Tips For Fostering Healthy Relationships With Friends, Family, & Romantic Partners

Building and fostering healthy relationships with those around you is important to establishing a well-balanced life. Personal relationships, whether professional, friendly, or romantic, provide individuals with a support system.

Failure to nurture these relationships can lead to an incredibly sad and unfulfilling life, but here are some tips to ensure this never happens. 

Boundaries Are Important To Foster HEalthy Relationships

Remember that everyone is different! This means that every person you encounter is raised differently, so they have different morals, values, and lifestyles.

You and someone else may seriously disagree at times, but if you all have set boundaries with each other, then unnecessary conflict and hostility can be avoided.

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Setting boundaries in relationships defines what type of behavior and communication is acceptable for each person. However, we must understand that no one will be able to control the actions of another person.

Boundaries should determine your behavior and not the other person’s. For example, if you are uncomfortable with a partner or friend raising their voice, then you can set a boundary by stating,  

• “I understand you feel passionate about this, but I am uncomfortable with you raising your voice or using that tone. We can revisit this conversation later with effective communication for both of us.”  
• “I can text you while at work, but texting consistently throughout my workday is distracting and overwhelming.” 

By making this statement or similar, you have communicated that you acknowledge and respect this person’s emotions but will not compromise your own.

Similarly, if you are experiencing problems with a boss, manager, or coworker, the following statements will set a clear standard about how you expect to be treated: 

• “I will not donate my personal time to this company without proper compensation.” 
• “I am fully occupied with the previously assigned task, and I am unable to complete any additional ones. Would you like me to prioritize one over the other?” 
• “We have already arranged and agreed to my start time for [Tomorrow]. With short notice, I am unable to make changes to my schedule, but we can discuss future changes.” 

Empathy 

It is important to understand that no one is perfect, not even you. Even with proper communication and boundaries, people are bound to make mistakes. Empathy encourages building and fostering healthy relationships, making them last longer.

Practice empathy regularly in all your relationships. Empathy is understanding and relating to other people’s emotions and experiences, which should be reflected in actions. 

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Fight Fair In Fostering Healthy Relationships

Conflict is not always avoidable. In fact, conflict can even bring some relationships closer by working through it, but it is important to learn how to fight fairly.

Experts instruct couples on how to fight fairly by telling them to avoid four things, but these principles can be applied to any type of relationship. These are:

• Toxic criticism: refers to generalizations using phrases like “you always” or “you never”. Doing this sets the receiver up to take offense to the comment made because generalizations like this are seldom true. Also, avoid criticizing people in your life if you are in the heat of the moment and when you are already discussing a different topic. 
• Defensiveness is when someone makes excuses for their actions and takes no accountability. It is easy to become defensive when someone communicates an issue, so keep an open mind. When handling conflict in your day-to-day life, it is important to remember that you are not perfect and could (should) apologize for something or some part. Do not pass all the blame on someone else. 
• Contempt: showing disgust or being scornful towards someone. This may show up as purposely making mean comments, rolling our eyes, or being sarcastic in inappropriate conversations. Showing contempt to individuals in your life will ruin health and trust in the relationship.
• Stonewalling: is when someone shuts down in communication and listening. During the conflict, this would look like turning away, rolling eyes, or even hanging up the phone before the end of the conversation. Stonewalling is not always this simple or obvious. Some individuals will say or do certain things that can go undetected, but this still ends the conversation. Avoid stonewalling individuals in conversations, especially difficult ones, as it gives the impression that you do not care to communicate, listen to them, or find a solution.