If These 5 Questions Are Part Of Your Everyday Conversation, You're In A Remarkably Healthy Relationship
All systems are go, this relationship will keep moving forward.
stockfour | Canva How are you right now? Are you unsure of yourself, or do you already know you're amazing? Do you wonder if a relationship can last a lifetime? Did you finally find the person you think is your forever person, but you're not 100% sure because you've never been in this place before?
A forever relationship can look remarkably healthy when we ask ourselves a few critical questions about the general feel of daily interactions. Sometimes, we need to see if anything is missing in a relationship to live happily ever after. Other times, everything we need to thrive in a relationship is already there.
If these five questions are part of your everyday conversation, you're in a remarkably healthy conversation:
1. 'Can we talk openly?'
Andrii Nekrasov via Shutterstock
Can you tell your partner when you don’t like something that he does? Or that seeing his mother every Sunday is more than you would like?
Or that you don’t like extra sausage on your pizza? Or that thing he likes to do in bed is just a little bit much for you?
I have a client who likes it when her partner reaches out every morning to say "good morning." It’s very, very important to her. Has she told him this? No. Does he not do it every day? Yes. And, as a result, she's always upset with him.
Good communication also has a flip side — someone must receive what's being asked of them with an open heart.
I'm not saying to just do whatever your partner wants, but I'm saying to be willing to listen to them, acknowledge what they're feeling, and discuss an outcome.
Without honest communication, without sharing and listening, a relationship just cannot be healthy. Truth is the basis of any strong relationship that will last, and if you can’t tell your partner what you need or be receptive to what he does, then your relationship is doomed.
2. 'Are our connections outside of the relationship healthy?'
bbernard via Shutterstock
For many couples, there are issues from the beginning when it comes to their relationships with their significant other's family and friends due to incompatibility.
In my last relationship, his friends and I just didn’t mesh. They weren't bad people; I just didn’t like the way they did things, and they weren’t people I would ever have chosen to be my friends.
But, instead of telling my boyfriend this was an issue, I ignored it, hoping things would change as time went on, or he wouldn’t want to hang out with them anymore, and we would gravitate toward my friends instead.
Unfortunately, as time went on, nothing changed. His friends and my mutual dislike eroded our relationship. Ultimately, we went our separate ways because we would never be able to agree on what to do about it.
So, check in to see if you're both on board with liking each other’s friends. You must do it. If you don’t, see if there are ways you can work together to improve those relationships so they don’t tear you and your loved one apart.
3. 'Are we mutually respectful?'
Prostock-studio via Shutterstock
How can you love and like someone but not have respect for them? It has happened to me before. I once loved a man very much and liked who he was when we were together, but when we were out in the world, I was mortified by the way he acted. He was truly a bozo, loud and obnoxious — and I could see him alienating people.
As time went on, this made me lose respect for him. And with a lack of respect comes contempt, and there's nothing worse for a relationship than contempt, as explained by research from renowned American psychologist John Gottman.
When one person in a relationship goes from respect to contempt, two things happen: The person who feels the contempt starts to look down on their partner, and the person who's on the receiving end of the contempt starts to feel bad about themselves.
Both things cause a relationship to die. It's only with the presence of mutual respect that a relationship can flourish and last a lifetime.
4. 'Do we enjoy time together?'
PeopleImages.com - Yuri A via Shutterstock
This is a big one. Do you and your partner make an effort to spend time together? Or do you make excuses not to have to do so?
A client of mine would come up with every excuse in the world to not spend time with her husband. Once a week and on some weekends, she left her husband at home with the kids and went out and did other things.
She tried to come home after he went to bed so she didn’t have to deal with him. She was happier being away from him than with him.
Guess what happened? She and her husband became profoundly disconnected, and he started spending more time with a female co-worker who wanted to spend time with him. It didn’t end well, as you can imagine.
If you don’t want to spend time with your partner, then your relationship is not healthy. Talk to them and try to figure out what you can do to get more connected. A 2021 study showed "couples who spend a larger proportion of their time together talking reported greater satisfaction, perceived more positive qualities in their relationships, and experienced greater closeness."
5. 'Do we feel good about ourselves?'
fizkes via Shutterstock
If you feel good about who you are in the world, if you don’t feel like you need someone to "complete you," and if you know you will be just fine alone, then you're in a place to have a healthy relationship.
While we don't need someone to complete us to feel happy in a relationship, if you feel good about yourself in one, then your relationship is healthy. A 2024 study explored how self-esteem is a function of relationship quality, dependent on trust.
I have a client who believes she's in a healthy relationship with her boyfriend. After all, she's always there for him, cooks, cleans, and has given up her time with friends to spend with him. And while she says she's OK with it, truly, when she took a good look at herself, she wasn’t.
She was twisting herself into a pretzel, trying to be who he wanted her to be, not who she was. And that was making her unhappy. Knowing if you are in a relationship that will last a lifetime is an important part of moving forward together.
It might be challenging, but asking yourself the hard questions about your relationship, whether there's honesty, openness, and opportunities for growth, is a key part of knowing if your relationship has a future or if you should walk away.
Keep this checklist close and review it regularly. If you see anything amiss, make an effort to fix it as soon as possible. Relationships can be irreparably damaged if they aren’t managed with care.
Mitzi Bockmann is an NYC-based Certified Life Coach and mental health advocate who works exclusively with women to help them be all they want to be. Mitzi's bylines have appeared in The Good Men Project, MSN, PopSugar, Prevention, Huffington Post, and Psych Central, among many others.
