{"id":61022,"date":"2020-04-01T11:58:41","date_gmt":"2020-04-01T11:58:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marriage.com\/advice\/relationship\/maintaining-a-healthy-relationship\/"},"modified":"2023-02-18T08:39:20","modified_gmt":"2023-02-18T08:39:20","slug":"maintaining-a-healthy-relationship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marriage.com\/advice\/relationship\/maintaining-a-healthy-relationship\/","title":{"rendered":"How Maintaining a Healthy Relationship Can Lead to a Healthier Life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-16386 size-full\" title=\"How Maintaining a Healthy Relationship Can Lead to a Healthier Life\" src=\"https:\/\/image.marriage.com\/advice\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/how-maintaining-a-healthy-relationship-can-lead-to-a-healthier-life-1610002686.jpg\" alt=\"Man Kissing A Beautiful Woman With Wonderful Nature\" width=\"804\" height=\"350\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We can all feel it when we&rsquo;re in a healthy relationship, but we&rsquo;re usually unable to pinpoint what it is exactly that makes us feel that way.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What is behind that strong sense of connection with our partner? Trust? Respect? Intimacy? There&rsquo;s so much more. The reason why we feel that way is that a healthy relationship leads to a significantly healthier life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But developing healthy relationships is something that needs to be maintained. Keeping it strong and stable requires a fair amount of work.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Healthy relationships are not only vital to our <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.marriage.com\/advice\/mental-health\/\"><b>emotional and mental wellbeing<\/b><\/a><b> but are at the core of our survival.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Our urge to connect with others is a significant part of what makes us the way we are.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Numerous research on biological processes have discovered a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.health.harvard.edu\/staying-healthy\/the-health-benefits-of-strong-relationships\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">strong link between our health and the relationships<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> we keep, but we&rsquo;re about to dive deeper and beyond the research results.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So if you have been wondering what is the importance of healthy relationships and how to have a healthy relationship?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We&rsquo;re about to provide some clarity on why <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.marriage.com\/advice\/relationship\/9-tips-to-building-a-stable-relationship\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">building healthy relationships<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> feels like it does and how to maintain it that way.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Also watch:<\/b><br><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kCQIDvEnrTg\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Your-own-personal-utopia\"><\/span>Your own personal utopia<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-16389 size-full\" title=\"Your own personal utopia\" src=\"https:\/\/image.marriage.com\/advice\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/your-own-personal-utopia-1610002686.jpg\" alt=\"Young Couple In Love Outdoor\" width=\"804\" height=\"350\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As human beings, we&rsquo;re constantly in search of our &ldquo;place in the sun,&rdquo; a place we can call our own, a place that will provide us with a true sense of purpose.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That elusive place, often marked by the term &ldquo;utopia&rdquo;, has also been described many times as non-existent or imagined.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nevertheless, utopias do exist, but not as geographical locations. Rather, they&rsquo;re discovered in the beauty of another human being, a soulmate.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>When we feel truly needed, we immediately become a part of something bigger. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If there is a significant someone who can be happier, trying to improve the world in some way becomes more than worthy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This sense of purpose is the key thing that keeps us going in life, moving forward. All the little quirks of our partner(s) enrich our worlds, and these become the things that endear the most.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Of course, the physical plane is equally important as the emotional one. Numerous taboos have made our bodies into locked fortresses, turning our sex lives into guarded routines.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But today we&rsquo;re past that, we&rsquo;ve become comfortable with new approaches and physical aids that can stimulate all our erogenous zones.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Behind sexual experiments involving anal orgasms or S&amp;M lies an absolute trust in our partners &ndash; the trust which can turn our bodies into temples as places of true worship.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If we&rsquo;re ready to explore them with love and affection, each of them can become our own personal utopia &ndash; a place where we truly belong and have a unique purpose to fulfill.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So what makes a healthy relationship is when you get that overwhelming feeling that you have attained utopia.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Breaking-the-inner-wall\"><\/span>Breaking the inner wall<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-16390 size-full\" title=\"Breaking the inner wall\" src=\"https:\/\/image.marriage.com\/advice\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/breaking-the-inner-wall-1610002686.jpg\" alt=\"Healthy Woman Celebrating During A Beautiful Sunset\" width=\"804\" height=\"350\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pink Floyd&rsquo;s legendary album &ldquo;The Wall, &ldquo;especially the song &ldquo;Mother,&rdquo; brilliantly shows us how we&rsquo;re all building the inner walls from our early childhood.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Firstly, we are often overprotected by our parents; then we continue raising these walls higher still on our own, not aware that we&rsquo;re crushing our self-esteem and self-respect at the same time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Respect becomes a form of hierarchy, and we start to hurt inside, detached from our true selves.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/healthcare.utah.edu\/healthfeed\/2023\/02\/seven-reasons-why-loving-relationships-are-good-you\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">benefits of a healthy relationship<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is that it is able to reestablish respect in its true form &ndash; as an awareness of another human being, and the appreciation of everything that makes an individual unique.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Mutual respect in a relationship leads to mutual understanding,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> eliminating the need to raise walls inside in order to conceal our weak spots, fears, or things we&rsquo;re ashamed of.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Stress is one of the main building blocks of these inner walls, and the emotional and social support provided by partners is like taking a sledgehammer to it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It has been proven that a healthy relationship is tied to a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.marriage.com\/advice\/emotional-intimacy\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">reduction of the stress<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> hormone cortisol, especially in the case of cohabitation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Of course, nurturing honesty and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au\/health\/healthyliving\/relationships-and-communication\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">open communication<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is crucial for this process. Our inner walls will break only if we&rsquo;re able to speak about what we feel and think with our partners in a transparent way.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.marriage.com\/advice\/relationship\/how-to-respect-your-husband\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mutual respect<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and understanding come from honesty without the fear of being criticized. Secrets and lies have no place in a healthy relationship.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Knowing-who-you-are-not\"><\/span>Knowing who you are not<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Breaking the inner wall doesn&rsquo;t mean we don&rsquo;t need to have boundaries &ndash; they&rsquo;re an equally important part of our health and wellbeing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In order to reconnect with our true selves, we need to be aware of what we are not.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A great portion of social interactions today doesn&rsquo;t allow us to let others know what makes us comfortable and what doesn&rsquo;t, and we spend so much time pretending we&rsquo;re something we&rsquo;re not.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Subject to the expectations of others, we wear masks before so many people &ndash; our employers, parents, even our friends.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But <\/span><b>by maintaining healthy relationships, we&rsquo;re able to <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.marriage.com\/advice\/counseling\/setting-healthy-boundaries-in-a-relationship\/\"><b>set our boundaries and maintain them<\/b><\/a><b>.<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They may seem like a set of limits or rules in a relationship, but the truth is that a loving partner will always want to know how we want to be treated.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That&rsquo;s why it is crucial to let your partner know when you need some space and vice versa, as well to respect each other&rsquo;s needs, wants, ideas, and opinions, being able to &ldquo;agree to disagree.&rdquo;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We are not fully aware of our boundaries until we establish them clearly. Once we do so in a relationship, we would demand nothing less in other aspects of our life, knowing who we are and who we don&rsquo;t want to be.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"The-other-half\"><\/span>The other half<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There&rsquo;s a good reason why imaginary friends are frequent occurrences in childhood. Blood relations are one thing, but we&rsquo;re in need of someone who is able to understand us on a deeper level, as the second half of one beating heart.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is why partners are referred to as &ldquo;the other half&rdquo; &ndash; studies have even shown that a loving partner can even help us recover after heart surgery.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As in the case of an imaginary friend, it&rsquo;s not magic. It is about having someone by our side who is able to take our mind off the pain, able to provide a true form of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marriage.com\/advice\/emotional-intimacy\/ways-to-improve-emotional-support-in-your-relationship\/\">emotional support<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Partners in healthy relationships feel like the lost parts of themselves, finally reunited.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> This is why in such relationships, we&rsquo;re encouraged to make changes toward healthier lifestyles &ndash; to exercise, quit smoking, eat healthily, etc.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If footsteps toward healthier behaviors are made by our soulmates, we&rsquo;re more likely to follow them towards the reunion we&rsquo;ve been waiting for our whole lives. So healthy relationships are not just about realizing who we are, but also who we can become.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As you can see, a healthy relationship is like our own place in the world. A place without inner walls of fears and anxiety, but with established boundaries.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A place with a clear sense of purpose where we can become the best version of ourselves. This is what true health and wellbeing are all about.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And all it takes to maintain such a sanctuary is to take a risk and share what&rsquo;s going on in our heads and hearts with our significant others.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":""},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We can all feel it when we&rsquo;re in a healthy relationship, but we&rsquo;re usually unable to pinpoint what it is exactly that makes us feel that way. What is behind that strong sense of connection with our partner? Trust? Respect? Intimacy? There&rsquo;s so much more. The reason why we feel that way is that a healthy relationship leads to a significantly healthier life. But developing healthy relationships is something that needs to be maintained. Keeping it strong and stable requires a fair amount of work. Healthy relationships are not only vital to our emotional and mental wellbeing but are at <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":954,"featured_media":61023,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2568],"class_list":["post-61022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-love","tag-make-love-last","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marriage.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marriage.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marriage.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marriage.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/954"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marriage.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61022"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.marriage.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63246,"href":"https:\/\/www.marriage.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61022\/revisions\/63246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marriage.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marriage.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marriage.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marriage.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}