HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP

UNDERSTANDING HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP.

We are continuing our teaching on UNDERSTANDING HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP. In PART ONE we discussed about UNHEALTHY RELATIONSHIP and in this PART TWO we will talk about HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP. However, I have found it very important to repeat the things we said at the introduction of this teaching.

WHAT IS RELATIONSHIP?

I will define relationship as a way in which two or more people view and associate with each other. Therefore it is not just between a man and a woman or a boy and a girl. Every kind of friendship is a relationship.

The world we are living in is a very funny place, because if you try to stand just on your own, you will fall. The world we are living is a place where you cannot really do anything on your own without someone by your side to help or to pull up. This is actually how God made it to be. I always say that man is a social being. God made humans a social being that's why He did not create us or place us in a solitary place. He created us and placed us amongst other human beings.

Human relating with another human is God's idea. I can say this boldly, because after God created man and placed man in the Garden of Eden. Animals were there but man still felt lonely. God by Himself made another human to keep the human He has created out of loneliness.

But the point is that you don't have to walk into any form of relationship unadvised. Don't make any kind of friend unadvised. Someone can advise you and you can also advise yourself. But the best adviser you will ever have is you yourself. What I and every other person can possibly do is to suggest to you what to do and what not to do. It is your duty to accept or not to accept our suggestions. Put it simply, “its your call to make.”

A PLACE FOR GOD

One thing which I didn't mention while talking about unhealthy relationship is about God. Therefore I can't continue this point of healthy relationship without telling you that there is a place for God in every relationship. So if your relationship has no place for God your maker, then it is a failed and unhealthy relationship.

Any friend you have that does not bring you close to your God must be done away with. Any kind of relationship that you find yourself in that takes you very far from God must be reviewed with immediate effect.

What you must understand is that any one that takes you far from God is already far from God. Therefore you don't need such a person as a friend of any kind. Your spiritual life is more important than any other thing you will ever get or receive in this life. Moreover God is the initiator of relationship, so you have to give Him the first place in your life and relationship.

We will talk more on this when we will talk about WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR WHEN CHOOSING CLOSE FRIENDS OR GETTING INTO A RELATIONSHIP.

We have already talked about WARNING SIGNS OF UNHEALTHY RELATIONSHIP and we also talked about TIPS OF UNHEALTHY RELATIONSHIP.  Here we will be talking about

SIGNS OF A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP

·               FRIENDSHIP: Don't be surprised that I started with this. There are friends who are no more friends. You are still seeing them together because they don't know how to break up. They are tired of each other but no courage to say please go I don't want anymore. So in any healthy relationship there must be friendship. Friendship will make your partner your closest person. I mean your personal person. You will find pleasure being in his/her company. You will not see it as an obligation or compulsion.

·               TIME TOGETHER:  Just as I wrote in friendship, you have to spend enough time together discussing things that will bring positive life style to each of you. It is not to spent time together gossiping or washing other people down. You don't also spent time in sexual activity. That is for married couple. Not for people who are just dating or courting. Spend time visiting important places, reading and studying. Spend time together telling each other stories that will motivate and improve you.

·               TIME ALONE: Why are you always spending time together with your friend? Is it because you are afraid of staying alone or because you are afraid of losing your friend to another person? Some people 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. Give your friend enough room to enjoy some other activities and friends without you hovering over his/her head as a guardian angel.

·               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 each other is essential for a healthy relationship.  Always try as much as possible to be very kind top your friend.

·               CARE: Do you and your partner move well up with warmth and fullness of heart for each other and express it with care? 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 see the uniqueness of your friend? Do you enjoy sharing affection? Warmth and affection are vital for a healthy relationship. Do you have joy caring for your friend in your own little way?

See all of us have something to offer as a sign of care to our friend.  If you don't have money to call, you will have to send SMS. If you don't have enough time to share, you must show it by spending the little time you have with you friend. So nobody is without something to use as a sign of care to the friend.

·               HUMOUR: 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.

If you don't know how to make joke, you must know how to respond to jokes. If you can't tell a joke, then laugh well when your friend tells you a joke. Don't be too serious with life. Add some healthy fun into your relationship. Spice up your relationship with things children do and they are happy.

·               OPENNESS: How open are you with your friend in time of disagreement? Do you just stay there and behave that all is well? All relationships have some conflict and disagreement. 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?  How open are you in telling your friend truth? Don't forget that half truth is a lie. Healthy relationship is an open relationship were no one is afraid of saying how exactly he/she feels.

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. Practicing the Inner Bonding process is a powerful way of letting go of anger and blame and moving back in kindness.

·               RESPECT: Respect is so essential in a healthy relationship. In a healthy relationship respect should be paramount. Sometimes when love fails respect remains the only thing that keeps a relationship going. Sometimes one finds himself/herself in between two opinions because someone just came around and swept his/her feet off the ground. He/she feels to go all the way with the person; the only thing that will keep one from cheating, deceiving or lying to his/her friend is the respect he/she has for the friend not the love or understanding one has. Develop strong respect for your friend it makes a relationship healthy.

·               TRUST: Do you trust each other? Do you trust your friendship? Do you each trust that the care you have for each other 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 other will still be there? Do you each know that true friendship is about whom you are, not just what you do? This level of trust is essential for a healthy relationship. Therefore you must be able to trust your friend at all time, knowing who he/she is and what he/she most likely does. Even if people are talking some-shit about the person, you would not just conclude. You take your time to find out without joining others to run your friend down.

·               LISTENING EAR: The ear is always open in a healthy relationship. This does not mean that the person must do all that you said. The only thing is that you must listen to your friend. When you listen to your friend he/she feel accepted. In a healthy relationship the ear must be open to listen to your friend. Make your friend feel accepted and care for. Listen with an open heart not because you want to judge. Sometime don't just talk just allow your friend to do the talking you do the listening. It helps and it also heals. 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? It is when you listen that you can know when your friend is happy or joyful and partake in it. We are different people and how we respond to things differ. 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. Take care of you your friend at all times.

WHAT MAKES A RELATIONSHIP HEALTHY

1.            A PLACE FOR GOD: God's place must be intact. You don't have to lose your relationship with God. Or if you don't have a relationship with God, your friend or partner should help you to get close and closer to God. Because it is a known fact that one who is far from his/her God is one who in one way or another that does not believe in God's existence. Because the major sign of one that believes in God is one that does what God would always like.

Am not trying to create a perfect human but am trying to paint a picture of one that seeks God. So for you to have a healthy relationship of any kind, you must understand the place of God in your life. If you are not a God seeker and your friend is also not a God seeker; I don't think that, that relationship has a base or a foundation. One good sign of a healthy relationship is that God will be there at all times.

2.            INTERDEPENDENT OR MUTUAL DEPENDENT:  This means that a healthy relationship is one that each member depends on one another to survive. There must be mutual dependent. This will be with the understanding that both parties are contributors to the growth of their friendship.

We humans can't survive without out another by our side. However, this does not mean that one should just attach himself/herself to another person without thinking. This does not mean that one should lose the control of his/her mind because he/she is in a relationship. This actually means that one should have the freedom of contributing his or her own quota to the growth of their friendship.

No human is without opinion. No human is a robot and no one should be treated as one also no one should treat him/herself as a robot or one without opinion. If your relationship does not have this yet; work hard to bring it into it. But you have no business in any relationship that you are not allowed to make contributions or where your friend does not consider any of your opinion important.

Don't also take this a key to blackmail your partner into accepting all your opinions. He/she has the right reject or accepts your opinion with a good spirit and under a very good and conducive condition, not by intimidation.

3.            SEPARATE IDENTITIES: Having talked about MUTUAL DEPENDENT, you have to still remain with your identity. You don't have to change who you are and become a replica of your partner or become someone else. Everyone needs to make compromises. But that doesn't mean you should feel like you're losing out on being yourself. Before you met and started going out, you both had your own lives (families, friends, interests, hobbies, etc.) and that shouldn't change.

The only thing that you need to do is for you to find out your weaknesses and improve on them. Discover that part of you that is not really right and find a way of getting better on it. Discover your temperament structure. Strengthen your weakness and maximize your strength. If you were peradventure in any form of wrong relationship before you met, then work hard and get out of it. (Get my hand out on Temperament).

Neither of you should have to pretend to like something you don't, or give up seeing your friends, nor drop out of activities you love. And you also should feel free to keep developing new talents or interests, making new friends, and moving forward. You don't have to allow your friend to keep you in the confinement of his/her relationship where there will not be enough air for you to breath.

4.            MUTUAL RESPECT:  Why are in a relationship with that person? Why does he/she claim to love you? Why is he/she always coming around you? What attracted him/her to you? These questions are not often answered when we find ourselves in a relationship. But the basis of respect in a relationship is in answering these questions. It is when you know why, how, what and where it all started that you will know what if you do, you will be hurting your friend.

For example: if you have a sanguine friend who talks and shows care to everybody not minding anything at all. You might tend to think that he/she is cheating on you if it is the opposite sex relationship. But if you look well, you will discover that what brought both of together in the first place was his/her way of caring for someone. This will make you to know that what the person id doing is his/her very person. Mutual respect will give you the common understanding not to make him/her stop caring for people.

If you have a giver friend you must allow him/her to keep giving because that is who the person is. You know that humans are jealous beings. Sometime we tend to get jealous on everything and about everything. Some people don't just like seeing another person benefit whatever they are benefitting from any other person. When they see their friend laugh with another person, they become sad (that's by the way).

Does your partner listen when you say you're not comfortable doing something and then back off right away? Does your partner want you to always be at your best not to please him/her but so that other people would admire and appreciate you? Respect in a relationship means that each person values who the other is and understands and would never challenge the other person's boundaries. I will like you to know that respect is what you can only earn. You don't enforce respect, you can only earn it. Respect is a reward of respect. Meaning; that it is respect that can give birth to respect. Remember that respect doesn't force someone to be like it, respect turns someone to be like it.

5.            SUPPORT: Is your friend supportive enough? It's not just in bad times that your partner should support you. Some people we call our friend are very good when it comes to telling us don't worry it will be well someday. They like it when you cry on their shoulders. They are happy seeing themselves comforting you. Some people are great when your whole world is falling apart but can't take being there when things are going right. But anytime things are going right for you, they become skeptical.

Some are also good weather friends. They are happy with you when everything is working out fine. But when things go wrong they will not run away but they will not too close or they will almost drive you into insanity by their nagging or the kind of words that comes from their mouth. These are not good friends and they can't make you relationship them healthy.

In a healthy relationship, your significant other is there with a shoulder to cry on when you find out your family is in a bad financial state and there is chest to embrace. And someone to celebrate with you when your Dad hits the jackpot. Your friend should never be afraid of your success.

6.            TRUST:  Trust is what you must input into your relationship. Trust in a relationship makes it so healthy. You are talking with a guy/girl somewhere and your friend walks by. Does he/she completely lose his/her cool and breath fire and smoke stone or does he/she keep walking because he/she knows you would never cheat on him/her? In your friend's book of life where do you really belong? Does he/she prevent you from making other friends? If he/she does then there is no trust in your relationship. Or do you prevent him/her from making other friends? If you do then change!

It's OK to get a little jealous sometimes, jealousy is a natural emotion. But how a person reacts when feeling jealous is what matters. There's no way you can have a healthy relationship if you don't trust each other.

7.            HONESTY: How honest are you with each other? This one goes hand-in-hand with trust because it's tough to trust someone when one of you isn't being honest. A saying in Igbo Land says “ogbu mma anaghi ekwe k'ejiri mma ga ya na azu.”  Meaning “a person that cuts with cutlass does not allow anybody to go behind him with cutlass.” It is when you are honest with yourself that you can be honest with others. And if you are not honest with yourself you can't trust another person.

Have you ever caught your friend in a major lie? Like he/she told you that she had to work with her/his mother on Saturday but it turned out he/she was at the home watching movies with her other friends? The next time he/she says she has to work, you'll have a lot more trouble believing him/her and the trust will be on shaky ground.

Do all it takes for your friend to trust you by always being honest to him/her. Don't make your friend to think that you lie all the time. It is very unhealthy to ever tell your any form of lie to your friends. Don't create room for suspicion. It is not good at all.

There are two reasons why people lie (a) is because of fear (b) is because of pride. Therefore if your relationship is healthy fear& pride have nothing doing in it. Because of that there will be no need of being dishonest.

You are the person to build trust by always being honest. Life is GIGO (Garbage in garbage out). It is what we give in to life that it gives us back. It is what you give in to you relationship that it will give you back.

8.            FAIRNESS/EQUALITY:  How fair are you to your friend and partner? You need to have give-and-take in your relationship, too. You must lose some things to get some things in any relationship. There must be equal right in your relationship.

Do you take turns choosing which new places you visit to see things with your friend? As two different people, do you hang out with your partner's friends as often as you hang out with yours? Do you take time to know how his/her school work is going? Do take time to go visit his/her parents and spend time with him/her in their house?

 It's not like you have to keep a running count and make sure things are exactly even, of course. But you'll know if it isn't a pretty fair balance. Things get bad really fast when a relationship turns into a power struggle, with one person fighting to get his or her way all the time. Give your friend equal opportunity in your relationship. You must not be the one to be pleased at all time. Your partner is also a human been, he/she also needs to be pleased. Don't ever make you friend to feel less human to you.

9.            TIME TO ADAPT: Time is very important in every relationship. We all need time to grow. We all need time to change and we all need to adapt. Growth, change and adaptation are all sings of good health. I have come into believing that the only thing that changes without thinking is nothing. What I mean is that nothing will just change without taking a little bit of time.

Change is inevitable, change is constant but change is also had. For someone who has been doing a particular thing since birth to just change to suit your kind of person is not that easy. Therefore you must create enough room for your friend to be able to change to the better. Giving your partner time to grow and get better is necessary and important to a healthy relationship. It is one of the things that make relationship of any kind healthy.

Someone said, “healthy things grow, growing things change.” When you allow your friend to grow, that your friend will naturally change to the better but he/she doesn't change, grow or adapt, I will advise you to look for a way out. I am saying this because I have come to find out that adaptation is a sign of maturity.”

My friend, please never stampede anybody into being like you. Give the person time and allow such person to grow and get better.

10.          GOOD COMMUNICATION: Do you have enough time talking things over with your friend?  Do you have enough time sharing opinions on issues that concern your relationship? You've probably heard lots of stuff about how men and women don't seem to speak the same language. We all know how many different meanings the little phrase "no, nothing's wrong" can have, depending on who's saying it! But what's important is to ask if you're not sure what he or she means, and speak honestly and openly so that the mis communication is avoided in the first place.

Never keep a feeling bottled up because you're afraid it's not what your friend wants to hear or because you worry about sounding silly. Don't forget that “it is better to be a fool for five minutes than to be a fool forever.” It is better you ask something and you get corrected than to keep what you don't know or what you are not sure of bottled up inside of you. That might ruin you and your partner in future. Make mistake and get laughed at and after learn your lesson than to stay with your dignity without anything to show for it.

And if you need some time to think something through before you're ready to talk about it, the right person will give you some space to do that, so that after you can ask your question. Be open to your friend in all things. Don't wait till he/she discovers things by himself/herself and then ask you about it. Communication is very important; don't ever stop communicating.

GET TO WORK

All of these things take work. Each relationship is most likely a combination of both healthy and unhealthy characteristics. Relationships need to be maintained and healthy relationships take lots of work. Everything written here is applicable in any kind of relationship. This applies to all relationships; work relationships, friendships, family, and romantic relationships. Good things take time to work out. It is not like the things you watch in your movies or what you see in books or novels.

You are the only person that can make your relationship work. And for you to do that you must get to work. You must work out your relationship the way you want it to be. Don't ever try to make your relationship be like someone else's relationship. You can have a role model but don't forget that every individual is unique in his/her own way. No two persons are the same. Though they might have been given birth to by the same parents. Don't compare yourself with any other person. Don't also compare your friend or partner with any other person. It is hurting to do so. 

As our temperament, character and personality differs so every other thing in our lives differs. Someone says “rice is not produced in the bag.” There are many processes that made rice look so wonderful. Work out your partner and make him/her your dream friend. Every beautiful thing you have ever seen or come across took effort.

Good friendship is all about sacrifice. You must make the right sacrifice for you to have the right result. A healthy relationship should bring more happiness than stress into your life because every relationship will have stress at times. But the thing is that happiness should be visible than stress. I will say it again “no relationship is 100% free of ups and downs.” So don't be deceived.

TIME TO SEEK HELP.

If a partner ever tries to harm you physically or force you to do something sexually that should be a clear sign for you that it is an unhealthy relationship. In that situation, you should consider getting help, or ending the relationship. Even if you believe the person loves you it does not make up for the harm they are putting you through. If someone will take because of love and blind your eyes or make you lose your sanity that love do4es not count at all. You can take a walk; if you don't know how to do that seek external help.

Other circumstances include:

·               When you are unhappy in a relationship, but cannot decide if you should accept it, try to improve the relationship, or end the relationship.

·               When you have decided to leave a relationship, but find yourself still in the relationship.

·               When you think you are staying in the relationship for the wrong reasons, such as fear of being alone, to boost your self-esteem, so that you will be counted as a big boy/girl or guilt.

·               If you have a history of staying in unhealthy relationships.

Having a counselor or mental health provider to talk to can help you work out challenges in your relationships and find a solution that is healthy for both partners.

Look for a counselor, mentor or spiritual director to help you through when things are no more going the right way.

GET UP!

MOVE UP! 

REMAIN UP!