Last update: 25 November 2017
There are seven pillars that support healthy love: respect, trust, honesty, support, fairness, identity of the individual and good communication. For a couple to build healthy love, there must be reciprocity, giving and receiving love to the same extent, always taking care of each other.
Authors such as Walter Riso or Jorge Bucay explain the importance of being grateful to a couple for demonstrations of attention and affection., never taking them for granted and always recognizing them. This will help build, live and enjoy a wholesome and complete love.
"A definition of love: the joy that the other exists".
-Walter Rice-
Sometimes finding the right person, who in turn thinks we are too, can seem like a mission impossible. When it happens, therefore, we feel a strong emotion, so much so that the small inconveniences of life seem to have less importance. It is as if they become tiny in the face of such luck.
In the early stages of a relationship it is common to see everything pink. Which in itself is as fantastic as it is dangerous, as it can go so far as to blind us and prevent us from seeing that the relationship is not as healthy as it should be. It is important for a love to be healthy from the start.
"You don't need to die for each other, but to live to be well together"
-Jorge Bucay-
How to build healthy love
Take responsibility
There are responsibilities in all couples. If something goes wrong between two people, the problem belongs to both of them and they both have part of the solution in their hands. Not necessarily in equal proportions, of course.
Consequently, one should not feel completely responsible for everything or admit no mistakes. Rather, the question is to find a balance in the compromises that each one makes and can make. An intelligent couple knows how to divide up the responsibilities so that each one's strengths shine through.
Communication plays a fundamental role in sharing responsibilities, particularly when it comes to finding compromises or reaching agreements. Also, when it comes to accountability, another important point is realistically assessing what we can and cannot do. Maybe we can't buy a very expensive gift, but maybe we can do it with our own hands. We may not be able to visit our partner at work, but we can accompany him.
We are talking about a constant growth process, with various sub-processes. A process that will take place in the couple if love is healthy, but also individually in the people who make up the couple itself.
"I have always thought that the best response to an" I love you "is" and I feel very loved by you ".
-Jorge Bucay-
Established habits
We all have ideas - before, during and after the start of any relationship - about what a couple should be like. As well as we have about what our friends and family should be like. Furthermore, most of us when he has a partner, he tends to make comparisons with his "ideal sweetheart", trying to make him resemble this ideal as much as possible.
It is in this distance, the one between the ideal and the real couple, that generally we find the attitudes, thoughts and behaviors of the other person that annoy us. Well, for the couple to work, we will necessarily have to accept a good part of the contents of the package. In some respects we may reach a compromise, but in others we will not be able to help but accept the situation or change partners.
If healthy love is to continue to grow, it is vital that the two people adjust their tolerance level to the reality they share. On the other hand, too proposing changes in an intelligent way, without falling into the temptation to manipulate the other, will contribute to the growth of the couple.
When we have to deal with established habits, such as not removing the plate from the table after eating or other household chores, we can talk to our partner and ask him to change this habit or we can decide not to do anything and accept the situation. If, on the other hand, it is a characteristic of his character, for example that he is more shy than us, we must accept it. What we must never accept, however, are behaviors that attack our integrity, such as physical violence and insults, just as we would in any other type of relationship.
Healthy love is a matter of quality rather than quantity. To love a lot does not mean to love well. Loving well involves respect, trust, honesty, mutual support, living a relationship of balance between giving and receiving, maintaining separate identities and good communication.
The 7 pillars on which to build healthy love
“Choose a love that gives you answers and not problems.
Safety and not fear.
Trust and no doubts ".
-Paulo Coelho-
In summary, in a healthy couple relationship they give and receive each other:
1. Respect
Respect is the ability to see and accept the person as he is, to be aware of his uniqueness. It is wanting to watch her as she evolves following his personal desires and her path, not fitting in with our plans.
2. Trust
Trust in a couple consists in not having to control everything the other says or does, feel that we can trust him / her to share both good and bad moments.
3. Honesty
It is important to be honest with ourselves and with your partner about our feelings. There can be no emotional exchange if there is no self-criticism. It is about be sure that our preferences, our desires, our dreams, our aspirations and our requests are reasonable and do not violate the rights of the partner.
4. Support
It is important to demonstrate mutual support. We must be able to differentiate our needs from those of the other and allow them to grow on a personal and professional level.
"True love is nothing more than the inevitable desire to help the other to be what they are".
-Jorge Bucay-
5. Fairness (balance between giving and receiving)
Both members of the couple have the responsibility for the relationship and must take care of it. Reciprocity is the basis of a just love, of a healthy love. When we give love, we expect love, because emotional relationships are nourished by the exchange. It is not a question of avarice, but of mutual altruism: together we are more.
“This thing that the love of a couple expects nothing in return is an invention of the submissives: if you give, you want to receive. It is normality, reciprocity ”.
-Walter Rice-
6. Identity of the individual
It is important to keep separate identities within the couple, so that each can keep their personality and everything that makes them what they are. Need exercise a responsible individualism, in which everyone keeps self-love alive in the relationship he or she has chosen, caring for your partner, but also for your own person. Being complete beings.
“To fall in love is to love the commonalities, to love is to fall in love with the differences”.
-Jorge Bucay-
7. Good communication
Communication is the key to any relationship. In a couple relationship, in which we aspire to a healthy love, it is necessary to maintain good communication at all times that has to do with dialogue, but also with negotiation or gratitude.
A couple is made up of two people who have to make joint decisions and who will not always share the same point of view. In order to reach an agreement, it is necessary to dialogue with tranquility and trust.
Perhaps these pillars will not guarantee a couple's future, but they will certainly ensure that as long as this love exists it is healthy, worthy, fun, and a source of growth and inspiration for the people who share it. What can be better than taking care of it?
