you can still have healthy relationships. This is generally a balance of you getting sex and her getting attention. When there is balance between these two, you have a solid relationship. When you get all sex and give her no attention, she’l be obsessed with you, but she won’t last very long in your life. When she gets all attention and you get no sex, then you’ll be the obsessed one and will be unhappy.
It’s not about getting what you want and saying “screw the other person”.
Balance
Learning how to build healthy relationships for adults is about finding a balance. You can call it a balance between being alpha energy and a bit of beta security. If you don’t want to keep women in your life you can just pump and dump, but I don’t recommend that. Do what you want, no judgment from me. However, I recommend you guys learn how to build healthy relationships with women so you can have a good time but also not have to constantly chase new girls.
Regardless if you want a wife, girlfriend, or just women consistently in your life, building healthy relationships is key for keeping women in your life in a sustainable way.
Building Healthy Relationships
Enough with the intro. If you’re reading this you already want to have healthy relationships. So how do you determine how to build a healthy relationship with a girlfriend or just women in general? Instead of just having some strong relationship tips you can follow these 3 principles to have higher quality relationships with women:
- High Standards
- Set terms for a relationship
- Accountability and Order
1. High Standards
Having high standards is important, yet most men only make beauty their standard. This leads to them being unhappy with girls who aren’t beautiful, who may have good or bad character as is. And then the guys that can get a beautiful girl once in a while mistake her beauty for being the main thing he enjoys.
If you want to learn how to build a healthy relationship with a girl, first raise your standards. Make her physical looks just a perquisite. Don’t date girls you aren’t attracted to. When her beauty isn’t everything and instead just the pre-rec, then you can date attractive women without pedestalizing them.
You only date attractive women. This causes you to immediately look for other qualities in a woman once you start to take her a little more seriously. Is she on time or always late? Does she do little things to go out of her way to try and make you happy? Is she trying to add value to your life? Are there thing she enjoys or is good at that she would be happy to contribute to the relationship?
When you ask yourself these questions, just internally in your own head, you start to attract women of a higher quality.
2. Set terms for a relationship
When you’re in a relationship it’s up to you to set the terms.
Official relationships
This applies mainly to official relationships where you both agree upon being boyfriend / girlfriend or husband / wife. You don’t have to have a list of 10 things that are your terms, but instead a few general terms.
Things like
- you’re focused on your business and that comes first
- value mutual respect
- want to have kids one day or not
- you plan on staying in a city or not
- and understand boundaries on personal items, etc.
Some of this may seem like a lot for anew relationship, but when you set your terms from the beginning, this makes the relationship way easier down the road. It also makes it much easier for you to lead and stick to your terms later.
Keeping it Real
Even if you’re not in an official relationship, setting terms is still important in healthy relationships for adults. For example, if you’ve been seeing a girl for a few weeks and she’s pushing for girlfriend status but you don’t want that, it’s important to set your terms.
- “I appreciate having you in my life, but I’m not looking to be in an official relationship, if you don’t like that I understand and wish you the best. But if you want to keep seeing each other it’d be fun to keep this going.”
Letting her know how it is
Or if you do want a relationship but are unsure
- “I appreciate having you in my life, and I’m not opposed to official relationships. However the biggest thing for me right now is my business, so I’d want you to think about if you’re cool with being #2 to that. This has been an issue in the past and I just want to be upfront.”
In this way you’re being completely honest, and yet making her work for the relationship. And if things workout and she becomes your girlfriend, while she might test to get more of your time, at the end of the day she’ll know that your business comes first.
Learning how to build a healthy relationship requires that you’re upfront with the women in your life. Keeping up with lies is impossible and stressful. Be straight up, they’ll not only appreciate you, but work harder to actually be a part of your life.
3. Accountability and Order
The last major key, and one of the healthy relationship tips for couples I often give guys, is accountability.
As the man, it’s your job to keep accountability and order. Which means keeping her accountable as well as yourself.
This doesn’t mean you need to be cruel, mean, or yell at your woman. But it means you need to stick by the terms you set. And it also means that you need to keep each other accountable. When issues come up, it’s up to you to address them and solve them. If your girlfriend, wife, or girl whose in your life is going against one of your terms, or is consistently disrespectful, you need to tell her.
This is where most guys mess up
Many guys think they figure out how to build a healthy relationship because they find a decent girl. But then they fail to keep her accountable. They get too emotional, start to fail shit tests, and then the girl takes the power.
Then she becomes un-attracted and dumps him. Because they failed to keep her accountable like he did in the beginning. Sometimes you can keep her accountable with a joke if it’s a small thing, and sometimes you need to sit her down and directly address something. And sometimes you make mistakes and need to adjust.
However, you want to know how to build a healthy relationship with a woman, then you need to keep order. This way you’ll maintain healthy interactions and respect.
Healthy relationships make your life better
Building healthy relationships is a key skill for any man who wants to maintain relationships with women in his life. Whether you want a girlfriend, wife, or just have girls in your life, knowing how to build a healthy relationship is your responsibility if you want to get the most out of your interactions with women.